Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" -6 SE;'1970 Sydney, N.S.W. Artists fading from the gallery boards ON Thursday Hal Missingham completed 25 years as director of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. In about a year's time he will retire. He's a very warm human being (an aw- ful, corny phrase, but true). He's been an ideal boss for me (ex- cept he never listens to me. What boss does?). But he has a feeling that the art historians are taking everything over. He thinks he's probably the last of his kind. Well it's true that outside Australia sev- eral generations have passed since artists were appointed directors of art museums. Outside Australia, artists have almost disappeared from boards of trustees, too. I suppose Robert Haines, in Brisbane, and Eric Westbrook in Melbourne. were the first museum directors who were not practising artists. When Hal Missing - ham was appointed in 1945 he followed nn art- ist director Will Ash- ton. The president and vice-president of trus- tees who would have recommended him were B. J. Waterhouse, archi- tect and artist, and Sydney Ure Smith, art- ist and publisher. His fellow candidates for director were two artists, Erik Langker and Douglas Dundas, both soon afterward ap- pointed trustees of the Gallery. But there was a teacher, Bernard Smith. What would have happened if Bernard Smith had become dir- ector in 1945? Would he have gain- ed the degrees, done the research and writ- ten the books which eventually made him Professor Smith of the Power Department of Fine Art, University of Sydney? He had already spent a few months as acting - director in the hiatus since Will Ashton's de- parture for he was in charge of the Travelling Art Exhibition's service to country towns, which the Education Depart- ment then ran from the Art Gallery. (It was soon discontinued and not revived till quite recently.) Later he was lent to the Art Gallery to com- pile a catalogue of its Australian oil paint- ings. I can't compare them as administrators or committeemen, But I imagine Bernard Smith's collecting policy might not have been too different from Hal Mis- Bingham's. He too might have realised that with the small funds then avail- able you couldn't do much more than con- tinue to update the fine existing collection of Australian art. Bernard Smith before Hal Missingham arrived bought the Gallery's first paintings by Sall Herman. Hal Missingha.m, in his first few months, was nearly sacked for buying Russell Drys - dale's erosion picture "Walls of China." This was the kind of painting that then seemed scandalously ugly; it was unfalar, therefore bad. inmi the eyes of conservative taste. ART with Daniel Thomas Ironically, the effort involved in keeping a collection of local art up to date doesn't get remembered. A daring choice of 20 years ago, like Drys - dale's "Walls of China" or Sidney Nolan's "Pretty Polly Mine," looks like an obvious choice today. Bernard Smith might have shown one differ- ence in his Australian collection. Being an academic he might have been more worried by the virtual omission of the first 100 years of Australian art, and by the very weak repesentation of Mel- bourne art (or non - Sydney art), both from the past and the pres- ent. On the other hand Hal Missingham broad- ened the Australian collection to Include Aboriginal art, which Bernard Smith might not have done. Outside the Austra- lian collection, Hal Mis- singham has made a token gesture to art history with an excel- lent collection of Euro- pean prind SmithBerar might have preferred a token art history collection of paintings, which would have had to be very minor, unless ho had turned into a great. fund-raiser. Contemporary foreign art was usually bought by Missingham from the exhbitions that visited Australia, and I doubt if Bernard Smith could have done better. A policy of regular and frequent overseas travel for contempor- ary purchase. such as the Power Bequest now has, would have been difficult to establish. Obviously a combina- tion of academics and practising artists is ideal for an art museum staff. The academics are usually more tolerant of diversity in the present, more interested in the avant-garde and in the past; the artists are usually prejudiced in favor of their own kind of art (and even non - artists have inbuilt for- mal prejudices too), but they often are better judges of quality. Sydney's Australian collection will look an obvious choice in the future and won't be much associated with Hal Missingham. For a while people will remember the maj- or exhibitions he has prepared - Drysdale, Dobell, Nolan. Great, generous en- ergies have gone into obtaining scholarships and awards for living artists, and although this too leaves little permanent memorial. I would like it to be re- membered that Hal Mis- singham has obtained not only encouragement but also an extraordin- ary amount of hard cash for living Austra- lian artists. He will probably be remembered, as a di- rector, for finally, after years of complaint, ob- taining a new building safe enough to house the collection. It's very fitting that it opens next year before his re- tirement. But mast of all I hope he will be remembered for his own out -of- hours work, There are a feW paintings and prints, and a large body of watercolors and draw- ings. But mostly I am thinking of his photo- graphy, as presented in two recent books My Australia, and Close Focus. His Australia is my Australia and the Aus- tralia of anyone who grew up here. 2 4