JAMES GLEESON INTERVIEWS: RUTH McNICOLL 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Ruth you’ve had a long association with art in this country and in some ways you’ve been a pioneer in certain areas. But could you tell us first of all how you became interested in art? Do you come from a family that had a close connection with art or is it a personal thing?
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I think it was a pretty arty family. My grandfather was a friend of a number of the Heidelberg school artists.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, was he?
RUTH McNICOLL: There are pictures of him, you know, linking arms with Streeton.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes. What was your Grandfather’s name?
RUTH McNICOLL: Theodore Fink.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh yes, of course.
RUTH McNICOLL: And Dyson and Blamire Young, and, you know, he always seemed to have Blamire Young floating around in the house.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: He was quite a patron, I think, and he certainly was very interested.
JAMES GLEESON: I see, and you grew up in an atmosphere where art was a sort of normal sort of—
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, we did. Yes. Where my Mama bought a painting, I must admit, by Harold Herbert, rather than get a new car. You know, it was that sort of values, I think, that we had; books and art and music and things like that.
JAMES GLEESON: When did you become, you know, really actively involved in the art world?
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, that wasn’t until quite late in the piece after I divorced my husband, who was in the navy, and found that there I was with three children and not enough money and I had to do something. Dear Helen Ogilvie, who possibly you’ve spoken to—
JAMES GLEESON: No, I haven’t yet. 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: She’d been looking after the Peter Bray Gallery, which of course is no more; it didn’t last very long after I’d been there. She was going away and she said, look, you know, ‘Would you like to take on the job while I’m away?’.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: So I walked into Peter Bray with no knowledge whatsoever and it was a sort of 10 till 5 job, I think.
JAMES GLEESON: Looking after the gallery?
RUTH McNICOLL: Looking after the gallery, running the gallery. She’d got the exhibitions more or less arranged for that year.
JAMES GLEESON: What year was that?
RUTH McNICOLL: That was, I think it would have been ’56. So I took on Ken Rowell and I think Barry Kay and there were a number of people of that sort of persuasion, and occasionally someone would drop out and I had to put a show together myself.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I put on one called Seven Sculptors that was, you know, a bit of a wow really. It was a dear little gallery, a very charming gallery.
JAMES GLEESON: Whereabouts was it?
RUTH McNICOLL: On the hill going up from Elizabeth Street, up Bourke Street.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Before you get to Queen.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: It was really a sort of soft furnishing interior decoration place, but they had this gallery on the first floor. Helen had kept up a very good standard there and I think I did. But then I think the place was taken over by somebody else and finally the building was torn down. So I, in the meantime, had been persuaded to take on Brummell’s Gallery by Pat Collins, who was running the coffee shop. That was a little gallery about 2 by 10, you know. So I ran that as my own thing and I paid him the rent. We used to have very gay openings on Sunday mornings. It was just packed from floor to ceiling and the stairs as well. In those days, of course, in fact—
JAMES GLEESON: Was this in the fifties?
2 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, the end of the fifties. People like Rudy Komon used to come in with a little case full of little Dobell’s–European painters who one had never heard of and probably still hasn’t–and sell them, you know, practically for a song. He used to stay in those days. You know, he was just an itinerant person.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, I know. That’s how he began.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: So that always was interesting. I had a lot of very interesting shows there, including Clem Meadmore.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, really? That must have been one of his earliest shows.
RUTH McNICOLL: One of his earliest. I think he’d gone bankrupt about twice already, and he didn’t do much good out of the show.
JAMES GLEESON: Sculpture was a hard thing in those days.
RUTH McNICOLL: But he reorganised the entire gallery.
JAMES GLEESON: Did he?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. I think I went home on Friday night or Saturday morning or something, and Clem said, ‘Just leave it to me’. He hung white swags of cloth; he was a designer really.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, of course, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: When I came in on Monday morning I was absolutely amazed. Beautiful little old delicate things he did then.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Rather more like Klippel, but not quite, you know.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, I remember his very early ones.
RUTH McNICOLL: Not what he went into later when he went to New York with the great big forms.
JAMES GLEESON: No. Was there any interest in sculpture in those days? Did they sell (inaudible)?
RUTH McNICOLL: Not as far as buying, no. No. Well, those seven people that I had at Bray’s, if I could remember their names, Zickerus, Mezarosh, who was very difficult to deal with I must say. Wasn’t pleased about how I put his things,
3 11 February 1980 you know. Cliffy Last. Oh, mustn’t call him Cliffy. He told me not to. Clifford Last. Now, who else was there?
JAMES GLEESON: Was Jomantas there then?
RUTH McNICOLL: Jomantas. Yes. There must have been three others. Oh, I think there was one—
JAMES GLEESON: Lenton Parr?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, Len Parr. Yes, he had some of those insect like art pieces.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, did he? Yes. Stephen Walker?
RUTH McNICOLL: No, another Melbourne one, and I think Norma.
JAMES GLEESON: Norma Redpath?
RUTH McNICOLL: Norma Redpath. I think.
JAMES GLEESON: Well, that sounds a pretty good show.
RUTH McNICOLL: It was a very good show. And that extraordinary little man called Danny. Do you remember Danny Petrie?
JAMES GLEESON: No.
RUTH McNICOLL: Has anyone mentioned him?
JAMES GLEESON: No.
RUTH McNICOLL: He was a strange eccentric character. He came in and he said ‘It is just like a place in Paris. It has style’, you know, and it did. It did. You know, it was a good gallery for placing things in.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes. But again, it was difficult to sell stuff during that—
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh yes, yes. The prices, of course, were quite absurd.
JAMES GLEESON: Absurdly cheap?
RUTH McNICOLL: Absurdly cheap.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. l I think Lenton’s little piece, he had a series of little pieces, and they were about 20 guineas or something like that and didn’t sell at that, you know.
4 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Hasn’t there been an extraordinary change in the last 20 years?
