After a few weeks offline writing, I was back on the airwaves this morning with Tim Higgins on 2SER. A big thank you to Nicole Cama for stepping in over the last few weeks. Nicole is one of the many people who volunteer in support of the Dictionary and it’s what makes the Dictionary such a successful public history project. A new exhibition,  Artist Colony: Drawing Sydney’s Nature, has just opened at the State Library of New South Wales and it’s one that all Sydney history buffs should go and see. One hundred rare natural history drawings dating from the 1790s, all drawn in Sydney, are on display. Many of them have never been displayed before and for some of these pictures it’s the first time they have been back in Sydney since they were painted all those years ago. The central part of the exhibition is drawn from a collection of 745 exquisite drawings acquired by the State Library back in 2011. The collection of six volumes of watercolours had been collated in the 1790s for Alymer Bourke Lambert, one of Britain’s leading natural historians. After his death, the watercolours passed on to the 13th Earl of Derby and there they remained in the family library until they were acquired by the State Library. Three of the volumes were known of, but rarely viewed, but the other three volumes had never been seen or described before. This is exciting stuff for historians and botanists! Since 2011 the library has been conserving the images and researching the background of the pictures – the artists, when and where they were produced. And now 100 of these very special images are on display for the public. One of the revelations in this collection is the importance of early watercolours for conveying information and knowledge. Back then the first fleet officers couldn’t take a photo of the amazing and completely bizarre flora and fauna they were encountering on their iPhone. If they could have, they would have taken a photo and posted it on instagram. Instead they did the 18th century equivalent – a watercolour – and sent it back to Britain. These watercolours were then copied and shared among social circles, ending up in collections, libraries and museums. Some great examples of multiple images and copies are on display. Another exciting aspect of the collection is that some of the watercolours are annotated and have recorded on them Sydney language words for the animals, birds and flowers. A rare thing. And an extraordinary development is that this collection of watercolours sheds new light on others in the State Library’s collection. Curators now believe that nine images previously attributed to another artist might have actually be executed by William Dawes. William Dawes is a fascinating man and an important cross-cultural player in the early colony. He was a marine officer with the first fleet, but was also an astronomer who established an observatory down at Dawes Point or Tar-ra. He forged friendships with some of the Gadigal people and learnt snippets of the Sydney language during his three years in the colony. You can read more about how the watercolours might be connected to Dawes in this recent Sydney Morning Herald article, First Fleet Drawings Study May Add Artist to William Dawes' Talents A whole swathe of these beautiful and historically significant watercolours have been digitised by the State Library so that you can enjoy them, wherever you are. The Dictionary of Sydney staff and volunteers will be working to incorporate some of them into the Dictionary’s extraordinary content. But to get the full impact of these historical documents and botanical wonders, head along to the State Library. There are also a few first fleet diaries on display, which you can peer at and read. The exhibition is on until 11 May 2014 and is free; just like the Dictionary of Sydney!