National Gallery On Demand

- Good evening. Good evening, everyone. My name is Adam Lindsay and I'm the Deputy Director of the National Gallery of Australia. Welcome to the 2024 Betty Churcher AO Memorial Oration and a very special welcome to those of us across Australia who are joining us online this evening. It's my great pleasure to introduce Ngunnawal Elder Aunty Caroline Hughes to welcome us to her country. Thank you, Aunty Caroline.

- Give a girl a microphone and she wants to sing. No, I won't. It'll clear the room out. Adam. I'd like to acknowledge all of you our special guests here this evening and acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and non-indigenous peoples. I'd really also like to especially acknowledge Dame Quentin Bryce. What a special treat for us to listen to such a outstanding female, Australian female and how far she got in life in her life and what she demonstrates to young females and girls of Australia, in fact, the world. Distinguished guests, all honourable lovers of the arts and I'm honoured to be here for the National Gallery's 2024 Betty Churcher AO Memorial Oration. I'm actually one of many Ngunnawal elders that have the cultural responsibility and privilege to provide welcome to Country and other ceremonial practises on our lands. The welcome to country isn't about welcoming Australians to your own country, our Country. The welcome is an actual invitation to be part of an ancient tradition that's been with us since time began an opportunity to walk with us. It's about the understanding of the deep sacredness and enduring connections that Ngunnawal have with our Djaara?, our homelands, Ngurra, our home. This ceremony is one of many that is unique to this beautiful country of Australia and one that all Australians should feel encouraged to be part of and proud of after all, it sets us apart from the rest of the world. Throughout history on Ngunnawal country, intergenerational creativity was an opportunity to learn and grow with our dreaming, teaching our children to keep and share knowledge with art story, songs, and dance. During which we connected through shared experiences to promote the pathways of knowledge and promoting kindness and love amongst us, creating opportunities that nurtured us to understand and connect within our deep sense of being by seeing, thinking, feeling to make without words always needed. And what we began with was in , a beautiful Ngunnawal Wiradjuri word that means respect, but it's much more than that. It's about listening to understand, not to respond. To breathe deeply, to look, watch, and listen. Listen with your feelings and your eyes, not just with your ears. And it's a unique gift of my people to all of you who are also my people, my fellow Australians. It recognises the deep spring that is in all of us. That is contemplation, that leads to beautiful creative thinking that creates the beautiful art that you see in this amazing, amazing institution. So in closing, 'cause I know that everyone's waiting to hear a beautiful orator, I want to say in the language of my ancestors that we have been rebuilding and reawakening our language. And I'm sorry to the translator that this is in Ngunnawal language so you won't be able to use your beautiful language to translate. You, me, we, all together. Everybody. So in in the words of Aunty Agnes Shea, one of our senior Ngunnawal elders who passed away early last year. You may leave your footprints on our lands and it doesn't mean going out, especially tonight when it's so cold and taking your shoes off and walking around in the dirt. It means thinking about what footprints are you leaving behind for others to follow in kindness and hopefully making a difference for all people. Dhjan Yimaba Thank you.

- Thank you, Aunty Caroline, particularly for those words in language. The Betty Churcher AO Memorial Oration was established in 2022 to honour Betty's legacy as an inspirational educator and arts administrator. The oration amplifies the voices of leaders who, like Betty Churcher, inspire creativity, inclusivity, engagement, and learning. Appointed in 1990, Betty Churcher is the first and only woman to become Director of the National Gallery of Australia. She led this institution with bravery, encouraging and challenging her staff and the public to see art in new ways. Her aim was always to give broad audiences the opportunity to enjoy art and its relevance to their lives. It is therefore no surprise that in 1994, Betty Churcher presented the first National Gallery exhibition anywhere in the world to tackle the challenging topic of HIV/AIDS. In November 2024, it will be 30 years since "Don't Leave Me This Way: Art in the Age of AIDS" opened at the National Gallery and we're looking forward to commemorating this important anniversary later this year. It's also our pleasure to welcome members of Betty's family joining us tonight. I would particularly like to acknowledge Betty's children, Ben, Paul, Peter, and Tim, and their families for their support of this important event to commemorate their mother's legacy. So we're delighted that in 2024 to give the Betty Churcher AO Memorial Oration is Dame Quentin Bryce AD, CVO. Now, when I think of Dame Quentin, three F words come immediately to mind. Number one is a word that you can only say in certain company. What with Australia being the land famous for the tall poppy syndrome and contemporary parenting that seems to have only one rule that everyone wins a prize, first has become the ultimate F word. But Dame Quentin has barely had an appointment without the word first being associated with it. One of the first women accepted to the Queensland Bar, first woman appointed to the faculty as a member of the UQ Law School, Inaugural Director of Queensland Women's Information Service, and of course the first female Governor General of Australia. And just like Mrs. Churcher, Dame Quentin's pioneering achievements make her the perfect choice to deliver this oration. Now, I did say three F words, didn't I? Well, the second is fashion. I recall that Dame Quentin was a frequent visitor to Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, during my time there, and she treated us to a dazzling array of sartorial splendour from Zampatti gowns to perfect pant suits. Dame Quentin was always dressed to the nines as the rest of us to adapt a phrase from lyricists, Tim Rice, "Struggled at sixes and sevens." Now, the final word is fabulous and either you already know just how fabulous Dame Quentin is or you are about to find out. So, some housekeeping before I introduce the Dame. We'll be welcoming your questions throughout the oration tonight using the Slido online Q&A platform. If you're at home, you can submit your questions via the Slido link below the video. And in the theatre please ensure your phone is turned to silent. Using the gallery's wifi, you can head to slido.com, enter the code CHURCHER2024 to submit your questions. And the details are on the screen just over there if you forget. Now everyone please join me in welcoming Dame Quentin.

