Collector Profile: Mona Phrontisterion
Hobart’s Museum of Old and New Art expands its universe with the opening of Phrontisterion, a new library housing founder David Walsh’s vast and deeply personal collection of books, maps, manuscripts and curiosities. Hidden beneath Anselm Kiefer’s monumental Elektra, the labyrinthine space combines rare editions by Shakespeare, Newton and Darwin with cutting-edge technology that reimagines how libraries can function in the 21st century. Part cabinet of curiosities, part research institution and part intellectual playground, Phrontisterion offers a revealing insight into the mind of one of Australia’s most unconventional cultural figures. David Walsh shares his passion project with VAULT.
Image credit: Anselm Kiefer, Elektra, 2025 (above) and Phrontisterion (below). Photo: Mona/Jesse Hunniford. Courtesy the Museum of Old and New Art, Nipaluna/Hobart
Just before Mona opened, Kirsha Kaechele, now my wife, moved to Hobart. That pretty well wrenched my heart in 2. I was obsessed by Kirsha, and I was obsessed by every detail of my forthcoming museum.
Since then I’ve done other stuff (and Kirsha has done a whole lot more) – we’ve extended the museum, and fiddled with festivals, and generally meddled with stuff that was fine before we meddled. And, seemingly in an effort to abandon all rationality and fiscal responsibility, we opened Elektra, the grand Kiefer celebration that sits atop and within the building that you will hopefully soon be standing in…
… and that building is the Phrontisterion, the library I’ve been fantasising about since before I built Mona.
For a long time I lived in a big house, and that big house was not decorated with art. I had plenty of art, but it was mostly in a warehouse. On the walls of my house I had documents. Darwin and Dickens, and Bowie and The Beatles, and Marconi and Monroe, and Newton and Einstein, and Stanley and Livingstone. People I admired. Names that I would like to drop (and am dropping).
Also on my wall: maps. A lovely 1658 Nicolaes Visscher map of the world. That gave me a good giggle once. I was in a map shop and a copy of that map was being sold for about 50 bucks. I said to my mate, “I’ve got that map”. The proprietor overheard, and interjected, ... Subscribe to read all articles in full
