Vaughan was responding to Victorian Liberal senator James Paterson’s suggestion in 2016 that the most valuable painting in the NGA’s collection be sold to pay down national debt. Back then, Blue Poles had an estimated insurance value of $350m.
Now, that figure is more like $US300m ($437m), according to current gallery boss Nick Mitzevich.
For this week’s cover story Rosemary Neill goes behind the scenes at the NGA to observe a busy team of curators at work on an unprecedented conservation project, to ensure the painting looks as good as it did when the gallery bought it back in 1973.
A shout-out to Canberra photographer Sean Davey, whose images accompany this story and who has just been admitted to the prestigious Australian photo collective, Oculi, with his wife, Aishah Kenton. As Kenton/Davey, they are the first artistic partnership to join the ranks of the collective, which promotes visual storytelling in Australia and the Pacific on what is possibly one of the most striking Instagram accounts (@oculi) on the social media platform.
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Sunday, June 21, is the United Nations International Day of Yoga. The theme for this year is, not surprisingly, “yoga for health — yoga at home”.
What does this have to do with the arts? Many an artist has turned to yoga to nurture their physical and mental health. American-born violin virtuoso Yehudi Menuhin was a devotee of a style of yoga called Iyengar and credited it with allaying his stage fright, calling it “my best violin teacher”. And Steve Kilbey of Australian band the Church has written previously on his blog that “yoga is my only virtue making up for too much weed or absinthe or chips or chocolate sponge cake”.
As the dancers of the Australian Ballet returned to the rehearsal studio in Melbourne this week, after 12 weeks of online classes at home due to social-distancing requirements, Corps de Ballet dancer Evie Ferris told Review how yoga helped her in lockdown.
“I practise yoga to strengthen and centre both body and mind,” Ferris said. “It has kept me in condition physically during lockdown but most importantly kept me grounded and clear-headed.” As our lives start to rev up again, perhaps there’s a takeaway here.
Tim Douglas returns on June 27.
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Not for sale. Ever. That was a statement former National Gallery of Australia director Gerard Vaughan made about Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, the remarkable abstract expressionist painting that adorns the front and back cover of Review this week.