Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

Under Secretary of the United Nations has addressed us. I hope that all these things will happen again. I thank Sir Brian most warmly for his remarks about the Gallery, for his interesting commentary about his Council, and his remarks about a world in need of leadership. There is no doubt that the Council is lucky to have as its Chairman a man with Sir Brian•s experience of the world and of international affairs, and I welcome him, the other Council members, and the staff of the Museum, to the Gallery with great warmth and sincerity. Their visit here, and especially the fact that this is the first Gallery that they are visiting and that this is where the exhibition is opening in Australia-means a great deal to us. I hope that it will mark the beginning of a further and deeper involvement of this Gallery in the international world of art. For the last few years, my Trustees and I have taken the view that, accepting the reality that our Collection is limited both in size and quality, one of our prime responsibilities to the people of Queensland is to bring into the Gallery major exhibitions from other parts of the world. To this end we established, about three years ago, an Exhibitions Development Fund which, based on the generosity of the Japanese corporate sector, now stands at over one million dollars. This Fund, together with an indemnity provided by the Government of Queensland, has enabled us to initiate and organise such major exhibitions. 'Toulouse-Lautrec: Prints and Posters from the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, was the most recent of these, and we have just completed arrangements for an important survey exhibition of works by Matisse. A few years ago, such initiatives would not have been possible. In addition, we have been turning our attention more and more to the region in which this country is situated. We have had several major exhibitions from Japan, including one organised by the Chief Curator of the Hara Museum, and one from China, and next year we are holding the first Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, in which thirteen countries from the region will participate. In the context of these endeavours, we see the present exhibition of contemporary American art as assuming for us a very special significance. It was initiated and organised by the International Council and I thank all the members of that Council for making it possible for us to see it in Brisbane, after a tour which has already included New York, Miami, and Mexico City, and which will later include Sydney, Melbourne, Tokyo and Nice. It is a great personal pleasure for me to see a number of my old friends among the Australian members of the Council, some of whom have, in the past, been my colleagues in various organisations connected with the arts, and to them I extend a very special welcome. I will only mention one, and that for a very special reason-James Fairfax. He has just, with unparalleled generosity, given our infant Japanese collection a much needed boost by presenting us with a splendid storage jar from Tokoname, one of the Six Old Kilns of Japan, which some of you will have seen in the Boardroom upstairs. Already, it has become known as the Fairfax jar. We, ourselves, bought the first jar-from Echizen-and we hope that other benefactors, especially Japanese companies, will follow Mr Fairfax's example and will give us the other four that we need to fill our hand, so to speak---one each from Bizen, Seto, Shigaraki and Tamba. 76