A unique mixture of charm, charisma and detachment

EDMUND Capon will be a hard act to follow.

EDMUND Capon will be a hard act to follow.

He has achieved much: the gallery has been enormously expanded and it has produced a series of significant exhibitions, from blockbusters to smaller survey and focus shows.

Attendance figures, so dear to the hearts of politicians and publicists, have been considerably increased.

Capon was ideally suited to the social world of Sydney: erudite in a field -- Chinese art -- that is challenging to connoisseurship, yet also capable of a familiarity that went down well with the new money of Sydney society. He had a unique combination of charm, even charisma, with radical detachment.

I used to be surprised by the brash superficiality of his addresses to the assembled journalists, but I eventually understood that he gauged the intellectual parabola of his words with the precision of a ballistics expert: they went straight to the target.

The real test of a director, however, is his capacity to foster talent. Thus Capon can take credit not only for the exhibitions (Entombed Warriors, Caravaggio) that he personally initiated, but also for supporting his curators: Jackie Menzies (Goddess and Buddha); Richard Beresford (Plein-air painting, Victorian Visions) and Peter Raissis (Albertina, David to Cezanne, Pre-Raphaelites); Barry Pearce (Smart, Boyd, Friend, O'Brien); Deborah Edwards (Preston, Mackennal); Hendrik Kolenberg (Intensely Dutch); Judy Annear (Henson, Stieglitz); and Terence Maloon (Michelangelo to Matisse, Classic Cezanne, Pissarro, Paths to Abstraction).

Did he stay too long? Many thought the director's 30th anniversary an appropriate time to depart. However, the real problem was the gallery's failure to announce a succession plan.

In any case, it is good news that an international search will be undertaken, but the trustees must ensure Capon's successor is someone not only of comparable competence, charm and administrative ability, but above all capable of rising above fashion and defining a strong path for the institution in the decades ahead.