Although the Tasmanian Government will add $4 million to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery’s annual budget over the next four years, the institution is in danger of becoming a target for questionable donations according to well-placed art experts.
Several years ago, TMAG director, Bill Bleathman, received a call from Perth-based retiree, Professor Shui Wong, offering to donate his 250-item collection of Chinese antiquities. Bleathman accepted and began dedicating scarce resources to suitable exhibition displays, a CD-ROM and a comprehensive catalogue of the Wong’s collection, to be published by TMAG later this year.
Tasmanian Minister for the Arts, Lara Giddings, called the donation “the most significant donation of Chinese art in Australia in the last 10 to 15 years”. But within the tight-knit coterie of nationally prominent professional Chinese antiquities experts, questions about the true merit of the Wong’s holdings have surfaced. Asian art curators from several state art galleries are also understood to be sceptical of the historical attributions of a number of the ceramic objects and vessels donated.
Fearing political reprisals, none of Australia’s best-known Chinese art experts will comment publicly, but several observe that with no specialist professionals on TMAG curatorial staff, it is highly unusual that the institution did not actively seek the opinion and assistance of mainland state art gallery curators.
Although TMAG initially believed the Wong’s gift of Han, Song, Yaun, Jin and Tang dynasty ceramics and artefacts to be “priceless”, one professional Chinese art expert believes the collection may actually be worth closer to $12,000, with many objects of little value for museum-quality display. When records of the Wong’s donation were recently removed from its website and online collection database, insiders claimed TMAG had quietly concluded that less than 30 per cent of the donation was of genuine merit.
A historian formerly based at the University of Hong Kong, Professor Wong emphasises his expertise in authenticating Chinese art in his introduction to TMAG’s Wong’s Collection brochure. “Our skill in verification grew with the advance of time,” he writes. Although he’s the principle author of TMAG’s upcoming illustrated book on his own collection, it’s completely unknown to any of the Federal Government’s registry of Chinese art experts contacted. Unusually, the gift was made outside the Federal Taxation Incentive for the Arts’ established donation criteria.
When pressed for names of independent professional experts who’ve authenticated Wong’s donation, the Minister for the Arts office said it was “inappropriate to disclose individual reference points for the museum other than to say that uniformly all people contacted had the highest regard for both the collection and the donors”.
But if mainland state art galleries must actively cultivate advice of experts on all their collections, why has TMAG exempted itself from similarly scrupulous international museum standards of research in this instance?
Critic Jane Rankin-Reid’s article first ran in The Age, Tuesday, May 31, 2005.
Judge the collection yourself. Leatherwood Online has a large portfolio here.
TMAG
June 7, 2005 at 04:17
This letter was published in The Sunday Tasmanian in response to JRR’s Suntas article on The Wong Collection:
The Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery does not normally respond to Ms Rankin Reid’s unbalanced and ill informed articles on TMAG. However, her attack on TMAG, its staff and its donors in her article on the Wongs’ collection demands a response.
The collection, donated by Professor Shiu Hon and Mrs Nancy Wong from their private collection, provides TMAG with its first significant collection of Chinese art and antiquities. It has been presented to the museum in three stages. Stage one, some hundred and seventeen items, is currently on display in the Decorative Arts Gallery at TMAG. Stages two and three are scheduled for exhibition in September of this year.
Ms Rankin Reid claims to have interviewed “a tight knit coterie of Chinese art experts†who cast doubt on the significance and value of the collection. But the experts referred to are not identified because, she darkly suggests, they are fearful of speaking publicly because of “political repercussionsâ€. This is a bizarre claim: it is difficult to imagine the Federal Government or any of the state governments having an interest in suppressing expert opinion about the Wongs’ collection; in any event no true professional would be deterred by such a threat.
Ms Rankin Reid’s claims that mainland experts have formed an opinion or placed a value upon the collection are patently false. The one hundred and forty items that comprise stages two and three have never been on public display and thus the great bulk and the most valuable part of the collection has never even been seen by these alleged experts. It follows that it is impossible for them to have attributed any value to these objects and that her ludicrous claim that the collection is valued at $12 000 is totally without foundation.
Her assertion that the “Federal Government official registry of Chinese Art expert assessors†had formed an adverse view of the Wongs’ collection is similarly without substance. The donation was not made under the Commonwealth Cultural Gifts Program, under which those experts are registered, and there has therefore been no occasion for them to have viewed the collection or formed an opinion about it. In any event these experts too could not have seen the great bulk of the collection.
Ms Rankin Reid questions the capacity of TMAG to produce a quality publication on the collection. TMAG has an international reputation for excellence in publishing. Its Pugin catalogue won the Berger prize for the most significant global contribution to British Art History in 2003 and its John Glover publication was short listed for the same award last year, as well as winning the 2005 Tasmania Prize. The curator responsible for preparing the Wongs’ exhibition catalogue has been involved in extensive research since the first part of the collection arrived in 2003. This involves literature research, viewing relevant interstate collections and liaising with specialists in the field.
Ms Rankin Reid’s lack of detachment is plainly evidenced by the fact that she has never at any stage sought to speak about her claims with either the Director of the TMAG or the curator responsible for the collection.
It is unfortunate that Ms Rankin Reid continues to expose her personal biases in her writings on the arts in Tasmania. This does much damage; it would be far better if she were to use her time making a more constructive contribution.
Sir Guy Green
Chairman of Trustees, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery
Bill Bleathman
Director, Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery