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Dick and Joan Green Family Award for Tasmanian History
Subcategory of Awards Australian Awards
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History

This award is bestowed by the Green Family with the University of Tasmania’s support. The prize recognises an author of a high- quality published work that significantly contributes to the knowledge and understanding of Tasmania’s history and cultural heritage, offered in honour of Dick and Joan Green – who were key drivers in the establishment of the National Trust in Tasmania and strong supporters of the arts and many community organisations. (Source : Melbourne University Press website)

Latest Winners / Recipients

Year: 2022

Indexed selectively. Also longlisted: Fires, Farms and Forests: a human history of Surrey Hills, north-west Tasmania by Robert Onfray
winner y separately published work icon The Waking Dream of Art : Patricia Giles, Painter Alison Alexander , Dynnyrne : Pillinger Press , 2019 27758502 2019 single work biography

'Patricia Giles remembers painting each of the 300 works in this book. She has regaled Alison Alexander with stories that make this a warm and engaging portrait of a leading Tasmanian artist – and a living treasure.

'Patricia Giles has had a career as an artist spanning six decades. Painting en plein air through the challenging weather of Tasmania – sometimes even tied down to avoid being blown away by the Roaring Forties – Patricia captures the light, the landscape and the ever-changing beauty of her island home. 

'If you have marvelled at the turquoise waters of Tasmania’s east coast, romped in the snow on kunanyi/ Mount Wellington, or travelled the wild interior with its rugged mountain ranges and still waters, you can see these captured in Patricia’s evocative paintings. A chapter is devoted to Patricia’s poignant watercolours of Lake Pedder, now drowned. 

'This long-overdue book, by award-winning biographer Alison Alexander, tells the story of Patricia’s drive to make her way as an artist in an era when young women were expected to take on the role of wife and mother, and put their paintbrushes aside.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Year: 2020

Indexed selectively. Also shortlisted: The Lost Boys of Mr Dickens.
winner y separately published work icon The National Picture : The Art of Tasmania's Black War Tim Bonyhady , Greg Lehman , Canberra : National Gallery of Australia , 2018 14745206 2018 multi chapter work criticism art work

'`Benjamin Duterrau and his National picture project are at the core of this publication because he was the colonial artist most interested in Tasmania's Aboriginal people, and the only artist who chose to depict, on a substantial scale, their conciliation or pacification by George Augustus Robinson', writes Tim Bonyhady and Greg Lehman in their introduction to The National Picture: The Art of Tasmania's Black War.

'The fresh research presented by Bonyhady and Lehman in this insightful new book from the National Gallery of Australia will no doubt tantalise art lovers and historians alike. It will also appeal to anyone interested in Australia's colonial past and in the ongoing interrogation of the historical record by Aboriginal artists and activists. Bonyhady and Lehman's introduction continues: `For Tasmanian Aboriginal people today, Duterrau's paintings provide a tantalising and rare visual record of the unique culture practice of their ancestors. Robinson's journals offer written descriptions of activities, such as spear-making and throwing, kangaroo hunting and ceremonial dance, accompanied by only a scattering of small, often crude sketches, which are vitally important firsthand observations'.

'This publication serves to conjure up and interrogate Tasmania's colonial past. Colonial representations of Tasmanian Aboriginal people are among the most remarkable and contentious expressions of Australian colonial art. The National Picture sheds new light on the under-examined figures in this difficult narrative: colonial artist Benjamin Duterrau, the controversial George Augustus Robinson and the Tasmanian Aboriginal people upon whose land the British settled.' (Publication summary)

Year: 2018

inaugural winner y separately published work icon Into the Heart of Tasmania : A Search for Human Antiquity Rebe Taylor , Melbourne : Melbourne University Press , 2017 10715274 2017 single work biography

'In 1908 English gentleman, Ernest Westlake, packed a tent, a bicycle and forty tins of food and sailed to Tasmania. On mountains, beaches and in sheep paddocks he collected over 13,000 Aboriginal stone tools. Westlake believed he had found the remnants of an extinct race whose culture was akin to the most ancient Stone Age Europeans. But in the remotest corners of the island Westlake encountered living Indigenous communities. Into the Heart of Tasmania tells a story of discovery and realisation. One man's ambition to rewrite the history of human culture inspires an exploration of the controversy stirred by Tasmanian Aboriginal history. It brings to life how Australian and British national identities have been fashioned by shame and triumph over the supposed destruction of an entire race. To reveal the beating heart of Aboriginal Tasmania is to be confronted with a history that has never ended.' (Publication summary)

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