National Library of Australia News

t he language of inheritance Sheridan Palmer pays tribute to Kenneth Myer, whose life and contribution to the Library have been memorialised in a ground-breaking Australian tapestry below left n 2010 Neilma Gantner, Baillieu Myer culture and science, Myer moved quickly John Young and Cheryl Thornton at the Australian and Marigold Southey, together with and confidently across many fields of enquiry Tapestry Workshop, 2011 Iyounger members of the Myer family, and social landscapes. He was a consummate Courtesy John Young Studio commissioned a tapestry for the National observer of public affairs and a tenaciously Library of Australia commemorating the life dedicated businessman for whom success was and work of Kenneth Myer (1921–1992), Chair a by-product of expertise, skilful timing and of the Library from 1974 to 1982. The tapestry, a keenly perceptive view of the world—he which was unveiled on Lower Ground 1 in introduced the parking meter to Australia December 2011, was designed by the artist and conceived and built satellite shopping John Young and woven at the Australian centres, including Chadstone, Northland and Tapestry Workshop in Melbourne. As an Doncaster. He always aspired to the ultimate institution, the Library played an important state of accomplishment, which is perhaps why part in Myer’s professional life, especially in his science intrigued him and why he supported pursuit of knowledge, his assiduous attention the Howard Florey Institute and genomics to information technology and the modernising with such enormous enthusiasm. of bibliographic processes. Over the 21 years in To bring the inner and outer worlds of Ken which he was associated with the Library, he Myer into a visually articulated whole, artist was integral in steering its digital future. John Young chose a double-ground format and Many threads make up a person’s life. For multiple dialogues to capture and condense the a polymath, philomath and an extraordinarily ‘spirit of the man’. In the centre of the tapestry forward-looking philanthropist such as Ken we find a composite portrait reflecting the Myer, a tapestry is perhaps the perfect medium three defining ages of Ken Myer: as a 13-year- in which to memorialise his achievements, old boy, a young naval officer and the older legacies, aesthetics and passions. To him the patrician. These are surrounded by 11 vignette world was an exciting, information-laden leitmotifs—those recurrent themes or images map and he approached business and life that illuminated his character and motivated with vigour, a relentless curiosity and an his life and work—forming a didactic jigsaw unusual grace. He was a global and urban of eucalypts, cotton flowers, his favourite navigator and facilitator and, whether on camellias, an eighteenth-century Japanese the seas or tracking urban development or scroll and silk brocades. Together with an in forests of eucalypts or the halls of art, upper frieze of text, each image represents his deep interest in the sciences or the arts and is set upon a timeless background of a moonlit Japanese landscape. As Young says: ‘Making art not only means to recollect stories, but to reawaken an intrinsic ethical impulse in the present’. Born in Hong Kong, Young moved to Australia in 1967, where he read philosophy of science and aesthetics at the University of Sydney before turning to painting and sculpture. His work is concerned with trans-culturalism and humanitarianism and, having ‘moved’ through several cultures and straddled the ‘active principles’ of both the East and West, he was well positioned to interpret and translate Ken Myer’s life. The result is a beautifully modulated and elegant work that 22:: involved a close working relationship between profound sense of duty, an exhaustive work above John Young (b. 1965), artist the artist and the weavers at the Australian ethic and a deep sense of humanitarianism, John Dicks, Milena Paplinska, Tapestry Workshop, each seeking to render gained largely from his Russian-born father Cheryl Thornton, weavers Finding Kenneth Myer 2011 a remarkable life into a unified and visually Simcha, better known as Sidney. But another wool and cotton; 230 x 302 cm consummate woven picture. side co-existed when Ken worked and walked Gift of the Myer Family through the The ‘language of inheritance’, as Peter with nature; whether it was planting trees Tapestry Foundation of Australia Doherty said in his Kenneth Myer Lecture at Penders, gardening, learning about the below in 2001, is complex, both materially and biogenetics of cotton, or trout fishing in Kenneth Myer and family at biologically. Ken Myer was predestined as New Zealand and Alaska, his love of the Booroola in The Many Lives of Kenneth Myer by Sue Ebury the eldest son of Sidney and Merlyn Myer to bush or the snow country was an essential Carlton, Vic.: Miegunyah Press, inherit