InsideArt Education
DVD: The Gallerists
Interview 3: Jason Smith (Heide Museum of Modern Art)
Michel:
The Museum of Modern Art at Heide is, despite its size, one of
Australia’s most important public galleries. The birthplace of the
Australian modernist art movement, the historic Heide Museum
in Bulleen is also set in large gardens.
The museum is the former home of art patrons John and
Sunday Reed, who supported some of Australia’s most
important artists including such modernist greats as Sidney
Nolan, Albert Tucker, Joy Hester, Arthur Boyd and John
Perceval. Nolan’s famous Ned Kelly series was painted at the
original farmhouse building.
Jason Smith is the director at Heide and he treads a fine line as
curator of the historically significant collection while also
promoting and supporting contemporary artists.
This is one of my favourite galleries in the entire world, and right
now we have an Albert Tucker photographic exhibition which
really strikes at the very heart and core of what Heide is all
about.
Jason:
It certainly represents those artists we know were fundamental
to Heide’s history, and they are the Heide Circle. Tucker had a
wonderfully inquisitive eye, so this exhibition is an extraordinary
document of his artistic milieu. But Nolan is here at various
ages; Tucker himself; his first wife Joy Hester; the Boyds from
Murrumbeena with whom the Heide Circle were closely
associated; John Perceval; Mirka Mora. It’s a fantastic
compendium of all of those artists who make up the history of
the museum, and indeed contribute significantly to its collection.
So it’s a great show.
Michel:
Well this was really the crucible of modern art in Australia…
Jason:
It is.
Michel:
… for the post-war period, wasn’t it?
Jason:
It is. And in fact our founders, John and Sunday Reed,
supported young artists who were trying to push through artistic
conventions to a new visual language. So it’s great, in this
exhibition, to see those artists at such a young age, when they
were impressionable. And they’re radical. There’s no market for
their work; they’re pretty impoverished. But they’re collegiate;
they’re a collective; they’re a young generation. And it is a
crucible of modernism. And we see aspects of that throughout
this photography exhibition. Artists in their studios. We see
Nolan in his studio; we see the Boyds; we see Tucker and
Hester. And in the background, we see their works. And those
works we sometimes now see on the walls here at Heide as
well.
Michel:
Well I’ve noticed there’s the modern…
Jason:
Images of Modern Evil…
Michel:
…which I saw was in the background of a photograph of the
studio. It’s just amazing really.
Jason:
Yes, yeah. I think it’s always fascinating to see photographs of
artists’ studios with those masterpieces in the background;
leaning up against walls, giving us a sense of how the artist
worked. Particularly with a series like Images of Modern Evil, of
which there are around 40. So, he’s working in series, moving
through it. I’m fascinated by artist studios anyway. I like to see
the working environment. It becomes a quite special place, the
artist’s studio I think, ‘cause many artists talk about a kind of
magic that happens in the studio. And that’s not to sound too
new age about it, but when you’re immersed in your work, time
changes. Your sense of the outside world changes because
you’re so tuned in to what’s happening in the picture or the
sculpture or the object or the film or the photograph. So, it’s
great that there are so many studio shots.
Michel:
I mean if you look at it too, it was really an extraordinary period
to have Arthur Boyd, Sid Nolan, John Percival, Albert Tucker…
Jason:
Charles Blackman, Joy Hester. It’s a roll call of modernism. And
one of the things that fascinates me still, and that I try to
promote when we see early works by these artists on the walls
here, is that it’s very easy to think now that Nolan is a grand
presence in the scheme of Australian art history, as is Albert
Tucker and Arthur Boyd. But they were in their 20s. They were
young boys. I mean Arthur Boyd looks like a wicked little boy in
some of these photographs. I mean they were a fantastically
adventurous bunch. They needed to be. They needed to be
brave, they needed to be courageous because they had no
money, very few resources, which is why we see Charles
Blackman painting on both sides of the board; which is why
Nolan is using everyday household materials, because they’re
cheap and readily available. So we tend to forget that the
people we now know as great figures in the history of art, were
here at Heide, and around Heide as whippersnappers.
Michel:
Now I’ve noticed there’s a Yvonne Lenny, a shot of Yvonne
Lenny over there as well, which I actually her years later with
Arthur, but I didn’t realise that she was part of that circle as well,
so…
Jason:
No. And it was the same as Mary Boyd, and I mean of course
she was Arthur’s sister, so she was fundamental too. But it’s
wonderful seeing shots of a very young Yvonne Lenny, soon to
become Yvonne Boyd. And Yvonne is still with us. But, also to
see Mary Boyd as a young artist and a young woman, and her
subsequent role as John Perceval’s wife and then Sidney
Nolan’s wife. So their history is very rich, and indeed two of our
creators have just been with Mary Nolan in the past weeks, in
her house in Hertfordshire on the Welsh border.
Michel:
Oh right. It is very interesting that a public space like this does
actually do those sort of contemporary shows that you do. Is that
part of the philosophy of the gallery that you do that?
Jason:
Yes. Engaging with contemporary art is exactly what our
founders did. John and Sunday Reed were about contemporary
art, and so we maintain their ambitions and we honour their
legacy in supporting the most innovative, radical gestures they
could find. Not for the sake of it, but for the promotion of
genuinely new artistic languages and new forms that we’re
telling us something different about the world. And it’s
sometimes easy for people to think that Heide is a museum of
modern art, and therefore only is engaged with historical art:
That is not true. We maintain a balance in our program between
modernist work and contemporary art, as a way of reflecting on
our foundations; the very reason for the being of this museum,
and that is, that it engaged with the art of its time. That’s what
the Reeds did; that’s what we do. It’s quite a simple equation.