Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

preserves. As a matter of interest, previous Trustees were in the habit of using the term 'procurement', but we felt, with the Fitzgerald inquiry and all that sort of thing, it was a term that was perhaps capable of pejorative misinterpretation and so we now talk about acquisitions instead. Be that as it may, acquisitions policy, like politics itself, is the art of the possible. Aspiration must always be tempered by realism, because, as T.S. Elliot has so aptly put it, 'Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow'. The shadow can be many things but, in our case, of course, it is money. There is little point for a Gallery like ours putting in the aspiration column, for example, 'Van Gogh flower painting, preferably Irises or Sunflowers', because we then have to put in the realism column 'probable cost sixty to eighty million dollars'. For that reason we are concentrating our modest resources upon Australian paintings of the twentieth century. The one and a quarter million dollars paid for this painting is the highest point at which the idea and the reality have ever been able to come together. For some time now the Trustees of the Gallery-my predecessors as well as members of the present Board--have had it in mind to make what I shall call a 'Bicentenary purchase' fitting for the occasion, and money has been quietly put aside for this purpose. This means-and it gives me great satisfaction to be able to say this– that the Gallery is buying this painting without having to ask the Government for a special grant of any kind. The acquisition of Bathers has naturally enough given rise to some criticism and this we welcome. To those who complain that it is too expensive, I will say only this, that almost every painting, no matter how much has been paid for it, will seem, a few years hence, to have been cheap at twice the price.To those who criticise the painting itself, I commend the words of the French New Wave novelist, Michel Butor, quoted in a recent book on Bunny's life, that a work of art is only made complete by what is said or felt or written about it, whether in criticism or praise. To those who have not yet seen the painting, I say only-wait until the curtain is drawn back, and that I now have much pleasure in doing. 2 Vote of thanks at the unveiling of Mrs Fraser and convict 1962-64 by Sir Sidney Nolan, OM,AC,CBE presented by David Jones Australia Limited, 19 May 1988 I had not realised that this week was 'Convict Week' in Queensland until I opened my Courier-Mail on Tuesday morning. There I saw, with some surprise I may say, a full page education supplement exhorting the school children of this State to create their own convict and, having done so, to write a letter 'home'-that is, to England--employing the so-called 'flash' vocabulary of the Moreton Bay penal settlement. I doubt if this exercise will strengthen their already tenuous grasp of the English language or improve their chances of growing up to be law-abiding citizens. Be that as it may, it at least goes to show that both David Jones and the Gallery are well abreast of the times. We have, so to speak, created our own convict-the former by donating with great generosity, and the latter by accepting, with equal pleasure, this 50