RUTH McNICOLL: Amazing. Yes, yes. Well, I’ve seen it all happen. So I went on at Brummells for about a year, and then John Reed began asking me to come to the Museum of Modern Art.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: And was most persuasive. I thought, well, it does seem a good idea. Of course it was before its time.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I was persuaded to go there. I spent about a year working there. I opened another gallery in that sort of derelict old place at Tavistock Lane, off Flinders Street.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: Maybe it’s still there, maybe it’s not. It was a most run-down sort of building. I opened another gallery; he broke a door through and I was supposed to be running this other gallery. I had some lovely shows. I had Fairweather.
JAMES GLEESON: Really?
RUTH McNICOLL: You could buy Fairweathers. The Macquarie girls sent me up those.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: They were 25 guineas.
JAMES GLEESON: Would this be about 1960?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, around about then, ’59 ’60.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, (inaudible).
RUTH McNICOLL: And even those, you see, those didn’t sell.
JAMES GLEESON: No, no.
RUTH McNICOLL: Brian Finnamore bought one for 25 guineas and later sold it for about a thousand, I think. Very soon after really; within five years, I would say.
JAMES GLEESON: It’s hard now to realise how under appreciated they were in the beginning, those major artists.
5 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, absolutely; ridiculous to think of. Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Any other shows you can remember of interest?
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, there were a lot of, you know, the people we know and love best bumbling in and out in those days.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: You had Perceval and Bert Tucker came back during that time after his 11 years abroad. I think the Contemporary Arts Society always used to show there in those days; twice a year or so they showed.
JAMES GLEESON: And there was a permanent (inaudible)?
RUTH McNICOLL: Dear old Dr Evatt opens an exhibition and was really so over the hill that it was embarrassing.
JAMES GLEESON: Towards the end.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, towards the end of his life, I think.
JAMES GLEESON: It was sad that he declined.
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, terribly sad, yes. But that was an interesting experience, but unfortunately–I mean, you’ve probably heard it all around–John Reed wasn’t the easiest person to work with.
JAMES GLEESON: No.
RUTH McNICOLL: So at the end of that year I was offered the Argus Gallery, which had just been made by The Herald and Weekly Times in the Argus Building. That was, you know, really to start off from scratch. A huge gallery, a huge gallery; quite a challenge really. So I was there for about seven years, I think.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: Had some good shows there.
JAMES GLEESON: What were the highlights? Can you think of things that were—
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I think Len French was one.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: He had the Campion series.
6 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Did he? That would have been a spectacular show.
RUTH McNICOLL: Senbergs had his first show. He was just a boy. He was about 20 or something, fresh out of tech. I put on a Retrospective of Sali Herman, for my sins.
JAMES GLEESON: Not the easiest one to (inaudible).
RUTH McNICOLL: Not at all, not at all. But I borrowed things from all over. Really, when I look back, I think, ‘Gosh, how could I have done it?’. You know, valuable paintings from galleries and from private collectors all over the place. We filled this vast gallery with Sali Herman. Of course, Sali was there nearly all the time. He’s the best salesman in the world. I didn’t have to do too much, once it was all on. Except make sure that everything got back safely to their owners. During that time, I think it was, I came up to Sydney. I used to come and do the rounds of the traps a bit. There was a little man in Castlereagh Street, Mr Newman. Do you remember, he had an antique shop?
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes, Joe Newman.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. He was so nice and, you know, if I had time I used to go and pass the time of day. My brother did too. He always had interesting things and he liked to talk about them. He was knowledgeable.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Is he still around?
JAMES GLEESON: Yes. He’s ailing now. He owns a little place in Double Bay where I think he meets people by appointment.
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, yes. He must be old.
JAMES GLEESON: He doesn’t have a—
RUTH McNICOLL: Gallery or shop or anything.
JAMES GLEESON: I think he bought a house somewhere up in Queensland, the Gold Coast or somewhere. I don’t know.
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, even in those long ago days he looked fairly frail.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes. He always was.
RUTH McNICOLL: Anyway, I walked in and I literally nearly fell over. It was a bit like the conversion of St Paul on the road to Damascus falling off his horse. There were these vast images from Maprik up in New Guinea.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, yes.
7 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: I’d never seen them. It wasn’t at all the sort of thing that he normally has.
JAMES GLEESON: No, no. It was a one-off thing.
RUTH McNICOLL: Do you remember it?
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, I bought a piece.
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, a lot of the artists had bought pieces. I was really staggered. I thought, ‘Well, I’ve never seen anything like it. How marvellous, how amazing’. Great eyes looking at you, you know.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I asked him, you know, where they’d come from, who got them. I don’t know whether he told me who’d got them, but he said ‘Oh, somebody brought them down from New Guinea’.
JAMES GLEESON: He was always a little big cagey about his sources.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. So I thought, ‘Well, if somebody can get them in New Guinea, why can’t I?’.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I got the opportunity of going up with a friend and went right up the Sepik. As soon as I got to Wewak I thought, ‘Wow’. Everyone had been telling me in the meantime, ‘You won’t get anything, it’s all finished. There’s nothing worth having anymore’. That was in ’59. As soon as I got to Wewak I saw these big carved posts, and I thought ‘Wow. There is some around, there must be’. Of course, up in the villages they would exchange it for newspaper.
JAMES GLEESON: Good lord.
RUTH McNICOLL: And the shillings with the whole in the middle.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I took, you know, bags full of shillings, and lots of newspaper, salt and black tobacco.
JAMES GLEESON: Goodness.
RUTH McNICOLL: Many was the black palm into which I counted out the shillings, or else they were perfectly happy with some black rather evil smelling tobacco, and the newspaper they wrap the tobacco in to make a long cigarette.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
8 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: That reminds me, I’ll have one. So I got a lot of really marvellous things. When I came back, and when the cargo came down, I had a show during the weekend, because I was still running the gallery. I was running the gallery then, so I thought ‘Well, I’ll have it at my house’.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: See if people are interested. And they were, you know, they came in by the dozen and bought them. So I went up again, I think.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Went up again, and I think I went about 10 times altogether.
