Strewth: Capon’s love of art, and odd socks, touched all who met him

The bad announcement everyone was dreading ... Edmund Capon has died.

The late Edmund Capon at the Art Gallery of NSW in Sydney.

The art of odd socks

“It is with immense sadness we note the death of Edmund Capon AM OBE, director of the Art Gallery of NSW, 1978-2011.” So began yesterday’s sorrowful announcement, the one everyone was dreading since Capon, bon vivant and pleasure seeker, told friends he had a recurrence of melanoma. Rare as a hen’s tooth in Australian public life, Capon was a man who declared his interests to be China, but also “opera, giraffes and trees, especially eucalypts”. Also mismatched socks. And Magnum ice-creams. And cigars. Here was a man who occasionally carried a rather expensive Tang dynasty ceramic horse under his arm, to enthuse the staff; a man who, in 1981, momentarily depleted the gallery’s acquisition funds to buy Picasso painting Nude in a Rocking Chair. And what a good idea that was, as was his idea not to charge people to wander around and look at things. “I have proved 199 times that we make more money by letting people in free and charging them to get out (via restaurants, and book shop.)’’ He didn’t want anyone to think they had to be all arty-farty to get through the door. Capon’s death is mourned across the continents. Australian-born Washington Post art critic Sebastian Smee tweeted from the US: “Capon ran the institution where I fell in love with art.” Artists loved Capon right back again. But don’t feel like you have to paint your appreciation. Go look at a bit of a painting, maybe some sculpture this weekend, and wear your odd socks while so doing. He’ll be winking down at you, for certain.

Still on bon vivants

Publisher Ben Ball has found a new home. Ball, always a writer’s publisher, was fired from Penguin last year, went away for a bit to lick his wounds (and eat pasta) and now he’s back, hired by Simon & Schuster Australia to head up a local literary publishing imprint, Scribner. Will he now do as many suspect, and drag Tim Winton across with him? Winton was very cross when Ball got the boot, and Winton’s exactly the kind of writer Scribner wants.

Tennis, anyone?

In Melbourne, they have bathing boxes going for silly sums. In Sydney, it’s all about tennis courts. We could pun this to death — an ace result; game, set and match for the vendor, et cetera — but let’s just lob this item in: a 900sq m tennis court on Woolwich Rd, Hunters Hill, sold at auction for $3.55 million on the weekend. It was once part of the house next door. The new owners don’t play. They’re going to dig up their three-million-and-change patch of grass, and build a house on it. Don’t you just love it? (See what I did there?)

Suppression lifted

The schedule for the Sydney Writers’ Festival is planned months out, which explains why one of the sessions in the 2019 program is called: “He Who Must Not Be Named: Suppression Law.” He was George Pell, and he can be named after all. The session will “tackle the timely topic of how the law and journalism navigate the public’s right to know” and how the courts and media must deal with suppression, secrecy and censorship while reporting
the news. It’s at Carriageworks in Sydney on May 3, and it’s free.

Twitter Finnished

Social media became too much for most at the weekend, what with Twitter being so slow to take down auto-play of the massacre in New Zealand, and now it’s become too much forever, for at least one gentle Kiwi, Neil Mullane Finn. Finn, formerly of Crowded House, quit Twitter yesterday saying: “Out of respect for the grieving families of Christchurch and in consideration of their vast public tragedy I will no longer take part in social media. These platforms enabled the spread of hateful ideology and I will not participate anymore. For now, I just want to play music.” Don’t we all.