The politics of patronage: Australian art for export 1953-1964

© 2004 Dr. Sarah Russell ScottBetween 1953 and 1964 a series of major Australian art commissions and survey exhibitions were presented overseas, predominantly in London. This thesis examines how these were put together and what critical response they received. These art exports give an insight into the official image of nation the government wished to present overseas. An investigation of the policies surrounding art for export also exposes the central role played by the hitherto overlooked division of the Prime Minister's Department, the Commonwealth Arts Advisory Board (CAAB). Closely connected with Prime Minister Robert Menzies, this organization controlled official Australian cultural export. They were responsible for the selection of works for the Australian representation at the Venice Biennale of 1958 and the mural commission at London's Australia House of 1959 discussed in Chapter two. This official image of art and nation stimulated enormous debate and controversy amongst the Australian contemporary arts community concerning the nature of Australian art and identity. Disputes focused upon the nature of an Australian art tradition and its relationship to an international arts practice. They recalled the disputes between radicals and conservatives generated by Menzies attempts to establish an Australian Art Academy in 1938. The thesis will reveal that prewar conservative ideologies continued to influence the postwar Australian art scene. This study will also seek to identify why the 'receptive audience' for Australian art in England proved to be a short lived phenomenon by examining the critical response to these exhibitions in relation to the broader context of Anglo-Australian and Commonwealth relations. The disputes between the Contemporary community and the CAAB came to a head over the CAAB's selection for Australian Painting: Colonial Impressionist Contemporary (Australian Painting) discussed in Chapter three. The tensions between the Tate Gallery authorities and the CAAB, alongside the British critical response to the show intersected with broader post-colonial debates. Was Australian Painting continuing the tradition of Empire art shows held in London or was it a post-colonial statement of Australian independence? Chapter four focuses upon Recent Australian Painting presented at London's Whitechapel Art Gallery and curated by Bryan Robertson. Although this challenged the CAAB's official account presented in Australian Painting, the exhibition has been criticized for conforming with the colonial stereotype of Australian art and artists as a primitive and exotic phenomenon. By exposing the involvement of Australian painters and State Art Gallery Directors with Recent Australian Painting, this thesis will question this account. The final chapter examines the fate of the survey exhibitions Australian Painting and Sculpture in Europe Today and Australian Painting Today, both presented in Europe between 1963 and 1965. This presentation of Australian art outside of Britain raised a set of new dilemmas. Could Australian artists maintain their identity and also engage with a European and American dominated 'international' contemporary abstract art practice? Was the success of Australian art dependent upon a unique post-colonial relationship between London patrons and Australian artists? Finally, what impact were the broader politics of External Affairs and Trade having upon Australian cultural export? This chapter will also reconsider the achievements of the curators of these exhibitions, Alannah Coleman and Laurie Thomas, and will suggest that they should be given greater acknowledgement within Australian art historical accounts. The disputes stimulated by these exhibitions played an integral role within broader debates about Australian identity