the mantle of the Myer firm. He came counterbalance to the intensity of his business 2008 Australian Collection to that duty when he was 13 years old and his life. At the family’s country property Booroola, Courtesy Neilma Gantner and father died. Groomed at home, at school and Ken’s passion for trees provided a sanctuary the Kenneth Myer family in the navy, his values became strenuously from the rigours of the commercial world exacting, and William Wordsworth’s line, and, as his biographer Sue Ebury points ‘The child is the father of the man’ holds out, the image he held on to during his resoundingly true for Ken Myer. Inheriting five years with the Royal Australian Navy privilege and position, and spending a or when he was becalmed in the Coral Sea childhood shuttled between two continents— at night, was that of the tree, a symbol America and Australia—he developed a of both land and home. Snapshots of the bi-cultural view of the world and how progress mottled bark of the Corymbia maculata and might be measured and achieved. the leaves of Eucalyptus grandis border the As with any remarkable person, paradoxes lower edge of the tapestry. exist and the artist instinctively followed these. Woven across the top of the tapestry are For most of Ken Myer’s life, he displayed a selected keywords that signify the interests the national library magazine :: march 2012 :: 23 and qualities including two newly developed colours, the most precious to weavers Cheryl Thornton, John Dicks and Ken Myer. The Milena Paplinska, under the guidance of Sara Japanese word Lindsay, began the weaving from the bottom iki translates as up, working the intricate shades in segments a sophisticated and rolling the tapestry as they progressed. manner, an With no room for error and unable to see aesthetic and the totality of their work until it was finished philosophic state and the threads of the loom cut and tied, this of harmony found tapestry, with its complex layering of image within a mature over image, proved one of the most challenging culture, which ever to be made at the Australian Tapestry is why he loved Workshop. It is a testament to the collaborative Japan and what skills of the weavers, a world-renowned above he found with Yasuko, his second wife. As workshop and an artist who has perceptively First Meeting of the Council of the National Library held at Koichi Tsukamoto says, quoted in Sue Ebury’s captured the quintessential markings of an Parliament House, Canberra, biography: innovative idealist. October 1960 black-&-white print The tapestry, which floats like a Ukiyo-e 15.4 x 20.3 cm There are two kinds of Australians, one is landscape, memorialises a man who lived in Pictures Collection … white in their mind … Europe is the the present, admired the past, yet looked to nla.pic-vn4550510 centre, but the others, like Ken Myer, are the future. For many who knew or worked below left members of Asia, their roots are in Asia. with Ken Myer, he was something of a Henk Brusse for the National modern-day Medici, one who vigorously Library of Australia Kenneth Myer Addresses the Ken respected Eastern cultures for their imbued the science and cultural landscape Audience at His Farewell instinctual ability to find a balance ‘between with his ideologies and wealth. He saw Ceremony, Canberra, 5 February 1982 holding on to what is best from the past’ and ‘a the digital age as an optimum necessity black-&-white negative vision … about the future’. In the latter part of in a globalised world and his commitment 6 x 6 cm his life he came to understand the counterpoise to technological progress never waned, Pictures Collection nla.pic-vn4350698 between reflection and action, and that life whether it was at the National Library of must be balanced in opposition. His ‘repining Australia, the Howard Florey Institute, the below right restlessness’, as Davis McCaughey described Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Henk Brusse for the National Library of Australia it, characterised Ken’s intellectual curiosity in National Gallery of Victoria, the Victorian Portrait of George Chandler, both the detail and the large picture, and his Arts Centre, the CSIRO, the National Allan Fleming, Kenneth yearning for a state of repose, which he sought Capital Development Commission or his Myer, Harrison Bryan and Harold White at the Farewell in the sensual elements of nature. family flagship Myer. It is as a generous Ceremony, Canberra, One of the more difficult parts of the weaver’s visionary, a driving and altruistic force who 5 February 1982 black-&-white negative job in creating a tapestry is to accurately colour nurtured cultural exchanges and implemented 6 x 6 cm code the artist’s vision and translate each detail economic and cultural advancements that Pictures Collection into the weft and warp of the loom.

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