JAMES GLEESON: Really? This was during the sixties, was it, Ruth?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes, it was. I used to go about twice in three years, that sort of thing, you know, or perhaps a bit more often.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes. I think you found things were available, you could get them still.
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh yes, you could. But during that time, of course, the prices went up and other dealers—Robert Eaves and I were competing with each other on one occasion. He was coming down the river and I was going up. So it became a bit more competitive.
JAMES GLEESON: But it’s interesting that, you know, this awareness was happening in Australia, and you found collectors who were interested in acquiring.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes. I did. So then I brought a big cargo down, I think, and had a show in the Argus Gallery and filled the whole Argus Gallery with carvings. That was successful too. You know, it really seemed to take off quite well. I got a bit tired of running the Argus. It was changing your shows every fortnight.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Working every second Saturday flat out. Taking a show down and putting a show up. A lot of work.
JAMES GLEESON: Heavy manual work.
RUTH McNICOLL: It was. And running miles, you know. I’d take my shoes off and go running around the gallery. So I thought ‘Well really, this has whiskers on it in a way’. You always had to find an opener for the opening. You always had to serve sherry or champagne or whatever it was, you know. You just got very sick
9 11 February 1980 of it in the end. So I thought ‘Well, dare I open a little gallery that really specialises?’. It was soon after Tate opened his little print gallery in Crossley Street. A tiny, tiny shop smaller than his became vacant and I thought ‘Well, here goes’.
JAMES GLEESON: Whereabouts was it?
RUTH McNICOLL: Just two doors down from Tate.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: In Crossley Street, opposite Pellegrini.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, the top of Bourke Street. The Paris end of Bourke Street we call it. I used to sit there, you know. I had a marvellous carpenter called Ron Byers, and I think John Stringer or one of the boys at the gallery helped me design the inside.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: We hung it all with hessian and just the sort of fairly raw looking timber. Ron Byers did a marvellous job with sort of slatted shelves and it was transformed. It gave it the right sort of background and atmosphere. I think it does need it’s own atmosphere.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, of course it does.
RUTH McNICOLL: I don’t think a gallery really is awfully good.
JAMES GLEESON: No.
RUTH McNICOLL: But I just used to manage to pay the rent and the telephone and that sort of thing for a long time. Then gradually it sort of began to be known–I think I advertised for about six months, every month or something like that. Well, once again you know, I was really counting every penny.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: If I got anything out of it for myself, it was just coincidental really.
JAMES GLEESON: Really? Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: But in the end it just became known.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
10 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: Not only with the local people, but with visiting people, you know, ballet and musicians particularly. They were my best customers.
JAMES GLEESON: Really?
RUTH McNICOLL: The ballet and the musicians. Like all of Yehudi’s orchestra.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: And the various New York ballets that came out, they all used to come trooping in and snatch things out of my hand. Then I got another shop next door and Ron Byers again did it for me and we made a doorway going through. I had storage behind; it was stacked with things. You know, you almost couldn’t move.
JAMES GLEESON: I was wondering about storage. Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: It was so small. People loved finding things, you see; that was really part of the fun. That they thought they were so clever to find something there. It wasn’t done with any malice or forethought; it just happened like that. So I think I was there for another seven years.
JAMES GLEESON: Was it all New Guinea work you showed or did you have Australian Aboriginal?
RUTH McNICOLL: No. I had some Aboriginal but not a great deal. Oh, one thing that I did have at the Argus Gallery, and this is rather interesting. A man called Jim Davidson, who you may know, now deals in Aboriginal and New Guinea art in Melbourne. He came in on a terribly rainy day, a Saturday, I think I was hanging an exhibition, and said ‘I’ve got these paintings by the tribe of Namatjira, the Arunta’. He said ‘Would you be able to put on a show for me, because I’ve got dozens of them?’. I said, ‘Well, you know, bring a few in and let me see’. But I thought ‘No, I don’t like the idea of that really very much’. He arranged them around on the floor, and I said ‘No—
JAMES GLEESON: They were traditional—
RUTH McNICOLL: No. No, they were the Namatjira people, you see.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: Influenced by Rex Battersby.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I said, ‘No, Mr Davidson, I’m afraid they’re not my cup of tea at all. I couldn’t sell them and I really don’t much like them. But if you could get the real thing, barks and the real thing that the Aborigines traditionally do, then I
11 11 February 1980 would be interested’. So he ruffled around and he got some marvellous things and they went like hot cakes. He’s never looked back, you see.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: He said, ‘Oh no, no-one would be interested in those’. So I put him on to his business really. I bet he doesn’t remember it now. I always remembered Sali Herman’s dictum: a rock on the left and a gum tree on the zee right, or vice versa. That’s exactly what they were. No, in the Gallery of Primitive Art, which I called my little place, I didn’t have much Aboriginal. But a black man from Africa, from West Africa, came by. Somebody rang me up from Sydney, and I can’t remember even who it was now. But they said ‘There’s this black man. Do you speak French?’. I said ‘Well, I speak a bit’. He said, ‘He’s got some marvellous masks’. So he came and stayed at the Crossley Lodge just down the street and he said ‘Come and see what I’ve got’. I went up to his room and there were all these fantastic masks. You see, he’d got them from just after the Civil War in Nigeria. He’d had his runners out, going through these villages where the Ebo had been decimated and just scraping up everything. He’d got them in sacks, in great big hessian sacks. Out through Cameroons, I should think, because he wouldn’t be—I didn’t ask how he got them out. But he was born in the market place. He was a real dealer, you know, that sort. So I bought a lot from him. You know, hundreds, literally hundreds. I didn’t know what they were.
JAMES GLEESON: That was the first exhibition of black African art.
RUTH McNICOLL: I didn’t know myself where they came from, which areas they came from. I had a little assistant there, Neil Chadwick, who was with me for about four years. I remember sitting on the floor, on the sea-grass matting, with books and trying to locate exactly where each mask came from.
