A Companion to Australian Art. Группа авторов
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to the public on a permanent, or regular, basis, the most recent being John and Pauline Gandel’s astonishing sculpture park on their coastal estate at Point Leo, on the Mornington Peninsula, with important examples of largely contemporary Australian and global sculpture.
A key question, often asked, concerns the long-term, inter-generational future of these projects, the circumstance and terms on which they are likely to continue, and the process by which proper provision is made for long-term continuity and innovation (given that particular collections will represent a taste at a given moment likely to become less “current” as time passes) is one to watch. These private art museums open to the public have very quickly caught the imagination, and garnered the support, of the museum-going public, particularly as the combination of gallery collection with cafés, restaurants and cellar doors reinforces the museum visit as an enjoyable leisure activity.
Conclusion
Given Australia’s relatively short history of European settlement, and relatively small population (25 million in 2018, occupying a large country in which nearly half the total population, however, is concentrated in an around Sydney and Melbourne) the nation has been, and continues to be, well served in its public access to art museums and galleries.
The nineteenth century colonial cultural experience closely reflected the new museology – driven by principles of self-improvement and broad access to education – which had evolved in Britain, and taste and public collecting were inevitably oriented to Britain. It was not until the latter part of the twentieth century that notable shifts in public museology brought significant changes, which better reflected Australia’s changing perspective on its place in the world, and its post-colonial, post-WWII relationship with its own region. Australia’s public art museums have needed to focus on, and accommodate, key issues such as the embrace of modernism and contemporaneity (the NGV in Melbourne only acquired its first Picasso painting in 1986); the need to support Australia’s own artists and art systems; the rise of the contemporary Indigenous art movement, and how that art would be collected and exhibited in the nation’s art museums, large and small; and the process by which the visual cultures of Asia would be better understood, collected and exhibited, either through permanent collections or temporary exhibitions.
The culture of the temporary exhibition, particularly the genre of the large, imported “blockbuster”, has been transforming, driving ever-increasing audiences, and focussing government decision-making on infrastructure funding, tied as it inevitably is, to financial considerations of the economic benefits of cultural tourism. At the same time, governments at all levels have been reducing operating funding, demanding a greater level of self-sufficiency through entrepreneurial activities, and philanthropic and sponsorship support. That said, Australian art museums, in common with many others elsewhere, are increasingly searching for new, relevant and credible criteria for assessing the real social, civic and cultural value of its museums and galleries sector. In such a strongly multi-cultural country, it is an interesting and essential debate. The great challenge to Australian art museology is balancing its traditional and necessary commitment to Australian art and artists, in an increasingly global environment, with an international perspective. In many ways, this simply reflects Australia’s geographic and socio-political position on the Pacific Rim, a country with ancient indigenous, and more recent non-indigenous cultures, a British-European history of settlement, and social structure, and a necessary post-WWII openness to both the US and its economy and culture, and Australia’s regional Asia-Pacific neighbours.
Notes
1 1 Before the creation of the Australian federation in 1901 each state was a self-governing colony with its own parliament and therefore its own educational and cultural policies, and this remains the case today in terms of the responsibilities of each state and territory.
2 2 See Bernard Smith, Documents on Art and Taste in Australia, Melbourne: OUP, 1975, pp. 64–69, p. 68.
3 2 Smith, op. cit., pp. 148–161.
4 4 Ann Galbally, Alison Inglis et al., The first collections: the Public Library and the National Gallery of Victoria in the 1850s and 1860s: University Gallery, the University of Melbourne Museum of Art 14 May – 15 July 1992, pp. 9–10.
5 5 See Catalogue of Works of Art, exhibited in the Lauceston Mechanics’ Institute building, on the occasion of its opening, April 9 1860.
6 6 Catalogue of the Art-Treasures Exhibition held in the Legislative Council Chamber, Hobart Town, Tasmania, in the year MDCCCLVIII.
7 7 Catalogue of the Art Treasures Exhibition held in the New Museum Building of the Royal Society of Tasmania, in the year 1862–1863. Hobart, 1862.
8 8 On Barry, see esp. Ann Galbally, Redmond Barry: An Anglo-Irish Australian, Melbourne, MUP, 1995.
9 9 On the history and growth of the National Gallery of Victoria, see especially Leonard Cox, The National Gallery of Victoria 1861–1968: a search for a collection, Melbourne, 1968; Ann Galbally, The Collections of the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne: MUP, 1979; Ann Galbally, Alison Inglis et al., The First Collections op. cit.; and Phip Murray, The NGV Story: a Celebration of One Hundred and Fifty Years, Melbourne, 2011.
10 10 Meaning, of course, produced in the colony. Chevalier was born in St. Petersburg of Swiss parents, studied and worked in Lausanne, Munich, London and Rome, and resided in Victoria from late 1854 to 1869, when he was taken up by Queen Victoria’s son, Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, then visiting Australia, returning with him to London, where he received numerous court commissions of substance.
11 11 Catalogue of the Works of Art, Ornamental and Decorative Art Exhibited by the Trustees of the Public Library and Museum in March, April, May and June 1869, Melbourne, 1869.
12 12 See A. Galbally, The First Collections, op. cit., pp. 18–19.
13 13 There are many publications on, or referring to, the Felton Bequest; the definitive history (and bibliography) is contained in John Poynton, Mr. Felton’s Bequests, Melbourne, MUP, 2003.
14 14 This system, which involved many leading figures in the British art and museums world (including Robert Ross, Sidney Colvin and Kenneth Clark) lasted from 1905 to 1999, when the last UK-based consultant, Gerard Vaughan, returned to Melbourne to become director of the NGV. Since the early 1980s the role had changed fundamentally, with new methods of rapid communication and air travel meaning that much of the previous workload could be undertaken by NGV staff in Melbourne. There has been no London advisor/consultant since 1999.
15 15 Poynton’s history of the Felton Bequest documents many of their debates in considerable detail.
16 16 For a helpful representation and assessment of this phenomenon, see esp. Modern Britain 1900–1960: Masterworks from Australian and New Zealand Collections; exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2007.
17 17 Daniel Thomas has observed that his was the first curatorial appointment under the director and deputy director when he joined the AGNSW in 1958.
18 18 On these touring exhibitions see esp. G. Vaughan, “Modern Britain in Australia”, in Modern Britain, exhibition catalogue, op. cit., pp. 14–23.
19 19 One of Australia’s leading journalists and newspaper proprietors, Chairman of the NGV Council of Trustees 1941–1952, and father of the global media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
20 20 On the history of the exhibition and its reception see esp. Eileen Chanin, Steven Miller and Judith Pugh, Degenerates and Perverts: The 1939 Herald Exhibition of French and British Contemporary Art, MUP, 2005.
21 21 The major exhibitions of 1939 (see above) and 1953 (French Painting Today), which attracted hundreds of thousands in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide) could not compare in terms of size and quality.
22 22 Founded in 1975, and wound up in 1981, the AGDC represented 53 state and regional galleries.
23 23 It is estimated that up to 25 million Australians visited these ticketed exhibitions in the period 1975–2007. For a general overview, see esp. Caroline Turner, “International Exhibitions”, in Understanding