- Oh, thank you. Thank you. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you to Aunty Caroline for her words. I pay my respect to the traditional keepers and I acknowledge the debt of gratitude that I owe to wise indigenous women who taught me across my life what it means to be an elder sharing language, country, and culture. And thank you, Adam for your warm welcome. My dad would've loved that. And this splendid audience, many friends dear to me are here and especially Betty's family, Paul and Meredith, Rachel and Isabel, and I think an old pal of mine, Rosemary Cameron. It's exhilarating to be back in Canberra. Michael and I loved our years in this elegant city, cherished memories. It didn't take us long to grasp the magic and wonder of our national cultural institutions holding our treasure, preserving our heritage, inviting and inclusive. Still, I can sense the thrill of my first visit to this gallery to choose some paintings for Yarralumla. A few days after I took up office 16 years ago, today I just discovered that, and I have to to comment on those glorious white blossoms along there. I think they're some kind of pears, but oh, how beautiful they are. I looked and I looked at the, around the gallery with Ron Radford, and then I saw "Springbrook with Lifting Fog." Will Robinson's revelatory, highly theatrical rainforest, mystery, majesty, the might of the volcanic ranges of the Gold Coast Hinterland. I couldn't believe that I could borrow it and that it would've fit perfectly in the space on my wall. I cannot describe the delicious, pleasure, happiness, contentment that this painting brought to me. It took me to the centre of myself, giving me a sense of place and a sense of belonging. It taught me how much a work of great beauty demands and how love grows as you search for its secrets. I knew that the gallery would become important and influential in my life in the years ahead. I used to come here to recharge my batteries, to learn about the renowned artists, the significant art. And when we went home to Brisbane, Michael and I took with us remembrances of joy, of unforgettable exhibitions, enormous pride in our National Gallery. From time to time, we returned April 2015 to farewell Betty Churcher in Gandel Hall. I was deeply touched to join the tributes, the accolades, the recognition of a great Australian. It was for her sons, then for Paul, Peter, and Tim that I turned to Maurice Sendak's classic of their boyhood years at Indooroopilly "Where the Wild Things Are," the exaltation, "Oh Max, do not go. We love you so." Oh yes, Betty, we loved you so. Ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour for me to present the Betty Churcher Memorial Oration, an invitation I couldn't resist. I have gleaned across decades what a lovely thing it is to contemplate, to reflect, to speak of a person whom one holds in high esteem, respect, and with affection. The arts have given me friendships to treasure and so much more. I have observed how demanding it is to sustain a career there, the struggle to keep going. We say we value the arts and creativity. We talk about what they give to our nation and to our own lives. But this appreciation is not reflected in the way artists earn a living. A discrepancy evident in our cultural institutions, underfunded, under-resourced. The report from Creative Australia released in May this year, ‘Artists as Workers’ reinforce some of what we know but the statistics make the heart sink. Most alarming it's actually harder than ever to make a living today. Half of our professional artists earn less than $10,000 a year from their creative work. Two in five are not meeting basic living costs. One in 10 works full-time on their creative practise. Annual average income based on creative work alone, $23,000. Women artists earn 19% less than their male counterparts. We often quibble and trivialise their value as a luxury, as an entertainment, rather than recognising they are fundamental to good health, good education, a decent quality of life. They transcend our day to day and let us imagine what is possible. My friends, what has happened to our country, steeped in creativity that pays respect to 65,000 years of cultural practises that came before us, and the emerging talent that will certainly come after us. Art creates culture, culture creates community, and community creates humanity. Churcher knew this. She believed in an aesthetic mindset that could be taught and nourished from early years and ingrained in the fabric of society. My friend, in the last month, I have become a Betty Churcher sleuth. Down the rabbit hole. Oh. I have sought out her old pals, professional colleagues, curators, critics, journalists. You knew Betty, didn't you? What was she like? Betty. Betty was charming. The word used again and again. I prefer charismatic. That quality that invokes the compelling presence, physical and social attractiveness of character, empathy, wisdom. I talked to Leigh Sales about her exquisite interview on the 7.30 Report with Betty near to life's end. Tender, courageous. Leigh told me that Betty had some things she wanted to say to us. Her message was pretty straightforward. Go to the galleries, look at the paintings, stop and look and see. At her memorial, before we left the