JAMES GLEESON: Was there much literature available at that time?
RUTH McNICOLL: Not very much. This fellow, this black man from Gambia, he came from Gambia, left me one book which was invaluable. With the help of a few others that I was able to get we were able to place them.
JAMES GLEESON: Identify them.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, identify them. Then of course–it breaks my heart now to think–the big Ebo masks with very tall craft head dresses set with little mirrors and white faces. They’re female spirit mask. Nearly every one, except one at the National Gallery of Victoria, went to Americans. Because, you see, my pricing was way out.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes
12 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: By comparison with New York, and I had no idea what they would have fetched in New York. So nearly everyone went to New York; having come here from Africa, went to New York.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes. And if they come back here, it will be at enormous prices.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, they’d be thousands now, thousands.
JAMES GLEESON: Did you find that there was much local interest, or were most of your client—
RUTH McNICOLL: No, most people were just, you know, bemused by them. They didn’t know anything about them.
JAMES GLEESON: But visiting Americans had a closer idea about them.
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, yes. Oh yes, they were much more sophisticated about them. The ballet people, once again, swooped in and bought all the old ones, because they knew that the old things were of value, you see. I had things like $50 and things for them.
JAMES GLEESON: Goodness me. Were there any collectors, Australian collectors, who developed a taste for them and built up collections from them?
RUTH McNICOLL: Not really, no. I remember Bill Dargie was very keen. When I first put the show on I had a lot of bronzes too, and he came.
JAMES GLEESON: African bronzes?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, African, from the Ashanti. He came in and said ‘Keep this and this and this to the Australian National Gallery and that and that’, and you know, I thought, ‘Oh good, that’s great. That’s a good start’. Then the edict came forth from the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board that they were not collecting African at all. I thought ‘Well really. How idiotic can you be?’. It was just supposed to be the Pacific basin, you see.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: That was the policy in those days. They were going to leave out the entire continent of Africa.
JAMES GLEESON: Of course they hadn’t thought of pre-Columbian.
RUTH McNICOLL: No, no. I thought that was fascinating. So poor old Bill had to come back and say—
JAMES GLEESON: That was disappointing because—
13 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, it was sad really because they could have got some good things. And the Mendi mask here I got from a young fellow who came in carrying it under his arm. I didn’t know. I hadn’t had one like that at all. I remember sitting that on the floor and looking at it from every angle and thinking ‘What is this that I’ve bought from him’.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Is it good of its kind or, you know. It was fascinating to me. I sold that to the Australian National Gallery. Douglas Newton says it’s the best one in the world.
JAMES GLEESON: Good heavens.
RUTH McNICOLL: It’s the best one in the world.
JAMES GLEESON: Isn’t that extraordinary.
RUTH McNICOLL: Amazing, yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Well, you must have a natural eye for things like that.
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I don’t know. I’m rather fascinated by the exotic, I think. I put on an exhibition called Exotic Art at one stage in the Argus Gallery and borrowed things from people, from everywhere.
JAMES GLEESON: It seems, Ruth, that your eye led you before your academic knowledge developed.
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh yes, it did.
JAMES GLEESON: You just had this instinctive taste for—
RUTH McNICOLL: No sort of commercial knowhow really at all. How I kept on the right side of the ledger, I don’t know. I did. I didn’t make a fortune, but you know, it was interesting.
JAMES GLEESON: Did you find it difficult to build up that reservoir of knowledge you know?
RUTH McNICOLL: I think it just sort of filtered through.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: You know, by bit by bit. Yes. Because you had the things, you tried to find out something about them.
JAMES GLEESON: It’s a great way of learning, isn’t it, with the objects there?
14 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: It is, yes, yes.
JAMES GLEESON: I’m surprised that no collectors developed a taste for it and built up private collections.
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I think that the collectors, such as they are or were, were able to go up to New Guinea themselves.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: That was how they got it. Well, for instance, Margaret Carnegie.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: She did buy quite a lot from me but, on the other hand, her daughter Georgie went up and brought things down from time to time.
JAMES GLEESON: I see, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Somebody else in Melbourne, who’s name escapes me for the moment, who has a big collection and I think, you know, he’s in one of the big companies and, you know, his job took him up there and he was always able to locate good things and bring them back. No, I can’t recollect any vast collections. But I did have patrons who came again and again. Well, Mr Shipman was one and he always said he was going to give it to Israel, and I think in fact he has given most of it to Israel.
JAMES GLEESON: Was it to the museum?
RUTH McNICOLL: To the museum, yes, New Guinea. He was very interested. Well, he was a businessman.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: It was just a sideline but he did become really involved and, because I had that gallery, he became interested.
JAMES GLEESON: Well, I think it must have been a unique gallery, because in Sydney it started much later, I think. I don’t think Robert Eaves started—
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, Robert started, oh, more or less the same time. I think Centre Taft was going and of course Al Kelner was there.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I think there’s always been much more in Sydney. You know, that seemed to be the end of the line. You know, it came to Sydney, it didn’t get any further. Nobody had really done anything much about it in Melbourne. There
15 11 February 1980 was a man–in fact, he’s still going–a fellow called Lisower, whose father sailed up and down the Sepik as a trader, you know, trading things in the villages. Marvellous old man, the real wandering Jew. This son speaks nine languages, but he’s always dealt sort of under the lap and exported.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: It’s never been openly done at all but very, very good art; very clever. The old man I really liked. I went to their house on a couple of occasions and it was just full of books. He’d been wandering around in South America while the mother and the son were in a concentration camp.
JAMES GLEESON: Good lord. During the war?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. He’d been all over the world, and he was years up on the Sepik. Old fellow with a white beard; Master Kunder, they called him, Master Kunder.
JAMES GLEESON: Ruth, looking at those areas of primitive art now that you’re dealing with, do you have special areas that you prefer, you know, your own taste leads you to over others? The Sepik perhaps?
RUTH McNICOLL: I think the Sepik appeals to me most.
