The bronze doors guarding the Mitchell Library's entrance in Sydney are undeniably striking. Yet their troubling backstory, recently excavated by researchers, raises uncomfortable questions about institutional ideology and cultural representation that institutions still struggle to address.
Walk through Sydney's State Library and you passbronze doors decorated with images depicting Indigenous Australian people and European explorers. Few visitors notice them fully, or wonder who chose these images and why. The doors seemed like timeless monuments. In fact, they've only stood since 1942.
Principal librarian from 1912 to 1942, William Herbert Ifould was the driving force behind the design and construction of the Public Library. Ifould was uncompromising. His vision for the library's appearance reflected his belief in grand European cultural traditions. Yet his decision to feature Aboriginal people on the doors marked a departure from original plans.
Initially, the doors were to display "Australian exploratory navigation" with allegorical figures representing the arts and sciences. Ifould scrapped this concept. Instead,he rejected the original concept in favour of panels illustrating scenes from the lives of the Australian Aboriginal people. The shift sounds progressive. It wasn't.
Here's the problem: Ifould insisted on depicting only "authentic" Aboriginal culture, which he defined narrowly. He wanted desert communities and ceremonial scenes; anything suggesting contemporary Aboriginal life in Sydney was deemed unsuitable. During the planning phase,the deal was arranged following a game of golf at Killara Golf Club on Sydney's North Shore, when Ifould persuaded benefactor Sir William Dixson to fund the project.
The exclusion of Sydney Aboriginal people is the story within the story. In 1938, just blocks away from the library, Aboriginal activists held the Day of Mourning protest, a powerful demonstration against colonial dispossession and injustice. Other campaigns for land rights were happening nearby. Yet Ifould looked elsewhere for his imagery, sourcing photographs from anthropologists and explorers working with inland communities. He wanted what he believed was "pure" Aboriginal culture, untouched by European settlement. The reality was crueller: he was perpetuating a myth that Aboriginal people with direct experience of colonisation were somehow less authentic, less worthy of representation.
The Sydney press nicknamed sculptor Daphne Mayo, who produced all 18 panels for the eastern doors, 'Miss Michelangelo'. Mayo was a groundbreaking artist, yet her correspondence with Ifould reveals a fraught working relationship. She proposed a more dynamic design;Ifould rejected the concept in favour of panels illustrating scenes from the lives of the Australian Aboriginal people, insisting her reliefs adhere closely to his chosen photographs.
The fairness question: Ifould believed he was honouring Aboriginal cultures. He consulted anthropologists, carefully selected photographs, and rejected depictions he considered demeaning. His intentions were not entirely hollow. Yet good intentions collided with a fundamental blindness. By insisting on "wild" imagery and excluding contemporary Aboriginal experience, he reinforced the colonial narrative that Aboriginal culture belonged to the past, that real Aboriginal people were disappearing, that their present struggles were less significant than ethnographic documentation.
Problems emerged immediately.Much debate focused on the subject matter, particularly the Aboriginal panels, and the process also came under fire. Ifould's tight control was criticised in the press. Even at the time, anthropologists raised concerns about inaccuracies in the final reliefs. Decades later,many Indigenous leaders have criticised the sculptures and have called for their removal.
This creates a genuine institutional tension. The doors are architecturally significant, historically important, and created by an undisputed master craftsperson. They also embody a paternalistic, racially hierarchical vision of what Aboriginal culture "should" look like. Removing them is not straightforward; they are heritage objects. Ignoring their history is worse.
The library is approaching its 200-year anniversary. Rather than whitewashing or erasing, the institution has an opportunity to narrate honestly. The doors can remain while the story changes: not a celebration of enlightened patronage, but an examination of how even well-meaning institutions can perpetuate colonialism. That conversation is messier and harder than the doors themselves. But it's the one the State Library should be having.
The State Library's 200 Years project includes essays examining the doors' history. That reflection matters. Institutions that refuse to interrogate their own past choices rarely improve their future ones.