REVIEW OF THE AUSTRALIA COUNCIL MAY 2012 - Creative ...

IntroductionIn 1973, the National Gallery of Australia purchased Jackson Pollock’s seminal work, Blue Poles, for theprincely sum of $1.3 million – a record for contemporary American artwork at the time. The purchaseelicited public outrage that it was elitist, extravagant and could have been far better spent on community artprojects or more traditional (and popular) artforms. When asked about the purchase in the week of itsannouncement, then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam distanced himself from the decision, noting that it hadbeen made at arm’s length from the Government by the Gallery’s Acquisitions Committee. This did not stophim, however, from using the image three months later for his annual Christmas card. 1Today Blue Poles is widely recognised as one of the most savvy purchases in the national collection. It isfortuitous that the purchase was not subject to political or public will: what the Gallery’s AcquisitionsCommittee knew was the importance of this work – both to the international art world and in the Australiancontext. With the benefit of hindsight, we can see that the purchase was part of a major social and culturaltransformation. On the one hand, Australia was still a socially conservative nation looking to England for itscultural, social and political legitimacy. At the same time, it was being belatedly influenced by post-warchanges arising out of the civil rights and women’s movements and was beginning to develop its own pointsof cultural, social and political reference. In a sense, Australia was finally coming of age.1973 saw another far-sighted development for the Australian arts sector. The Australia Council, which hadfive years earlier been created as a division of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, was finallyestablished as a separate agency operating at arm’s length from government. At the time, the arts sectorwas in a fledgling form, lacking serious funding and a strong identity. In the Council’s first annual report itsinaugural Chairman, Dr H.C. Coombs (known as ‘Nugget’ Coombs) described the conditions in the sector thatled to the Council’s conception and ultimate creation:“In the performing arts the professional companies, with one or two exceptions, were small,precariously financed and inexperienced. Even among the handful of large companies, none wasmore than two decades old...while in literature, the visual arts and the crafts many creativeindividuals were forced to compromise their standards in order to survive. The Aboriginal arts, exceptwhere they struggled to survive underground, were largely underappreciated or ignored. Intensifyingthe effects of this thinness of professional activity, there was a lack of professional organisationscapable of stimulating the performance or protecting the rights of artists”. 2When nursing the Council’s enabling legislation through Parliament, Prime Minister Whitlam highlighted theoverseas exodus of Australian cultural expertise and indicated that the new Council would address this as afunding body designed to foster and support excellence in Australian artistic practice – “we want to ensurethat our greatest artists remain in Australia, and that the whole Australian community is the richer for theirpresence.” 3Compare this scene with the Australian arts sector today. It is no exaggeration to say that it has transformedin its sophistication and scope. Australia now punches far above its weight on the international arts stage, it1 L. Barrett, The Prime Minister’s Christmas Card, (Power Publications, Sydney; 2001), p.10.2 H. C. Coombs, Chairman’s Report, Australia Council Annual Report 1973, p. 14, quoted in H. Guldberg, The ArtsEconomy 1968-1998, (Australia Council, Sydney; 2000), p.85.3 Second Reading Speech, Australia Council Bill 1974, 23 July 1974.6