JAMES GLEESON: Does it?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. I think although the art of some other areas in New Guinea–like the Trobiands which is entirely different–is more refined, more sophisticated, I suppose you’d say. The Sepik has something that nobody else has. The Africans haven’t got it either. Sort of wild emotional Baroque sort of thing about it.
JAMES GLEESON: A daring inventiveness.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, a daring inventiveness, and this sort of emotional aspect that some people find very scary. In fact, many many people used to come in, ‘Oh, how can you live amongst it? It’s so scary?’.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: But children, I found, didn’t feel like that at all. They reacted very positively to it.
JAMES GLEESON: It’s extraordinary how tastes change. I remember reading somewhere where some great scholar–was it Goethe?–first saw a primitive mask and he almost fainted with horror.
RUTH McNICOLL: With horror.
16 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, with horror.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: I might have got it—it was someone, you know, very early on when they were just beginning to reach Europe in dribs and drabs, and the barbarism of it was a complete clash with the kind of concept of perfection and beauty.
RUTH McNICOLL: I wonder what sort of mask it was. It would be interesting to know.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Because some of them are.
JAMES GLEESON: I think it might have been an African one, I mean I really can’t (inaudible).
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, some of them, the Equar, you know, that look as though they’re a human head. In fact, they were a human head carried on top of their own head. You know, a victim of a tribe war. They make them in imitation of the severed head now. So those are pretty scary. We’ve got one here with the hide peeling off, you know. It needs attention very badly but there’s nobody to give it.
JAMES GLEESON: How do you think, when Picasso, you know, discovered those African masks, do you think that this helped to turn the tide of interest?
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, I think it must have done. I mean, they were the Dadaists and Surrealists particularly were very. The Expressionists, Nolde and people like that.
JAMES GLEESON: The so-called Negro period.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, and the Cubists.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Were very much inspired, I think, by this manipulation of form I suppose you could say.
JAMES GLEESON: So the European eye suddenly discovered something and saw that it did have its own beauty.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Whereas the generation before—
RUTH McNICOLL: Couldn’t see it. They just regarded it as what Captain Cook—
17 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Curios, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Artificial curiosities was the 18th century expression.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes. They couldn’t see it as art.
RUTH McNICOLL: No, no. It was ethnography really. So, yes, I think that was a great turning point really. Even old Freud, you know, had primitive art round his study. I think the psychology of it must have appealed very much to him.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: As well as the form.
JAMES GLEESON: I know the early Surrealists—I went to visit André Breton in his studio in Paris once.
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, did you?
JAMES GLEESON: He had quite a few remarkable pieces.
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, you know we got that little canoe prow from him, from his collection.
JAMES GLEESON: No, I didn’t know that.
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, you must come and see it. Little Soloman’s canoe prow inlaid with mother-of-pearl. That was in André Breton. Then Paul Eluard, it was in his collection after Breton.
JAMES GLEESON: I remember a formidable piece, a standing figure studded with nails, you know, those rusted nails.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes, a sort of fetish figure.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. Don’t like those myself. They are spectacular but they lack the—
JAMES GLEESON: It was intimidating.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. They lack the formal qualities, I think, that the others have got. You know, the nails really conceal, they don’t—
JAMES GLEESON: I’d just never seen it before.
RUTH McNICOLL: No, no, it was very striking.
18 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: That’s sort of why it an impression.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Ruth, where do you think now the great collections of primitive art are? I know we’re trying to build a great collection in various areas.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. I’m afraid, you know, we’re on a loser because the prices are so colossal. I went to see a dealer in Paris–he is a big dealer–who’s been out here a couple of times and James went after me. We both decided that there were two pieces there that we’d really love to have. One was a Maori piece and the other a New Ireland. When we got the figures of what he wants for them, one was nearly a million and the other was over a quarter of a million. So I just had to write very sadly and say ‘Well, although we have a generous grant from the government, we’re not in that team’ you know. We haven’t got the benefactors that the Americans have got who could donate such a thing to the gallery.
JAMES GLEESON: There are now institutions that are prepared to pay those prices?
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh yes. Well, not so much the institutions themselves but as the tax deducting donors, I think. Oh yes, that’s how the prices are set I’m sure. And I think distorted by that scheme. I’m not greatly in favour of it.
JAMES GLEESON: No, no.
RUTH McNICOLL: No, I’m not. I think it’s nice for the recipient, of course. But otherwise I think it’s a very distorting thing.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Because it tends to overvalue.
JAMES GLEESON: Do you think now that the availability of work, say, from New Guinea will peter out?
RUTH McNICOLL: I think it’s petered.
JAMES GLEESON: It’s stopped.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, definitely. I think anything good—
JAMES GLEESON: All of the things will be held there.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. They won’t let it come out here.
JAMES GLEESON: So the only things that will ever come up on the market would be from private collections.
19 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes.
JAMES GLEESON: That have been formed some time ago.
RUTH McNICOLL: Or from dealers. Although it struck me, it was quite amusing I thought, that some of the dealers in New York evidently go dashing over to East Germany.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I think some things from the museums that got into the Eastern part are now sold.
JAMES GLEESON: Into the Russian bloc?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes. And they bring these out.
JAMES GLEESON: Is that for lack of interest in the material?
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I don’t know whether they find, perhaps, that they’ve got things replicated or something like that and they think ‘Well, we can do without that; we’ll sell it for a goodly sum’.
JAMES GLEESON: Like the way the big Tiepolo came into Melbourne Gallery?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes, something like that.
JAMES GLEESON: Five-year plan, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. But evidently that happens.
JAMES GLEESON: Is that legally done or smuggled?
RUTH McNICOLL: I just wouldn’t know. I just wouldn’t know.
JAMES GLEESON: And appears on the Western market?
RUTH McNICOLL: Mm. Gets to New York, particularly. Maybe it gets to London, to the sales at Sotheby’s or something.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: But, no, I think it’s really running short in the whole world and James said the same. You see, we are in the situation where we can’t afford to take anything that’s been smuggled.
