A vibrant place in the heart of the city, Canberra Museum and Gallery celebrates the region's social history and visual arts with dynamic exhibitions and unique community programs and events.

Housing a permanent collection, Reflecting Canberra, and a variety of local, national and international exhibitions, CMAG provides a refreshing insight to the integration of social history and the visual arts.

Reflections

MYERS CARNALL COLLECTION

Fred and Mary Carnall moved to Canberra in 1914 to work in a domestic capacity on the Duntroon estate owned by the Campbells. Their son Keith Carnall (1900-1977) and daughter Doreen Myers (born 1905) were active participants in the early cultural life of urban Canberra.

In 1919 Keith Carnall married Iris Wilden
(1900-1998) who was born in Blundell’s Cottage, one of a number of rubble stone cottages constructed around 1860 for workers on the Duntroon estate, and now the sole historic survivor on the northern edge of Lake Burley Griffin. Iris Wilden’s mother, Celia Tong, was born at Lanyon homestead in1871 and her father Arthur Wilden (born 1874) was a coachman for the Campbells at Yarralumla and Duntroon.

 

The Myers Carnall Collection, donated by Warwick Myers, son of Doreen and Maurice Myers contains valued items kept by three generations of the Myers and Carnall families. Including such items as Doreen’s invitation to the opening of Parliament House in 1927, it illustrates the social activities of a local family within the national framework of government.