Page 58 - Studio International - April 1973

there onwards. In other words, if you started with you can make a list of maybe 12 things—or you can one against the other, bearing in mind that if we are
Fauvism or Cubism, it would be already too much a make an ideal list which pays no regard either to successful in making our 20th-century British
question of throwing the ordinary person into the money or to availability. So a gathering of collection really representative up to about 1950 or
deep end. A Fauvist painting, which we see as masterpieces of that kind must be opportunistic : you so, then to some extent that will look after itself and
intensely representational, many people probably never know when they're going to come on the release money for other things.
still see as a mess of brushstrokes. market, and you.ve got to do your best at the time to NR: Could we ask, say, either Anne or Richard
NR: So what you're saying is that 100 years is not a get them if you think they're that important, and if Morphet to say what they would think were the
bad idea. you're willing to sacrifice a lot of other things in prime responsibilities at this moment of the Modern
RM : What I.m saying is that at least in the order to do it. As regards the modern collection. well, Collection ? If you were director, what would you do
foreseeable future we can't logically yield up any Ronald ? about it ?
more than we already have done. We must have at RA: We have a sort of private list of things we RM : I don't think I see the sort of contrast which I
least Post-Impressionism and probably a would particularly like to have, such as a Picasso or think Richard implied between going for
representation of Impressionism as well, because it a Braque Cubist painting of about 1912, a great masterpieces that fill gaps in earlier 20th-century
makes a very sound, positive, definite starting-point, Matisse of, say ,1910 to 1915 —virtually foreign art and going for very advanced stuff of the
grounded both in art history and in common unobtainable now —a Fauve painting by Vlaminck. a present day which is more controversial but less
experience. Malevich abstract painting, a really important expensive. One needs to go for both, because they
RA: I think there's quite a strong case for starting Kandinsky and soon. To these I would add things both fill gaps in the historical continuity which we
not with Impressionism but somewhere round about like a great... exist to represent. In so far as we are buying very
1885. MC: Dali... advanced art, we are doing so still — however
RM: No further forward. RA: Dali, of course, appears to be well represented recently the work was made — in order to illustrate
RA: As the Museum of Modern Art in New York here, but in fact we only own one very small its historical importance. But it's very, very much
does. painting which was left to us by Mrs. Pleydell- less expensive than the early work, and so I can't
NR: But our Post-Impressionist group is very, very Bouverie. And the pictures which you see at present see the two things as in conflict in a serious degree.
small, It's no more than a token. on our walls are only on loan from Edward James, so So I think the thing is to pursue both policies
RM : But at least we.ve got Cézanne and Van Gogh, that our holding is very deceptive. But I'd like to add simultaneously —they are a single policy—and to go
Gauguin and Seurat represented. And I think that to these such things as a great painting by Jackson all out for getting the most advanced and important
the Tate's educational side, which does not have all Pollock, a great de Kooning... art of one's own age while prices are low, so that one
its members round this table, would speak much RM : An early Andy Warhol... is no longer confronted in five or ten years' time with
more eloquently on this. They really would not feel RA: Yes. the same agonizing problems that we now have
they could do their job properly if they didn't have at NR But I think the nagging question which goes on about an early Warhol or a Rauschenberg combine
least token examples of those ways of painting, from and on is the degree to which one should try and painting, which is the same as when considering a
which to give the wider picture of what was going repair these omissions—which are very costly fauvist painting or a cubist picture. So it's all a
on just before. omissions nowadays—or to what extent one should seamless garment in a way, and that does place
NR: Yes, I think a case could well be made for cut one's losses. Because after all this is dealing with tremendous importance on going all out for serious
having here the Seurat and the Cézannes from the one's own budget; we've only got so much money. advanced art in its own day.
National Gallery. and a rare chance of getting a handout from the Anne Seymour: I just want to say, as a sort of
RA: And the Monet Nymphéas of course. government. And therefore it's like having only a idealistic new member of staff, that I don't think we
MC: I think that Richard has made a very important certain income. You've got to say, now am I going should accept the limitations which appear to be
point, but I'd like to raise another: that we define a to be prepared to spend all my income from one year hedging us round all over the place but go all out to
sort of culture of modern art. So far we've been on one great object, or should I abandon that fight them on all sides — both limitations of space and
talking about it in terms of a cut-off in time, but in possibility and say I'm going to use all my money to limitations of money. They should never be out of
fact we define it in terms of a cut-off of sub-cultures. develop the collection in terms of the most our minds, butI think we accept them too easily.