JAMES GLEESON: Dubious, no, no. It has to have a proper provenance.
20 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, it is. We’ve been offered some beautiful things and we know they were brought out, you know, the day before yesterday from Mexico and we can’t touch them with a barge pole.
JAMES GLEESON: No.
RUTH McNICOLL: So that limits the field too.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I would say the great collections really are in West Berlin, which I’ve seen.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: And in Switzerland. You see, they were early in the field.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: We were slow.
JAMES GLEESON: Late eighteenth century and early this century.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. Switzerland, and of course in America.
JAMES GLEESON: America.
RUTH McNICOLL: It was marvellous to see that exhibition that Douglas Newton put on in Washington when I was there.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, you saw that?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, at the new wing of the national gallery of pieces from all over that he’d borrowed from private people and from museums and galleries.
JAMES GLEESON: It would have been fantastic.
RUTH McNICOLL: It really was wonderful.
JAMES GLEESON: Were they from American collections or from all over the world?
RUTH McNICOLL: All over the world, yes, yes. I think mostly the private collectors were American.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: But certainly Europe, the Australian Museum; everybody sent things. We sent our Sentani figure, as you know.
21 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: So never again will we see that sort of collection probably.
JAMES GLEESON: This would apply not only to Oceanic material but to pre- Columbian and black African, I suppose, the prices going high?
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, I imagine so. I think that, you know, now when people are investing so much in art as a safe place to put their money, they must be putting it into primitive art too because it virtually has come to an end.
JAMES GLEESON: It rivals the old masters, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. We’ve seen it in our own lifetime.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes. So any major piece now of really, you know, worldwide significance would be somewhere in the vicinity of a million dollars.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, and it will probably go higher.
JAMES GLEESON: It probably will.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes.
JAMES GLEESON: It must a little bit sad working in an area—
RUTH McNICOLL: It is sad.
JAMES GLEESON: Where it’s closing down and availability is becoming—
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. I mean, maybe in the future bigger grants will be given so that we’re enabled to get a piece here or there to fill certain gaps or, you know, certain lacks, and there are plenty. I mean, our collections are really very small.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes. What about the collection of Australian tribal art, you know, traditional Aboriginal?
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, historically we have very little. I mean, the main part is the Eurawalla Collection. That’s 139 paintings. Then we’ve got a very tiny section of Tiwi paintings on bark, which I believe you can’t get any more. Also a number of Groote Eylandt paintings on bark–those no more. We’re trying to build up a collection of the sort of work that’s being done today in Arnhemland but when I went for that quick scurry around up in the North–the Top End, I think we call it– last year, I realised that even that is pretty fragile.
JAMES GLEESON: Is it?
RUTH McNICOLL: I would have said so, yes.
22 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Fragile in the sense that it’s no longer readily available, or in the sense that the quality isn’t there?
RUTH McNICOLL: The quality isn’t there. Unfortunately, the powers that be–I don’t know who they are–appoint craft advisers, art and craft advisers, and these fellows seem to me not really to know quite enough or to be quite sensitive enough to what they were—they’re given funds to buy certain things in from the artists who bring them from their camps out in the bush or the settlement. I think that their taste was often bad and sometimes, well, the person that I was with–I won’t name any names–was saying, ‘Now, you must make your cross hatchings very neat and very fine’. I thought ‘Oh, shut-up. Leave them alone’. You can’t do that to an artist.
JAMES GLEESON: No.
RUTH McNICOLL: You mustn’t ever. What they do, they do. I mean, if the thing’s going to die out, it dies out.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I don’t think artificially you can keep going. I mean, Lady Clelland, when she was the governor’s–not the governor–the administrator’s wife up in New Guinea, had what she took to be a brilliant idea of having a competition for carvers.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, dear.
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, guess what? The Koregoes win the competition with a nicely carved mask, and then go on reproducing the thing because they won.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Given the first prize. We’ve got about eight of them out there, identical.
JAMES GLEESON: What’s happening in the Sepik and up there now? Is it that (inaudible)?
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I’m not terribly au fait but what I’ve seen brought down by the Paulians society I think is appalling. I just have to avert my gaze, Jim.
JAMES GLEESON: Really, yes?
RUTH McNICOLL: I can’t bear it. It just hurts me.
JAMES GLEESON: It’s become a sort of commercial enterprise.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, as it goes—
23 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: The spirit’s gone.
RUTH McNICOLL: It goes completely askew, you know, it becomes Mannerist.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: They put feathers, fur, shells, snakes, cassowaries, you name it, it’s got the lot.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Or else it’s just very crudely and carelessly carved. Somehow their traditional form seems to be going by the board. I mean, it looks exciting still probably to somebody who hasn’t looked at a lot.
JAMES GLEESON: To somebody who hasn’t got the eye (inaudible).
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes. But it isn’t real anymore.
JAMES GLEESON: Conservation of material like that must be a great problem.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. Well, I hope–I don’t suppose our collection is big enough now to warrant having somebody, but in the future there will have to be somebody who knows about wood.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: And the different pigments, how to—
JAMES GLEESON: And how they use them.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Where do you think are the great repositories of Oceanic Art in this country?
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I’ve been through the back storage rooms of the Museum in Melbourne–vast quantities, vast quantities. But there again probably like Bay 4, you know, where massive material had been lying around for years. Most of it artistically probably wouldn’t add up to what we would expect to have in our gallery, what Jim would want.
JAMES GLEESON: No. More of ethnographic (inaudible).
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, it is. There are probably about 20,000 boomerangs. I don’t think I’m exaggerating, you know, in that beautiful gallery where the paintings used to hang. They’ve got it stacked to the roof with every sort of artefact you can imagine. As far as one can see, it will never be sorted out or catalogued. Never; because there’s too much.
24 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I think the same goes for the Australian Museum down below–vast quantities.
