NGA chairman backs staff caught up by Kapoor scandal

THE National Gallery chairman has come out in support of the staff who spent $11 million buying artworks from Subhash Kapoor.

Subhash Kapoor enters into a hearing at Jayankondam Courthouse in Tamil Nadu, India earli

THE Indian art collection at the National Gallery of Australia has been attracting visitors for all the wrong reasons, but chairman Allan Myers has come out in support of the staff who spent $11 million buying 21 artworks from disgraced dealer Subhash Kapoor.

Mr Myers took over as chairman of the NGA’s council at the start of 2013 inheriting a scandal stemming from the gallery having been a major client of Kapoor, who in 2011 was arrested, extradited to India and charged with looting temples.

There is also a warrant for his arrest in the US where authorities have seized more than $US20m worth of antiquities they suspect were looted and described Kapoor as “one of the biggest commodities smugglers in the world”.

Mr Myers, a Melbourne QC commissioned a report into the affair that found senior curator Robyn Maxwell and director Ron Radford, who announced his retirement last week, had behaved honestly.

“Everyone at the NGA has acted honestly and diligently in all this, there’s nothing like the benefit of hindsight,” Mr Myers said.

“If we’d known then what we know now about Kapoor I’m absolutely certain different decisions would have been made about objects.”

Mr Myers said another clue should have been Kapoor’s complicated personal life, including at least one girlfriend and business partner who spilt the beans on his dodgy business after they separated, triggering the investigation that led to his arrest.

Former Art Gallery of NSW director Edmund Capon purchased six pieces from Kapoor for the Sydney gallery and told The Australian last year he stopped dealing with Kapoor in 2004 after hearing his antiquities might have been stolen.

Mr Capon did not reveal this information publicly or launch an investigation into the pieces bought from Kapoor

It was around this time the NGA ramped up its purchasing from him.

“It’s a funny coincidence Edmund found out only a few months after he bought his last object,” Mr Myers said.

“If he did know why didn’t he tell his fellow directors?

“Kapoor really did have, as far as I can fathom an outstanding reputation,” he said.

“The list of museums to which he sold stuff is as long as my arm.”

In fact, most of the world’s prestigious museums cited by Kapoor as clients, were the recipients of gifts from him, or a mix of gifts and purchases.