Yarramalong Spring Festival

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Scarecrow Competition

The Yarramalong Valley Spring Festival’s Scarecrow Competition will run from Saturday 29th August to Sunday 13th September 2020.

Run annually for the last 10 years, this popular event attracts visitors from all over the Central Coast of NSW to view the quirky, humorous, topical or downright scary entries. The Alison Homestead has also entered the Scarecrow Competition again this year with our Gone Fishin’ family pictured above.

9×5 Art Competition

As part of this year’s Yarramalong Spring Festival Alison Homestead Museum is now displaying the 9×5 Art Competition entries until the end of September. This unique form of art has a long history in Australia dating back to 1889. The 3 paintings shown here are this year’s prize winners. All paintings are available for purchase.

The display will be open Sundays – Thursdays 10am-2pm. With the restrictions due to covid, anyone planning to visit please contact Alison Homestead to make a booking so that we can ensure everyone’s safety. You can message us through facebook, send an email to info@alisonhomestead.com.au or call us on (02) 4352 1886 Sundays-Thursdays 10am-2pm to make a booking.

History of Australian 9×5 Art

The history of 9×5 art is very Australian and started in August 1889 at the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition held in Swanson St Melbourne. At that exhibition there were 183 works painted mainly by the up and coming young artists of the day; Tom Roberts, Charles Conder and Arthur Streeton.

The “9 by 5” wording used in the title of the exhibition referred to the 9×5 inch size of a cedar cigar box lid, easily obtainable in those days, and used as the “canvas” for many of the works in the exhibition.

Part of the reason for such a restricted “canvas” size exhibition was to make art affordable for the general population, although today many of the works from that exhibition have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In today’s Australian art scene, many professional and amateur artists are intrigued by this 9×5 sizing and while not employing cigar box lids on which to apply their skills, they have embraced the concept by substituting plywood or masonite for their canvas.

This 1889 Exhibition, that has gone down as a “celebrated event in Australian art history” has now spawned a number of 9×5 exhibitions across Australia in the last few years.

Organised by major art galleries and local art societies, a number are billed as competitions offering cash prizes. Most of these exhibitions/ competitions offer the art work to the public at affordable prices, as with the original exhibition.

For more information about Alison Homestead visit the website https://alisonhomestead.com.au/