To a great extent, for example, we eliminate important work of the lastfive years, and make that RA: Buying adventurously in contemporary art, if
academic art which has, I suppose, a great vitality in something really great in its own right? It's a quite you really are in touch with what's going on and have
so far as it.s measured by sums of money spent. But different dimension, and this is one of the things that some feeling for the work, may cause you to make
we define a tradition of contemporary art not only in concerns me most, though I've never come to a mistakes ; but your successes will pay for your
terms of time but also stylistically : we hardly take satisfactory answer to it myself. mistakes many times over. So that a policy of
notice of certain things, and we consider, rightly or MC: This must be seen in the context of the fact boldness pays, and a policy of waiting to see how
wrongly, that this is also a question of quality; or that unless one had an absolutely vast building, things turn out definitely doesn't pay in the present
fundamentally a question of quality. But obviously beyond anything which anybody could walk around conditions of the art market.
from the outside it's not seen as a question of quality without dying of exhaustion, that 10 or 20 years RC: How far do you think you ought to go in
— quite the reverse. after the fact only a fifth, a quarter or a third of the purchasing new work by young artists? Is every
RC: Does this worry you ? things one is going to buy under the kind of policy acquisition you make intended as a thing that will
MC: It doesn't worry me, because all of us one has now are going to be on view. The things for last and continue to be valued for generations to
employed here— and you — belong to this same which one pays £50,000, £100,000 and so on are come, or do you also think that the Tate should
sub-culture, in the sense that it doesn.t comprise the much more likely to be on view. This is not only sometimes act as a government-sponsored patron
whole population, as Richard Morphet has said. But because we think, well, we've spent £50,000 so and buy young work simply because it seems
we shouldn't ignore it, and the fact is that both the we'd jolly well better have it on view otherwise it's relevant at this one ephemeral moment in time ?
National Gallery and the Tate ignore this thing, and a waste of public money, but because the value of a NR : Well, hopefully we like to think that the first
it's left to the Chantrey Bequest. Now I think I picture expresses a consensus within the world of condition will be fulfilled by everything we buy; but
should get in another dig here, and say that the what is interesting. And this consensus can't be we know from experience that this won't prove to be
Chantrey Bequest, which is very well suited to cater ignored, because the value of a work of art, not only so. If you're buying fairly near to the actual making of
for this other sub-culture, does it badly. And financially but also as an expression, is within a the work the degree of wastage is bound to be
hopefully for that reason, rather than for any language defined by the existing notion of art. This considerable. But then this is built in to the whole
parochial reason, the pictures bought out of the is what sets the financial value. All I'm arguing is process of buying fairly recently made work. That's
Chantrey Bequest no longer come unarguably to the that. not against you, but against what many people not quite the same as buying with a deliberate feeling
Tate. —correspondence columns and cartoons and things— that what you.re buying is ephemeral or shouldn't
NR: It's also now no longer a significant sum of imply : that the value of works of art are entirely be shown ; and we are a little bit bedevilled because
money. which it used to be. Twenty-five years ago, arbitrary and senseless. They do in fact represent a we know that whatever we buy is here for good. I'm
£2,000 was a lot in relation to the Tate's resources. consensus of opinion. Art is of course a social not saying that it wouldn't be interesting to show
But I think so far as control is concerned, we've function : it exists within a social ambience which the ephemeral, and to a degree this need can be met
resolved that one by handing it back to the Royal progressively, year by year, by means of the by the programme of special exhibitions. You can
Academy, who are in fact the owners of the money. activities of each artist as he comes along, defines exhibit a whole movement or an artist to an extent
anyway. the meaning not only of current art but which you wouldn't ever wish to possess. But if you
RC: What do you think are the greatest needs, first retrospectively of the meaning of art. And this is of buy it, you're putting down money and because of
in the British Collection and second in the Modern course communicated to dealers and collectors and the present regulations it is with you for good. I
Collection ? soon, who define ultimately the money value of think we've hovered sometimes between the two. It
N R: There are two things here. Either it's a question works of art. So the financial value of works of art is may prove in the end that what we have bought
of saying we don't have a great female full-length by not altogether cynical. does in fact belong to the first category, that is,
Gainsborough —which in a sense is self-evident and RA: We have to play off these various considerations it has a lasting validity. On the other hand, very often

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