Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

2 Speech to open 'Impressions of France' by Raoul Mellish, Brisbane Club, 14 July 1990 NOTE: RAOUL MELLISH WAS DIRECTOR OF THE QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY FROM 1974 TO 1986. IN THAT TIME HE OVERSAW THE MOVE FROM THE GALLERY IN GREGORY TERRACE AND FROM TEMPORARY PREMISES IN ANN STREET TO THE NEW CULTURAL CENTRE AT SOUTH BRISBANE. HE WROTE THE BRIEF FOR THE NEW GALLERY AND WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE GALLERY'S TRANSFORMATION FROM A SMALL PROVINCIAL INSTITUTION TO ONE OF NATIONAL STANDING. IN HIS RETIREMENT HE RETURNED TO PAINTING AND HELD SEVERAL HIGHLY SUCCESSFUL EXHIBITIONS OF HIS WORKS, MOSTLY LANDSCAPES. It is a great pleasure to be here tonight and an even greater pleasure to be opening this exhibition by an old friend, Raoul Mellish. I don't often get the chance to do this. My task at the Gallery is usually confined to introducing those who are about to open exhibitions or thanking those who have just done So---il rather boring and sometimes even a sycophantic job. But tonight I have drawn the long straw, so to speak, and so, to modify very slightly the opening line of Virgil's Aeneid, 'artem virumque cano,, 'of a man and his art I sing'. These landscapes, seascapes and townscapes, 'Impressions of France', exemplify, I think, three important elements in Raoul's character: his love of nature; his love of painting; and his love of France. A year or so ago, I picked up a magazine which had in it an article entitled 'Mountain Man'. I thought it would be a story about some Sherpa from Nepal or some Montagnard from Laos. Instead, it was a story about Raoul and it showed how his love of nature and the environment was exemplified in his love of the mountain-appropriately named Mount Glorious-where he and Connie have built their weekend retreat. His love of painting is at the very base of the great contribution he has made over the years to the visual arts in this State. Much of the Gallery's success and h_igh standing today is built upon the foundations he so carefully erected during the twelve years he was Director, and we should not forget that it was he who wrote the brief for Robin Gibson, the architect of our splendid building. In those years he had little time for painting. Now that he has retired, he is able to concentrate on what he loves. In this respect he can be described as one of that happy band of men-the gifted amateur. I use the word in its proper sense, coming to us as it does from the Latin word amare, to love, someone who does something because he loves doing it, and who does not derive his principal income from it. In the good old days, the British made a nice distinction between amateurs and professionals in the world of cricket, describing them as gentlemen and players, and insisting that they emerge onto the field from different gates. There is no doubt about which gate Raoul would use. He is a true gentleman of the brush. As for his love of France, it will not have escaped your notice that today is Le Quatorze Juillet-the day, exactly 20 I years ago, on which the Bastille in Paris was stormed by the forces of the French Revolution. We are told that it then contained 142