Vew from the chair: Speeches of Richard WL Austin

14 Speech at the opening of 'Uncommon Australians: Towards an Australian Portrait Gallery', 25 August 1992 This evening I have two pleasant duties to perfo.rm : first, to thank Mr Gordon Darling for what he has just said, especially for his generous words about the Gallery, and, more i:mportantly, to thank both him and Mrs Darling for the initiatives and efforts on their pa·rt which have made this exhibition possible and which, it is hoped, may ultimately result in the establishment of an Australian Portrait Gallery; .and, second, to introduce Sir Jack Brabham, who is going to open the exhibition. We in Queensland and, indeed, all Australians owe a great debt of gratitude to Mr and Mrs Darling. Although as convenors they may be breaking new ground-I have never heard the term used before in relation to an exhibition-as patrons they are certainly part of the long and admirable tradition of private support for the arts, which has played such a significant role throughout history, stretching from Maecenas in Augustan Rome through the Medici in Florence, and Wallace and Courtauld in London, to Felton in Melbourne, Archibald in Sydney, Moran in Murwillumbah, and Manton in Brisbane. Portrait galleries, in particular, have had their share of private initiative and patronage. The Scottish National Portrait Gallery was almost entirely the result of the mt;1nificence of John Richie Foley, proprietor of The Scotsman newspaper. He was responsible not only for the initial idea, but also for the £70 000 needed to build the Gallery itself. The National Portrait Gallery in London was brought into being by the pertinacity of Lord Mahon, later the Fifth Earl Stanhope, who kept pushing the idea in Parliament until it was at last accepted. The Irish Portrait Gallery owes its collection-now unfortunately scattered-to the Director of the National Gallery in Dublin, Henry Doyle, who, when denied a grant from the Government, directed his own efforts to the acquisition of Irish portraits. So, I think it is fair to say that, in the realm of ideas, the Darlings are right up front and in good company. But, as we know from T. S. Eliot, Between the idea and the reality falls the shadow . In this materialistic age, the shadow is usually money, but let me say, for the benefit of the faint-hearted, that the National Portrait Gallery was established when England's · national debt stood at £43 million, a gigantic sum in the 1850s. Perhaps the deficit disclosed in the recent Federal Budget may yet be seen as a reason to rejoice rather than to despair. Money may not prove to be a shadow after all. Let us hope. The real shadow will be the criteria on which portraits for the gallery will be chosen. 79