Queensland Art Gallery Presscuttings Book 10 : Record of press coverage, March 1982 - May 1984

Chapel into a gallery They also decided thej"d like to turn the old chapel into a gallery of Australian art. Dr Behan, whose daughters went to the school. decided to help. He had already established the nucleus of an Australian collection and the idea of an Australian gallery excited him. And a11r,way. Australian paintings were more easily avail able at the time than those of equal quality of the European school. He went into it more deeply and startr;d buyfn,g madly. _ He decided the collection, if it were to become important , had to meet certain requirements like chronology, authority and taste . ' · In fact, the collection became so important and so valuable that the nuns became a lit1le nervous about it from a security point of view. Soon after• wards, it was given to the university. .. Stopped buying nov; . ·r He still has some beauties at home, but isn 1 t saying what. Dr Behan has stopped buying. "Now, nothing tempts me any more." There have been gifts to the Queensland Art Gallery that he's proud of. A portrait of Mrs Ernest Watt by George Lambert sits primly on a wall. "She's the mother-in-law of Sir Laurence Street of the Street Royal Commission," Dr Behan said . "Tnc painting went to London for the exhibi– tion of Australian art at the National Gallery in I923. "I bought it 20 years ago at an auction in Syd• ney. It would be worth $60,000 today." He hurries to explain: " It was a no-strings gift." Nearby is "Kitty," the famous Jacob Epstein bronze. "I gave that to the Gallery, too. I bought it in 1978. Kitty was the illegitimate daughter Epstein loved so much. She was his only child." And then there is the Sam Fullbrook portrait of Dr Behan, an unmistakable likeness, with what looks like a smudge on one shoulder. "Do you think it looks like me" he asks.The portrait cuts Dr Behan off at the top of the head and shows a lot of trousers. "Sam says perhaps he should have moved me down a liulc," he said. The portrait was runner-up in the Archibald Prize competition. That was his gift to the gallery tast year .. -······ -~ 'About $1 million' .But back to the Behan Collection. How much is it worth? "That's all you people think about, money," sighed Dr Behan. The answer is "around" SI million. And to think he gave it all away. He then discusses the collection of three Do– bells of himself which start off with a sketch "done on the verandah at home", then an oil and a larger one in oils that is unfinished. "He's an interpretive painter. He has made me look a bit funny in that last one." Funny or not, Dr Behan considers William DO' bell "the Rembrandt of Australia". Trying to dig through the collection to get to Dr Behan is almost impassible. You extract from him that he lives high on a hill at Paddington Heights. And that many of the greats of Australian art like William Dobell, "Bill" (otherwise known as Sir William) Dargie and Sam Fullbrook have used his home like a regular coffee shop, popping in whenever they want a break. Or a bed. As far as his family goes "well, they arc still hanging around". One, you gather, is a distin• guished surgeon in Melbourne. The collection is easy to live with. Look at .it and you know without asking that Norman Behan likes his paintings to t~l ,~.\_Ories that arc easy to understand. · ,.,.: Fr; nce. Britlany 10 be e~acl. "He stole Rodin ', mistress," yarned Dr Behan. . "He used to pinch her bottom wh ile Rodin was ·'.'! sculpting her. Th~) doped. He bought an island a~d they had ~ight children. Van Gogh was a friend and Matisse a pupil." But it all fell apart and he came back to Aus– Jralia . "He was pretty lonely when he died." , The collection is belier than a history lesson. :And much prctlicr. 'I I