Aust. Historical Medals

Lot 992    Session 4 (4.30pm Tuesday)    Aust. Historical Medals

Estimate $2,500
Bid at live.noble.com.au
SOLD $2,300

BRITANNICA AUSTRALIA AWARDS MEDAL,1968, in 9ct gold (63mm; 135g), designed by SLD (Stuart Devlin), produced by K.G. Luke, obverse Encyclopedia Britannica symbol and its foundation year of 1768, reverse, map of Australia with ocean around and in a raised, nearly oval plinth across the centre is inscribed, '1968/P.J.Sculthorpe/Arts'. A few minor edge nicks on reverse, extremely fine.

This award was established in 1964 and discontinued after 1973. It was given to recognize outstanding achievement in Australia in five disciplines, art, education, literature, medicine and science. It also was issued to recognize Australia - America links.

In the 1968 year the Britannica Australia Awards Board of nine included only one representative from Encyclopedia Australia, the other members being from Australia. The Board members were, Sir Leonard Huxley KBE, Chairman; Sir MacFarlane Burnet OM, Deputy Chairman; Professor R.M. Crawford; Professor D.N.F. Dunbar; Mr K. Bonython; Mr G. Dutton; Mr C. Semmler; Mr O. Guth; and Mr J.J. Salmon, General Manager for Australasia of Encyclopedia Australia.

The 1968 recipient for Arts was the famous composer, Peter Joshua Sculthorpe. Born in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1929, Peter Sculthorpe was educated at Launceston Church Grammar School, the University of Melbourne, and Wadham College, Oxford. He was an Emeritus Professor at the University of Sydney, where he began teaching in 1964. He was a Harkness Fellow at Yale University, USA, in 1966, and a visiting professor at Sussex University, UK, in 1971-72. He had taught at universities within and outside Australia, and he held honorary doctorates from the universities of Sydney, Tasmania, Melbourne, Sussex and Griffith. In 1977 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and was recipient of a Silver Jubilee Medal. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1990.

Since 1965, Sculthorpe's music had been published internationally by Faber Music. His catalogue of compositions consists of well over 350 works. His compositions are regularly performed and recorded throughout the world. He has written in most musical forms and his output relates closely to the unique social climate and physical characteristics of Australia, and to the cultures of its Pacific Basin neighbours. His geographical outlook as an Australian caused him to be influenced by much of the music of Asia, especially during the 1960s by that of Japan and Indonesia. In recent years his music has become more deeply influenced by the Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island music and culture in which he has taken an active interest since his teenage years.

Sculthorpe had a deep love for his country and its landscape, which he regarded as sacred. One of the most constant themes in his output was the protection of Australia's environment, as well as that of the whole planet. His preoccupation, too, with the frailty of the human condition can be heard in works such as Earth Cry (1986) and the choral Requiem (2004). His String Quartet No 16 (2006) grew from his concern about women and children killed in the war in Iraq, the latter from the plight of asylum-seekers in Australian detention.

The recipient of many awards, Sculthorpe regarded the most significant as being chosen as one of Australia's 100 Living Treasures (National Trust of Australia, 1997), Distinguished Artist 2001 (International Society for the Performing Arts), Honorary Foreign Life Member (American Academy of Arts and Letters, 2003) and one of the 100 Most Influential Australians (The Bulletin, 2006).