|
Article Excerpt
Philanthropy is the life-blood of large-scale cultural enterprise. Forced to compete in an aggressively affluent market, many supposedly public institutions rely for their growth, if not their existence, on the generosity of private benefactors. So important has this become that an entire field of scholarship has grown up around the circumstances of elite patronage. (1) Of particular interest to scholars are those remarkable gifts that have of themselves enabled recipient institutions to reach exceptional levels of achievement. In Australia, this singular and greatly prized occurrence has possibly no more legendary exemplar than the bequest made by businessman Alfred Felton to the National Gallery of Victoria at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Felton's will was drawn up in 1900. On his death some four years later, half the income from an estate of over 378,000 [pounds sterling] became available for the purchase of works of art. To date, this money, the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars today, has funded over fifteen thousand purchases, not only taking the gallery to the fore of Australia's cultural institutions, but also establishing its status in the international arena. To the frustration of Australian scholars, however, Felton's motivation has never been conclusively established. In 2003, John Poynter, in the introduction to his book, Mr Felton's Bequests, confessed to being 'teased by the thought that somewhere, in the detritus of the nineteenth century preserved in our archives and libraries, lies a piece of paper on which Felton, or one of his friends, recorded the origins of the impulses which led him to make the testament he did'. (2)
A story told by the descendants of L Bernard Hall, gallery director and master of its schools from 1892 to 1935, may instead hold the key. According to Hall's daughter, Alison Beardsley, the bequest originated very simply, in a conversation between her father and Alfred Felton at some point in 1900. (3) Hall was the longest serving director in the gallery's history, his tenure spanning what were arguably its most formative years. This family tradition would therefore seem feasible enough to warrant a place among the many propositions that make up the rich fabric of Felton folklore. A stumbling block to its acceptance, however, lies in a similarly complex mythology involving the character and personality of Bernard Hall himself. Described over time as a man of few friends but many enemies, respected but not liked by his students, aloof yet outspoken, lacking in humour or tact, intensely conservative and obsessed with the proposition that he and he alone knew what was best for 'his' gallery, (4) he appears little more than a sombre counterpoint to the plein air pantheon of the Heidelberg School. It is certainly not easy to reconcile this man with any modern concept of effective advocacy.
It is a measure of our faith in written histories that such a bleak characterisation has persisted, almost unchallenged, for the better part of a century. The accounts on which histories are based, however, often reflect the agendas of interested parties more accurately than they do the person or events concerned, and in Hall's case a number of parties were demonstrably hostile even before his arrival in Australia. There had been dissent, for example, among the trustees of the Public Library, Museums and National Gallery of Victoria over his appointment. As the full name of this institution indicates, its trustees had the task of administering three distinct foundations, the library taking precedence over the museums and gallery, which were regarded as its subordinate branches. To simplify their work, the trustees elected smaller committees to oversee each of the different sections. Recorded minutes indicate that committee meetings were not well attended at this time, (5) a few stalwarts shouldering the greater part of the workload, but sometimes also assuming a proprietorial authority over their particular section. One such man was octogenarian art critic, James Smith, the self-styled eminence grise of the gallery committee.
Despite a glowing recommendation from two highly qualified English advisors, Louis Fagan, assistant keeper of prints at the British Museum, and Luke Fildes RA, Smith had opposed Hall's appointment, favouring the candidature of Portuguese-born artist, Arthur Jose de Souza Loureiro. (6) In his eyes, the decision made by the majority of trustees to ratify the English selection not only impugned his expertise but challenged the authority of the gallery committee. It appears he responded by mounting a campaign to prove that his opposition to the Englishman's appointment had been justified. By virtue of his position he was able to thwart Hall's efforts to take effective control of his new domain, demanding the latter's subservience and blocking his initiatives whenever possible. (7) He was subsequently supported in this endeavour by fellow committee member John Mather, who was newly appointed to represent Melbourne's artists and a personal friend of Loureiro. Mather's enmity was focused, his attacks on Hall's competence ranging from attempts to discredit his teaching and accusations of carelessness involving pictures in the collection to a determined effort to prevent the renewal of his contract when this became due in 1895. (8)
To add to Hall's problems, many local artists believed that Frederick McCubbin should have retained the directorship he had enjoyed in an acting capacity since the death of George Folingsby in 1891. McCubbin was, by his own admission, not an efficient administrator, nor even a naturally gifted teacher. (9) He was, however, greatly loved by Melbourne's artistic fraternity, and Hall was seen as his usurper. A group of students who had taken up a petition in support of McCubbin were particularly vociferous in their opposition to the new master of the schools. Some of the most commonly cited criticisms of Hall's teaching originated in the writings of these rebellious adolescents, at least one...
|