JAMES GLEESON: But they were never collected with the idea that aesthetic quality should be the—
RUTH McNICOLL: No. No, they weren’t. They weren’t. They’re museum material.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: They are.
JAMES GLEESON: Our approach is completely different.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. We’re looking for really sculptural quality.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes. As in the Sentani piece (inaudible).
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes. So the future doesn’t look too bright.
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I don’t think as far as acquisitions are concerned that it is, unless we have vast funds. Or we might send a runner off to East Germany or something like that.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I mean, that might be a fruitful ground if one knew how to operate it. But, there again, it probably is smuggled I think. No, I think things will come up from time to time at the auction rooms in London and New York, which really are the top places to shop. If we had a buyer there, I’ve often thought, you know, that one would pick up a piece from time to time that is fairly reasonable.
JAMES GLEESON: I see. What, Sotheby’s or Christies or somewhere like that.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes. I think so. Or via Sotheby Park Burnett, I think.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I think that’s the only hope, to have someone right on the spot who can pinpoint it and bid. You know, perhaps wear a false beard or something so that they don’t know you’re coming. But I think that’s really our only hope, or from time to time perhaps a private collector might want to give something on the tax deduction scheme, you never know.
25 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Are there many—
RUTH McNICOLL: What’s he saying? The tape’s ending.
JAMES GLEESON: Winding up. We’ll go on to the next side.
JAMES GLEESON: I will ask you a question. Are there any groups, collections in Australia of primitive art that might one day provide material for the National Collection of that quality?
RUTH McNICOLL: I think there are a few. A collection was given to the Australian Museum last year. I had to value it. But I thought a number of the pieces were very dubious.
JAMES GLEESON: Really?
RUTH McNICOLL: Very dubious; the bronzes from Africa. That’s a man up in Newcastle, you probably know him.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. But this collection in Melbourne, I think that could be of interest too. I have a few pieces myself, of course, that I think are quite worth going into the gallery.
JAMES GLEESON: Oceanic or African?
RUTH McNICOLL: African and Oceanic.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. So one day, you know, when I really get hard up I’ll probably sell those. But I won’t get a tax deduction for it. I’ll stick to my principles on that one. I’ll get two valuers to value it.
JAMES GLEESON: Ruth, what about pre-Columbian material? Now, do you think that’s a source that’s going to dry up too?
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I’m sure it’s dried up. I mean, what’s out of captivity now has mostly been smuggled out, I would think.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: As I said, we can’t afford to—
JAMES GLEESON: All these countries now have—
RUTH McNICOLL: Closed their borders; completely closed.
26 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, nothing can be taken out.
RUTH McNICOLL: Not legally, no.
JAMES GLEESON: So anything that would become available would have been out of the country for some time?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes. It would have to have been to pass James’ test. I think he’s absolutely right. You know, we just can’t afford to put a foot wrong because it would lead to a diplomatic incident or something awful.
JAMES GLEESON: What about the idea of exchange material with those countries? Duplicates, material—
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, that might be possible. You know, we’ve got all that Oceanic material in Bay 4 which is not the top quality, admittedly, but some of it from the New Hebrides for instance was collected by a Frenchman called Charpentier who was commissioned by the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board to stay up there for a few years. I think that might be very interesting to, say, a Spanish museum or Mexican museum.
JAMES GLEESON: Well, some years ago—
RUTH McNICOLL: You know, that would take a lot of arranging, wouldn’t it, to do it?
JAMES GLEESON: Well, in fact arrangements had been started. When I was in Mexico–I think it was in about 1973 or ’74–this idea had been mooted and I talked with the Minister for Culture in Mexico about such an exchange of material. Because they’ve got enormous quantities of duplicates and things, just as we have of material here. They don’t have any kind of museum of Oceanic art and they were interested in the project, so much so that the Australian Ambassador at the time and myself and the Minister got together and we were really beginning to pinpoint what could be done.
RUTH McNICOLL: What could be done, yes.
JAMES GLEESON: And advisers who would advise on the works to be exchanged. But when we came back I think the political situation up in New Guinea was just beginning to become, you know—
RUTH McNICOLL: Independent.
JAMES GLEESON: Independent.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes.
27 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: I think a moratorium was imposed on that at the time, and I understood all the work was to be offered back to New Guinea if they wanted it.
RUTH McNICOLL: I think in fact it was.
JAMES GLEESON: So what remains now in New Guinea doesn’t—
RUTH McNICOLL: No, no.
JAMES GLEESON: Well, I would think that that area of exchange with Mexico—
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, that might be quite fruitful, might be fruitful.
JAMES GLEESON: Would still be fruitful.
RUTH McNICOLL: But we’d have to get a Mexican over here to take a look, wouldn’t we? What we’ve got and negotiations.
JAMES GLEESON: What we discussed with the minister was that they appointed somebody, an expert on their work, who would select duplicate material.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: We would select an expert on this side who would select duplicate material, and then the two experts would get together and value and weigh each other.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, work it out.
JAMES GLEESON: It could be done that way.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, I think that’s quite a distinct possibility.
JAMES GLEESON: Also in Peru I talked to the Minister of Culture there and–it was a woman, a Doctor Hildegand–and she said there was absolutely no way at the moment that any material could be sent out of the country, even on short term loan.
RUTH McNICOLL: Really?
JAMES GLEESON: The law was so strict. But she was in favour of changing that law, but she did say it was a terribly difficult process and could take years, and 13 different votes had to be taken and it had to pass them all. But her ambition, she said ‘There is no museum of international art in Peru, the only museums are of local material’.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, that’s remarkable, isn’t it?
28 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: Her ambition was to found a large museum that would cover a broader area and introduce other kinds of art into the country. Since they have vast quantities of replica material—
RUTH McNICOLL: Pottery and textiles and all sorts of things.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, of great interest, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, yes.
JAMES GLEESON: She was interested in the scheme but she did say that it could take a long time to come about.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Since (inaudible).
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, I think it would be fraught with difficulties.
