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Eileen
Chanin and Steven Miller (with Judith
Pugh)
Degenerates and Perverts: The 1939 Herald
Exhibition of French and British Contemporary
Art
Miegunyah Press, $69.95hb, 306pp, 0 522
85104 5
IN
THE 1930S the notorious art critic and
gallery director J.S. MacDonald felt
it was his patriotic duty to protect
Australia from the morally suspect culture
of Europe, where, he exclaimed, 'the
pictorial symptoms of the degeneracy
of France [is] enfeebled by the rule
of functionaries, and … Mittel
Europe [is] crushed and torn between
Nazi, Bolshevist and Fascist megalomaniacs'.
Not a man to mince words, MacDonald
also expressed his horror of what was
arguably Australia's first blockbuster
exhibition, the 1939 Herald Exhibition
of French and British Contemporary Art,
suggesting that it was the work of 'degenerates
and perverts'. As the then Director
of the National Gallery of Victoria,
MacDonald was a man of influence, and
his outspoken views were transmitted
widely.
The exhibition was mounted in all states
except Western Australia and attracted
a total of more than 70,000 visitors.
People were eager to see for themselves
just what it was about modern European
art that was causing such a fuss. The
urbane art dealer and critic Basil Burdett
was selected as the exhibition organiser
by Keith Murdoch, Editor-in-Chief of
the Melbourne Herald (the exhibition
sponsor) and trustee of the National
Gallery of Victoria. Burdett's curatorial
mission was to select the 'best from
abroad'. With only five months to arrange
everything, Burdett managed to secure
the cooperation of museums, private
collectors, dealers, critics and art
societies across Europe, drawing on
his own considerable connections and
those of Murdoch. The resulting show
comprised 217 works, mainly paintings,
but with a sprinkling of works on paper
and sculptures by French luminaries
- Picasso, Matisse, Gauguin, Van Gogh,
Bonnard, Vuillard, Toulouse-Lautrec,
Cézanne, Modigliani, Léger
and Dalí, among others - and
a smaller number of British artists
who are slightly less well known today:
Walter Sickert, Stanley Spencer, Ben
Nicholson, Graham Sutherland and Paul
Nash, to name a few. The aim of the
exhibition was to provide the Australian
public with an overview of modernist
art during the previous seventy-five
years.
The 1939 exhibition has frequently been
mentioned in Australian art histories.
Yet, as the authors of a new publication
point out, it has also been the subject
of numerous misconceptions and inaccuracies,
which have been compounded by time.
In Degenerates and Perverts: The
1939 Herald Exhibition of French and
British Contemporary Art, Eileen
Chanin and Steven Miller have aimed
to straighten the record by researching
in depth this extraordinary event -
what exactly was in it, where the works
are now, where and when it was shown,
how many people visited, how it was
received - incorporating their findings
into a vital new history of Australian
modernism between the wars. The impressive
result is an excellent piece of scholarship
that combines a wealth of art historical
detail with an engaging and intelligent
narrative, and a handsome production.
While a similarly controversial exhibition
of French Post-Impressionism had opened
in London almost thirty years earlier
(prompting Virginia Woolf to exclaim
that '… on or about December 1910
human character changed'), on the eve
of World War II Australian audiences
had rarely been exposed firsthand to
the radical advances in art that had
been taking place since the late nineteenth
century. As Chanin and Miller argue
in their book, the time was ripe for
change and the Australian public hungered
for it (although, as with MacDonald,
for many visitors the exhibition simply
confirmed their deeply held suspicions
about the antics of foreign artists
in modern times).
The exhibition opened, and was generally
well received, in Adelaide, where, as
the book argues, society was more open
minded than in the more conservative
cities to the east. But it was Melbourne
where Murdoch's publicity machine went
into overdrive and which attracted the
highest crowds (variously cited as 45,000
or 48,000). In Sydney, once it had been
shown at the David Jones' Art Gallery,
the outbreak of war prevented the exhibition
from being shipped back to Europe. Rather,
a selection of works was lent to the
Art Gallery of New South Wales for display.
When Gallery Director Will Ashton and
his trustees decided after several months
that the more conservative permanent
collection needed to replace the European
works on display, and the latter were
relegated to storage, an almighty row
broke out in the daily press about the
value of modern art and the competency
of the Gallery's Director and its trustees.
Degenerates and Perverts demonstrates
that the exhibition was a powerful catalyst
for cultural change across Australia,
and tells its compelling story against
a rich social and political backdrop.
While the book contains insights that
are new to Australian art scholarship,
and should be commended for its comprehensive
use of primary sources (including many
oral histories), it rarely acknowledges
important secondary sources, apart from
in its comprehensive bibliography. For
example the important work of Mary Eagle
and many others over the last fifteen
years is overlooked when the authors
incorrectly say: '… the 1890s and
the innovations of the Heidelberg school
of painters are seen as the golden age
of painting. Little else is thought
to have happened until a revival occurred
after World War II.' While that may
once have been the case it is not generally
accepted to be the case today. The other
main weakness of the book is the introduction
by Judith Pugh, which required tighter
editing. A personal recollection of
the exhibition could have provided a
more compelling introduction to a history
whose living links with the present
are rapidly dwindling.
The art historian will find the book's
appendices fascinating reading, particularly
the annotated catalogue, an ambitious
project which has been meticulously
crafted with an archivist's eye for
detail (Steven Miller has been the Archivist
at the Art Gallery of New South Wales
for many years). Where possible, each
work has been carefully traced to its
current location, and full catalogue
details (and in many cases a colour
photograph) are provided. With three-quarters
of the works for sale during the exhibition
(and many of them now in some of the
great public collections around the
world), it is clear that Australia's
state galleries largely missed out on
a great opportunity to acquire works
by some of Europe's best avant-garde
artists, works that they now could not
afford. Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne
bought works by Spencer, Henry Tonks,
Sickert and André Derain among
others, but on the whole the works that
stayed in Australia's public collections
tended to be safe and conservative.
The best works - Cézanne's portrait
of his wife, for example, or the Modigliani
nude - got away.
Degenerates and Perverts is filled
with wonderful photographs of the exhibition's
original displays (dense by modern standards),
its catalogues (brief and simple), satirical
drawings from the press, artist's sketchbooks
and portraits of the story's main protagonists,
many of which are accompanied by lively
captions. It deals with the exhibition
as a genuinely national event, rather
than simply focusing on its reception
in Sydney and Melbourne, as is so often
the case. The book sheds light not only
on the story's main players - Burdett,
Murdoch and MacDonald - but also on
some of the important yet less well-known
women teachers and promoters of Australian
modernism - Eleonore Lange, Mary P.
Harris, May Marsden and Alleyne Clarice
Zander. In all, Degenerates and Perverts
is a good story well told, and much
more. It is essential reading for anyone
interested in Australian art and culture
of the twentieth century.
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