Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

I also want to acknowledge, with gratitude, the support of the Management of the Sheraton Hotel in Brisbane, which has generously provided accommodation for the artists and a venue for tomorrow night's forum. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to call upon His Excellency to address us and to open the exhibition. 6 Speech to open 'Irises and Five Masterpieces from the Collection of Alan Bond', Thursday 27 July 1989 NOTE: THIS EXHIBITION, SHOWN FROM 28 JULY TO 6 AUGUST 1989, WAS PRESENTED BY THE BOND CORPORATION. IRISES 1889, THE CENTREPIECE OF THE EXHIBITION, PAINTED BY VINCENT VAN GOGH, WAS SHOWN IN CONTEXT WITH WORKS BY CAMILLE PISSARRO, HENRI DE TOULOUSE-LAUTREC, PAUL GAUGUIN, EDOUARD MANET AND ALFRED SISLEY. THE EXHIBITION WAS ALSO SHOWN AT THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL GALLERY, ART GALLERY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, NATIONAL GALLERY OF VICTORIA AND THE ART GALLERY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA. PROCEEDS FROM THE EXHIBITION WERE SHARED BETWEEN THE. QUEENSLAND ART GALLERY FOUNDATION AND THE MONTROSE HOME FOR CRIPPLED CHILDREN. On behalf of the Trustees and Director of the Queensland Art Gallery, it is my pleasant duty to welcome you to the opening of 'Irises and Five Masterpieces from the Collection of Alan Bond'. Let me say at once that this is a fundraising exercise and that, at Mr Bond's direction, the proceeds of the exhibition will be divided equally between the Gallery Foundation and the Society for Crippled Children. I am most grateful to all of you for your generous support this evening. I regret that Mr Alan Bond is not able to be present himself, but he is represented by the Curator of the Bond Collection, Diana de Bussy. To her I should like to extend a special welcome coupled with the request that she convey to Mr Bond the Gallery's thanks for making these splendid paintings available. Mr Alan Bond's absence will inevitably take away a certain amount of panache from this evening's proceedings, and that is a pity because panache of the Bond type is something that helps to enrich and embellish our lives. I had hoped to hear Mr Bond fire his second barrel-the first was fired in Canberra at the initial opening-as the regrettable tendency in this country is to cut tall poppies whenever the chance arises to do so. Mr Bond is one of the tallest poppies, a successful entrepreneur in the widest sense, who has helped to put Australia on the world map in many ways, as a generous patron of the arts and as a discerning collector of paintings. It is from his collection of more than one hundred and forty paintings that the six works now hanging in Gallery I O are drawn. Of these, Van Gogh's Irises is, of course, the star attraction. But even if it had not been included, the remaining five masterpieces would, without question, be worthy of an exhibition in their own right. We do not often get the opportunity of seeing a Manet, a Gauguin, 66