Key 60: Grainger Museum 1938

In the mid 1930s the expatriate Australian musician and composer, Melbourne-born Percy Grainger, provided a bequest to commemorate himself, his friends and their achievements and to 'celebrate musical life in Australia'.

Percy Grainger (kneeling) at work on the museum, 1938

Percy and Ella Grainger with a display of the clothes of English composer Balfour Gardiner, 1938
[Source: University of Melbourne Archives Media Photograph Collection, Photograph No 18832]

The building, just outside the boundary of the old System Garden north of the Conservatorium was designed by John Gawler. Much of the work on the Museum was done by Grainger himself between 1935 and 1938.

Grainger Museum, c1935
[Source: University of Melbourne Archives Image Catalogue, UMA-I-1888]

The museum contains many letters, music manuscripts, paintings, photographs, costumes and instruments, including Grainger's own highly inventive 'free music' machines, and a collection of player-piano cylinders preserving keyboard demonstrations of his performances.

One of the galleries in the Grainger Museum
[Source: University of Melbourne Archives Media Photograph Collection, Photograph No 18817]

Professor John Poynter with Elinor Wrobel (left) and University Librarian Helen Hayes — Elinor Wrobel, John Poynter and Helen Hayes seated at a Grainger Museum display of a table set for a Nordic supper
[Source: University of Melbourne Archives Media Photograph Collection, Photograph No 16355]