The Old Treasury

Sydney Ure Smith (1887-1949) was influential in promoting Australian art to a broader public during the first half of the twentieth century. In 1906 he founded the advertising company of Smith and Julius, incorporating quality art and design with technically advanced printing. He then founded the periodicals Art in Australia (1916) and Home (1920) and established the publishing company Ure Smith Pty Ltd in 1934, producing numerous texts of key significance to Australian art. President of the Society of Artists 1921-48, trustee of the Art Gallery of New South Wales 1927-47, patron of many artists, and active in numerous positions of influence, he was himself a competent practising artist who was a key figure in Australia's version of the Etching Revival. He studied at the Julian Ashton School of Art (1902-07), and continued to be active until the mid-1920s. 

Ure Smith had a keen interest in architecture, particularly 'old Sydney' - areas like the Rocks, Windsor, and central Sydney that still featured the colonial buildings and haphazard streets of the nineteenth century. Many of these areas were under threat of demolition as the growing city developed. Ure Smith, with others including Julian Ashton and Lionel Lindsay, recorded the older quarters of the city and their colourful street life, in part for nostalgia but also to advocate for their preservation. In this instance, Ure Smith was not successful. The Old Treasury, Lang Street, Sydney, is not to be confused with the better-known, altogether grander and expansive former Treasury Building on Macquarie Street, now the Intercontinental Hotel.  

See:

Art Gallery of New South Wales, 'Old Treasury, Lang Street... Sydney Ure Smith', https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/11.2016/

Art Gallery of New South Wales, 'Sydney Ure Smith OBE... W.B. McInnes', https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/976/

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art   May 2018