Betty Churcher, National Treasure
Born in 1931, as a young woman Churcher quickly worked out that her talent as an artist was outweighed by her ambition. Although she won a scholarship to study in Europe and an MA from the Courtauld Institute, it was not enough. Instead, she set out to be a curator and great art historian. She's more than that, though, because in a varied career that has so far spanned more than four decades, she has combined scholarship with a popular touch and brought the world of art to millions.
She was The Australian's art critic between 1972 and 1975 (and their Australian of the year in 1977) before switching horses to become Dean of the Philip Institute in Melbourne, then director of the Art Gallery of WA. She became a national figure as director of the National Gallery in Canberra, putting the gallery on the map at home and overseas with a string of major exhibitions that earned her the nickname Betty Blockbuster.
Art world types criticised her penchant for the big show, but Canberra loved it - the motels, hotels and eateries boomed as never before as visitors flocked to the national capital and realised it wasn't just pollies and public servants. Canberra's cultural life was stimulated into growth and expansion and it's not an exaggeration to say that the vibrant city of today is directly attributable to Churcher's Golden Summers era.
After retiring from the ANG/NGA Churcher was freed up to pursue a new interest: TV documentaries. The first series: Take Five was screened by the ABC and suddenly Australia had a secular, glamorous Sister Wendy.
Eye to Eye and The Proud Possessors followed, then - for SBS TV - the seminal The Art of War - with a book written by Churcher (Melbourne University Press) and a script that won the 2005 NSW Premier's Literary Award for best screenplay.
You'll need to be a good fossicker to find these series nowadays, however, check at abconline and while The Best of Dad's Army Vol 2 or anything by Enid Blyton is easily available, the Churcher art series are not. And if you think the Screensound shop might be the place to look for important Australian screen work - forget it. But they could sell you an Elvis in Las Vegas 550 piece jigsaw.
So it's just as well that Churcher keeps on keeping on and is showing not a sign of running out of steam or subject matter. The new series of five minute gems -Hidden Treasures goes to air just before the news at 6.50pm on ABC TV each Thursday for the next 15 weeks, starting February 22.
[page]Episode One - February 22 - Stylishly filmed with music by Paul Grabowsky is an exploration of the NGA's unique collection of costumes from the Ballets Russes. If you don't get a shiver when Betty wonderingly points out Matisse's own brushstrokes on one of these beautiful, rare and fragile garments, then you're probably dead and something is propping you up.
Episode Two - March 1 - Admirers of Matisse will be intrigued at how Churcher artlessly moves from Islamic art's inspiration of the young artist to the paper cut-outs of his last years. Exhilarating and revelatory.
Episode Three - March 8 - The art that artists collect is - as Churcher says - always fascinating. Max Ernst collected a bewildering array of art, as befitted a Surrealist, probably. West Papuan "primitive" art from the collection of Jacob Epstein has also fetched up in the NGA's basement.
Episode Four - March 15 - Alexandra Exter was a theatre designer whose politics and art converged in the geometry and stark colours of Bolshevism and Russian Constructivism. Unlike her compatriot, Natalia Goncharova, she died in poverty and obscurity in 1949 in France. But some of her work - the marionettes in this film - are at the NGA.
Episode Five - March 22 - The "lurking terror" of war - the Spanish Civil War and then World War 2 - was the underlying influence on a group of young artists whose responses to that terror gave us the first discrete Australian contribution to art: Australian Surrealism. It wasn't about how it looked - but how it felt. Featuring Mant, Gleeson, Tucker and Nolan.
Episode Six - March 29 - The art of Fiona Hall is whimsical, humorous, profound and marvellous. Much of it is fragile - lucky then that a lot is in the tender care of the NGA's conservators. "She brings us face to face with the fragile nature of beauty," says Churcher. "Money doesn't grow on trees and Fiona Hall reminds us that there are some things money can't buy."
Episode Seven - April 5 - Violet Teague and Jessie Traill - have money, will travel. These middle class emancipists were fine artists but, as Churcher notes, have remained a footnote in Australian art. See how good they were, their influences and some of their finest work.
Episode Eight - April 12 - Claude Flight's vision was art for the masses: a picture for the price of a cinema ticket. He championed the lino cut as did his most famous Australian protégées, Dorrit Black, Evelyn Syme and Ethel Spowers. He "urged his students to concentrate on the dynamics of modern life," says Churcher. Privilege and talent were a fabulous mix. Flight's original three-guinea lino cut would now cost $70,000 - so much for democratisation of art.
[page]Episode Nine - April 19 - The advent of lithography and the rise of popular entertainment equalled unparalleled opportunities for commerce and art in the poster. Toulouse-Lautrec might be the most famous, but Churcher takes us through the variety of subjects and goods gloriously spruiked by different artists.
Episode Ten - April 26 - Whoever said "the camera doesn't lie" has never taken a photograph. The various recordings of bushranger Joe Byrne's "death" at Glenrowan are classics. So is David Moore's "Migrants" - and both sets of photographs are constructed on "lies".
Episode Eleven - May 3 - Rarely seen are these fragile 19th century sketchbooks by Tommy McRae. He died in 1901 and his pen and ink drawings are among the earliest surviving works by an Aboriginal artist. Mickey of Ulladulla is another whose work is startlingly accurate, dynamic and individual.
Episode Twelve - May 3 - A map of Srinagar, the embroidered art of a Kashmiri shawl and the contemporary Australian art of William Robinson. How will Churcher connect them? Hint: a mandala is a design that encapsulates the universe - a "spiralling sweep through time and space."
Episode Thirteen - May 17 - The Burghers of Calais, in the NGA's gardens are displayed as Rodin intended: at ground level rather than on the traditional distancing plinth. A "human tragedy" rather than a "civic monument" - put like this and they become so much more than mere sculpture. As well, Churcher marvels at the journey from 1879 to 1899 - from little clay maquette in the NGA's collection to the finished grandeur in metropolitan Paris - of Jules Dalou's Monument to the Republic.
Episode Fourteen - May 24 - William Dobell's private aide memoires - his drawings and sketchbooks - were never meant to be seen, but here they reveal in illuminating detail how the artist worked. See what Margaret Olley looked like going home on the tram after an all night party. See how Dobell develops "the theatrical pose and the riveting gaze".
Episode Fifteen - May 31 - Ann Dangar, ceramicist, left for France in her early 40s never to return. Share Churcher's delight in her Cubist teapot. At the other end of the national-international spectrum are Merric Boyd and Milton Moon, two ceramicists whose work is steeped in Australia's flora and fauna but is equally modernist and dynamic.
