Christ Church Brunswick

Nicholas Draffin

Nicholas revelled in the depth and quality of the National Gallery’s collection of prints and drawings. Everything he studied he approached thoroughly with complete absorption, commitment and enthusiasm, and his work, especially on the Seymour Heyden collection and on William Blake was significant for its care and erudition.

Nicholas made careful notations of Blake’s inscriptions in his characteristic handwriting – precise and legible, but ever so minuscule. He eschewed ballpoint pens and only ever wrote with a black rapidograph or more often a pencil.

In 1972, Nicholas joined the Art Gallery of New South Wales, working with Daniel Thomas. It was a marvellous period when the gallery had just expanded and there were important projects to tackle. He was the first curator of Prints and Drawings at the Gallery and had to create a print room virtually from scratch. This he did, basing the print room on the model of the National Gallery of Victoria which in turn was based on the British Museum, effectively bringing to Sydney and Australian art the great print room tradition.

Over the next 20 years he judiciously and steadfastly acquired works for the collection, building strengths and developing new facets, laying down, as one colleague described, a rich vein of treasures for future generations to delight in.

With limited resources he built up the European collection with works by artists such as Salvator Rosa, Tiepolo and Goya, and important groups of the Secessionist and Dada movements.

He was particularly interested in l9th century French artists, with purchases of Fragonard drawings, the Brabazon artists, Toulouse-Lautrec and especially Honore Daumier, building up a large holding of the latter which he exhibited in a major exhibition in 1991.

His acquisitions were of course not limited to European art for he judiciously purchased works by Australian artists from the past to the present, choosing them with characteristic discernment, and ensuring that the seriousness of great print room tradition was applied to contemporary art. He befriended many artists who appreciated the lively curiosity which underlay his commitment to art.

Nicholas’s curatorship and scholarship found expression in his many fine exhibitions and publications. His 1974 exhibition, Two Masters of the Weimar Republic: Lyonel Feininger and Hirschfeld-Mack was of major significance and was followed by pioneering exhibitions on artists such as Hilda Rix Nicholas and M. Napier Waller, his research on the latter being published as a book in 1978.

His research on Australian printmakers and his book Australian Woodcuts and Linocuts of the 20s and 30s, published in 1976, helped lead the way for the revival of interest in artists such as Thea Proctor and Margaret Preston.

Nick was extraordinarily generous in sharing his ideas and research, giving professional scholarly support to many, and the numerous publications which acknowledge his assistance bear testimony to his collegiality and generosity.

The diversity and scope of his curatorial work reflected Nicholas’s appreciation for art as the expression of ideas, embracing both the sacred and the profane. He found delight in all manner of art, as he did in life itself. Even the most minor work could take on new meaning or relevance when placed in one of his exhibitions.

His exhibitions always contained delightful visual jokes that a careful viewer could quietly stumble upon, with artists or particular works placed in witty and sometimes wicked juxtapositions. And he always thought up clever titles for exhibitions. When there was a plethora of shows titled from one artist to another, such as From Manet to Matisse, Nick quipped that he would title his next exhibition From Vermeer to eternity.

His expansive knowledge and appreciation for the obscure was invaluable when people brought in objects to the gallery on opinion day. No matter how insignificant the object, Nick could always find something interesting to say about it, so that the owners, although left in no doubt as to its artistic value, went away happy. On one occasion, two elderly sisters brought in a group of old cards that had been in their family for generations. No one had ever known what they were. But whilst many stood by and looked at them blankly, Nick gleefully rearranged them and the figure of Napoleon suddenly emerged from the puzzle. The sisters left the gallery as pleased as if they had discovered a Rembrandt.

Working with Nicholas was never dull, he could at times, however, adopt a difficult stance. His wonderful eccentricities and the fact that there was no division in his mind between work and the rest of his life, meant that he didn’t fit easily into the public service mould. It would be fair to say that he had a rather well developed suspicion of those in authority, and for Directors in particular he reserved his most irreverent witticisms. In fact the only Director he truly admired belonged to the past - E. L. Montefiore, etcher, businessman, and founder of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, whom Nick researched for many years, providing delight with each fresh bit of information he unearthed.

Nick left the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1991 and returned to Melbourne to take up the position of Macgeorge Fellow at The University of Melbourne. He was adviser to the University’s Grimwade Collection and also worked on a project for the Ballarat Art Gallery, a gallery among many that he loved.

(Based on an article by Frances Lindsay.)