JAMES GLEESON: But if we do have that store of material here, it’s something—
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, James spoke, waving his hand at Bay 4 on one occasion, of giving it all away to I think a proposed museum for Canberra. Museum of Mankind sort of thing, I think they have in mind as perhaps happening one day. Maybe 25 years.
JAMES GLEESON: I see.
RUTH McNICOLL: But, you know, I think he felt that it would never be of interest to us as a gallery to have it.
JAMES GLEESON: No, no.
RUTH McNICOLL: And it really should be in a museum of some sort. And it really should stay in Canberra since it’s here already.
JAMES GLEESON: Still, if exchanges could be effected it would bring into the country something interesting.
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, even if you only did it on the level, I mean, even I say of the schools collection.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Educational items that illustrate a culture, I think it would be worthwhile.
29 11 February 1980
JAMES GLEESON: I can see that with the laws that exist now about sending works, indigenous works out of the country, it would be impossible to do it any other way except on an exchange basis.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes, yes. Of course, I think that the way good old pieces have been allowed to go out of Australia is dreadful.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I mean, the law has been actually in operation for a good many years, at least 10 years to my certain knowledge. But because the people at customs don’t know anything, I mean, if somebody can make up a huge—I know some people who did. They just rifled the entire continent of Australia. They looked up everybody who had ever been in the administration in New Guinea, and they did it methodically and carefully for six months. They sent it all out as personal effects. I rang James and said ‘Please, please alert the customs. I know this is going to happen’. But there wasn’t anything you could do. You see that law has no teeth.
JAMES GLEESON: No.
RUTH McNICOLL: Nobody can see that it’s kept, if you can call things personal effects.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes. Oh, Ruth, well it’s a complicated area.
RUTH McNICOLL: Oh, it’s very complicated I think, yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Well, I think that covers it very well.
RUTH McNICOLL: That finishes primitive art. Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Anything else you’d like to say, you know. You don’t ever regret sort of channelling your interests into that area?
RUTH McNICOLL: Not at all, no. No.
JAMES GLEESON: It’s become more and more absorbing as you—
RUTH McNICOLL: It’s been absolutely fascinating. Of course, when I was dealing in it I enjoyed getting it.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Selling it was rather boring. But I had Neil there to do that, so he was very good at it and I just left that to him. But, no, going and finding it was always most exciting.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
30 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: Coming up in a muddy little village with what was a thing of great beauty and unusual quality, you know, I really found that rewarding.
JAMES GLEESON: That would be exciting.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. It’s a bit like that film. Did you see Hullabaloo, that James Ivory film?
JAMES GLEESON: No, I didn’t.
RUTH McNICOLL: It’s set in India in the Palace of Jaipur.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh, yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: Apparently the story is that the rajah has all these marvellous miniatures, and a young American dealer comes. You can see that he’s torn between being a dealer and just wanting to see the things, you know. Finally he sees them but they don’t sell in the end. A marvellous old eccentric English lady arrives in her mini van with a girl friend–this is Peggy Ashcroft, a wonderful actress. She wants to get them for a museum in England, you know, and they’re both vying with each other. Absolutely marvellous film–if you can see it, do, you’d enjoy it. Just to see these miniatures, you know, really blown up on the screen, they show details of them, everything. They were fantastic; they must belong to Jaipur, I think.
JAMES GLEESON: I suppose so.
RUTH McNICOLL: They don’t give anything to say where they come from.
JAMES GLEESON: Well, thanks very much for that, that’s marvellous.
RUTH McNICOLL: Anyway, that’s just a sideline. Good.
JAMES GLEESON: Good. Nothing more you’d like to add?
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, I can’t think of anything. Your skilful questioning drags it forth.
JAMES GLEESON: There is something you left out.
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes. I left out about the Japanese prints because that was really an eye opener to me and we sat, you know, sort of almost shivering with cold while the old man who ran the gallery—
JAMES GLEESON: This was in Kyoto?
RUTH McNICOLL: In Kyoto.
JAMES GLEESON: In the snowstorm.
31 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: In a snowstorm. His wife would come in on her knees and then get up and hand him one print and he would just hold the print up for us to see. We were completely (inaudible). So I said ‘Well, you know, I think Australia should see some of these. I’ve never seen any’. So I bought down a big show. I got in touch with a gallery in Tokyo and they were able to get me a marvellous collection together. I think the catalogues are still around because I always used to send my catalogues to the archive. That was very successful. People did go for those.
JAMES GLEESON: Were these modern or the traditional—
RUTH McNICOLL: Modern. Oh, modern. No, no. Not traditional at all. Then later I had a Japanese potter called Takeishi Kawai and Munakata.
JAMES GLEESON: Munakata is regarded as God in Japan.
RUTH McNICOLL: Well, he was a national treasure, wasn’t he, by the time he died?
JAMES GLEESON: Did you bring some Munakata’s to Australia?
RUTH McNICOLL: Not in 1960. This was a couple of years later I think I had the potter and Munakata.
JAMES GLEESON: Yes.
RUTH McNICOLL: I think it was brought down by a fellow in Sydney, Connell, a potter. Connell I think his name was. Not McConnell, no. One of the fellows who’d got it, managed to get this collection together, was killed and Takeishi Kawai didn’t speak any English at all. This man who was his friend really, who befriended him up there, wasn’t there to interpret or anything and the poor man, you know, it was very difficult for him. He’s one of a line of potters who uses a particular blue that’s very hard to get apparently, the glaze. But the Munakata’s were marvellous. I’ve got about three myself.
JAMES GLEESON: Have you?
RUTH McNICOLL: I kept, yes. They were cheap then too, you see.
JAMES GLEESON: Really?
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: This was in the sixties, early sixties?
RUTH McNICOLL: Nineteen sixty-one, I think.
JAMES GLEESON: Sixty-one.
32 11 February 1980
RUTH McNICOLL: Yes.
JAMES GLEESON: Oh well, that’s an interesting little afterthought.
RUTH McNICOLL: Afterthought, yes.
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