The Cows Are Gone

When Max Watters (1934-2020) was drawn to the simple beauty of this setting, the cows that once grazed the grassy paddocks at the Merton dairy, near Denman in the Upper Hunter Valley, were long-gone. Max was a lifelong resident of Muswellbrook, a twenty-minute drive from Denman. He lived his entire life in a modest timber […]

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At Home on the Hunter

On an unknown day in 1976 Max Watters (1936-2020), an established Hunter Valley landscape artist, headed north from his home in Muswellbrook in search of inspiration. After taking the Glenbawn Road, east of the small town of Aberdeen, Max crossed the Hunter River (Coquun). He navigated the wind in the road that bends around undulating […]

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Moulder’s Mason Apron

simple waist apron that looks like a drawing of an envelope with circular twine attachments

This decorated apron is typical of the regalia worn world-wide by the Freemasons, and from the early eighteenth century. This era saw Freemasonry evolve from a craft-based fraternity exclusive to freemasons, to a moral-based organisation exclusive to men. Freemasonry, resembling this historic change, was transported to Australia by British-origin migrants in the late-eighteenth century. Throughout […]

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