{"id":7545,"date":"2016-10-02T07:02:17","date_gmt":"2016-10-02T06:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/janetgover.com\/?p=7545"},"modified":"2016-10-02T07:02:17","modified_gmt":"2016-10-02T06:02:17","slug":"the-pm-and-the-painting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/australia\/the-pm-and-the-painting\/","title":{"rendered":"The PM and the painting"},"content":{"rendered":"

I met an old friend at London\u2019s Royal Academy the other day … a friend who caused a million dollar controversy in Australia when I was still at school. I remember it so well.<\/p>\n

The \u2018friend\u2019 I am referring to is Jackson Pollock\u2019s iconic painting \u2013 Blue Poles. Painted in 1952, it was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia in 1973 for the sum of one point three million dollars. At the time that was a world record sum for a painting by a contemporary artist.<\/p>\n

\"Blue
Blue Poles (photo from Wikipedia). No photo could ever do it justice. It is teeming with life and energy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The director of the National Gallery was unable to spend more than \u00a31,000,000 \u2013 so approval for the purchase was given by the then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. And what a fuss that caused.<\/p>\n

Whitlam is, of course, remembered as the Prime Minister who was sacked by the Queen\u2019s Australian Representative in 1975 in the country\u2019s great constitutional crisis. He was the country\u2019s first Labor Prime Minister for more than 20 years and his policies were pretty controversial all round. As was his taste in art. I remember because my father was simply apoplectic at what he called a waste of money on a daub that a four year could have done.<\/p>\n

\"Photo
Photo from the Sydney Morning herald of gallery director James Mollison and Prime Minister Whitlam with THAT painting. The PM is the tall one – he was 6ft 4.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Everyone said it was a waste of money. Isn\u2019t it strange how wrong \u2018everyone\u2019 can be.<\/p>\n

The painting is now the highlight of the National Gallery\u2019s collection and is valued at somewhere between 20 and 100 million dollars \u2013 depending on who you ask. It\u2019s also a focal point of the current Abstract Expressionist exhibition at the Royal Academy \u2013 alongside some wonderful works by Mark Rothko and Clyfford Still and others.<\/p>\n

I love Blue Poles. I probably shouldn\u2019t. I was raised with my father\u2019s appreciation of art \u2013 in which Monet was considered modern and a bit \u2018out there\u2019. But the first time I saw Blue Poles \u2013 I quite simply fell in love. There\u2019s such energy and passion and brilliance in it. It teems with life. And no \u2013 a four year old couldn\u2019t have done it.<\/p>\n

\"Pollock
Pollock at work – one of the pictures taken by Hans Namuth<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After my first encounter with Blue Poles (or Number 11 as Pollock originally called it), I found more of his work and began to really appreciate it. When I was living in the US, I was privileged to visit his studio on Long Island.<\/p>\n

\"Pollock's
The studio is quite small and plain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The floor of the studio (and the walls too) is covered with paint where he wielded his tools which such passion. I confess, I was a little put out that we were allowed to walk on that floor (albeit with our shoes off and wearing special slippers). In time, our feet will leave their traces \u2013 and it would be such a shame to spoil that floor. It said so much about the man who worked there.<\/p>\n

\"The
The studio floor – I must point out, those are not my feet.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Pollock struggled much of his life with alcoholism \u2026 and died in a car crash while driving drunk on 1956. He was only 44.<\/p>\n

\"This
This is an older work by Pollock – from the RA exhibition.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The range of Pollock’s work even in those few years is astounding. Looking at his early work, there’s nothing to show he would one day paint something like Blue Poles.<\/p>\n

I have to wonder what he would have done if he hadn\u2019t died so tragically young.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I met an old friend at London\u2019s Royal Academy the other day … a friend who caused a million dollar controversy in Australia when I was still at school. I remember it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12,14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-history","category-museums-and-art-galleries","category-my-travels"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnhocking.net\/jg2025demo1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}