Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

exhibitions or to thank those who have just done so. To open an exhibition myself is, therefore, a new and welcome experience. But I have quite a lot of thanking to do as well. First, I want to thank the Consul-General of Japan, Mr Shigetaka, especially as this is the first time he has made a speech at an official opening at the Gallery. Given his interest in the arts, and our interest in Japan, I feel sure it will not be the last. I should like to support what he has said about the Australia-Japan cultural relationship. We are realising more and more as time goes on, the importance of Japan to Australia, both materially and culturally, and this is particularly so in the case of Queensland, the State which is closest to it geographically. For many years Queensland has led the rest of Australia in Japanese studies and this has been due, in no small measure, to the expertise and dedication of Dr Joyce Ackroyd, until recently Professor of Japanese at the University of Queensland. Iwant to pay a special tribute to Dr Ackroyd, not only for what she has achieved in that capacity, but also for the very generous donation to this Gallery of her wide– ranging collection of Japanese art. The Ackroyd Gift, as it is now called, is displayed in Gallery I5, and I ·urge all of you who are interested in things- Japanese, to have an unhurried look at it. 1 It represents a great addition to our holdings of the art of that country. But even if we have had little Japanese art of our own to display, I can safely say that we have made up for it by presenting more exhibitions of Japanese art, both from within Australia and from overseas, than any other gallery. 2 After a number of superb exhibitions of traditional art drawn from the Idemitsu Collections, we moved forward last year to the present day in 'Japanese Ways: Western Means', when we showed contemporary works from the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, which surprised and excited all those who saw them. Now we have another contemporary exhibition and for making this possible I want to thank Mr Takeshi Kanazawa, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the Hara Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. In his capacity as Consultative Commissioner for the Federation of Oriental Calligraphers, of which some fifty members have come specially from Japan to be present here this evening, Mr Kanazawa coordinated this exhibition in association with an old friend of the Gallery, Mr Masayoshi Homma, Director of the Museum of Modern Art, Saitama (to whom I extend thanks and greetings in absentia) and with a member of the Gallery staff, our Senior Education Officer, Mr John Massy, who has also organised the workshops in calligraphy and the other activities which complement the exhibition. And last but by no means least-indeed, very importantly-I want to thank Mr Gaboku Ogawa, President of the Federation of Oriental Calligraphers, for so eloquently telling us about the nature and content of the exhibition itself. By so doing, he has absolved me from having to do the same thing, in what would have been a much less learned and adequate fashion. He has pointed out that Japanese calligraphy derives from the characters-the ideographs-which form the basis of the written language. Calligraphy is what happens when a calligrapher seizes upon a character on earth and, like an eagle with its prey, carries it high into the heavens. In the course of the 25