gathering, loved and loving family and close friends lingered. We talked about her legacy, Betty Churcher's legacy, and that's what I want to explore this evening. Her contribution to our culture, to our community, her lasting imprint. What was it that set Betty aside? I'm always drawn to the early years, the way they shape our lives so deeply. Betty railed against hers, that little girl, Elizabeth Ann Dewar Cameron, born in 1931, the height of the depression. Daughter of William and Vida, sister of Ian. Her early memories of Southport by the sea, tickling her toes on the sand in the gentle water. When she was three or so, the Camerons went to Holland Park on city's edge, cows and hens, dirt roads, best of all, a creek. Clear, cool water running over stones under trees. Perfect for cubbies, solitude, dreaming, imagining. She joined her brother in correspondence classes at home. Mother and grandmother thought Ian's health is not robust enough for school. Betty saw it as coddling. Things at home caused her constant angst. First, the gender divide, her brother endlessly favoured. "Everything that I did seemed to be wrong. Everything that Ian did seemed to be right. What terrible luck to be born a girl. What terrible, bad luck to be born a girl, and I'm going to be stuck with this for the rest of my life." Her ambition, her determination to do things was grounded in the fact that she was told very early, very firmly that she couldn't. Second, the strict family hierarchy maintained by her grandmother, Betty always at the very bottom of the pecking order. Those injustices, the unfairness of her girlhood never left her. And then hallelujah, at age seven, her great-grandmother's will provided for private schooling. Betty to Somerville House and Ian to Church of England Grammar School. Head mistress, Ms. Craig, an imposing figure, always in black academic gown came into her life, an enormous influence, a great monolith of perfection and fear, “We were really scared of her but she was so gently concerned about each girl”. Ms. Craig identified Betty's extraordinary ability to draw straight away. Betty thought that everyone could draw. She adored her art teacher, Pat Prentice, a complete crush, "Just as long as I was near her, that was all that mattered." When her father took her to the Queensland Art Gallery for the first time, there at the entrance, the enormous, evocative painting "Evicted" by Blandford Fletcher, breathtaking, heartbreaking in its sadness and pathos. Her emotional response never left her. It's craftsmanship, a striking impression. She marvelled that an artist could do that, that an artist had that power. At 10 she won her first competition in the Sunday mail. She was away. She became obsessed with her art-making. Her father, her only support at home, encouraged her, but suddenly he announced that she would not be going back to school at the end of grade 10. "It is not that it won't be useful to you, but you will only get married. Education spoils a girl." When Ms. Craig discovered this, she phoned the doer, earnest, rigid, old school Mr. Cameron. Is there a financial problem? Shamed by the very notion, he caved in. Betty back to Somerville House, fees waived in exchange for some art teaching in the junior school. Just 17, still at school, she sold her first paintings, four in three days. The Younger Artists' Show at Finney's Gallery. The Darnell Fine Arts Committee paid four guineas for "Frosty Morning." She told The Courier Mail, "After I do senior this year, I'm going to save up to go overseas to study." Very soon, a real possibility. 1951, 20 years old, she won the Younger Artist's Group Scholarship. 300 pounds, a vast sum. Over $15,500 today. No easy money for Betty. Four subjects, landscape, figure composition, still life, black and white nude. Her brother Ian was model for her "Lazarus in Christ Healing the Sick." She drew him badly, not leaving enough space for his legs. Her father called the picture, "Jesus, you lover of our soul see me standing in a hole." The Courier Mail opined, "Here, a young painter of promise. Her oils glow with rich colour, content reminiscent perhaps of William Dobell." Going home on the old Toast Rack tram, as it turned the corner at Green Slope, she thought, I'm going to have a whole new life. I'm out of here. She began studying with Richard Rodier Rivron, innovative free drawing techniques. Then our young artist decided to study at the Byam Shaw Art School in London because she was much more interested in the old masters than in modern painters. The adventure of her life. At 21 to London and Europe on the Orient Line, four weeks at sea, exotic ports, liberation. She enrolled at South West Essex Technical College with the help of Queensland Art Gallery Director Robert Haynes. Mrs. Haynes, his mother, hosted a lively network for visiting young artists in London. They were halcyon days. Betty applied to the Royal College of Art, a seriously daunting process. She made the cut, but she had to pay her own way. Her Princess of Wales Scholarship for best female entrant paid only 15 pounds a year. The Courier Mail came to the rescue. I love this story. The Betty Cameron Art Scholarship Fund established so Betty could stay on at the Royal College. Parents helped out, Betty worked at the Pineapple cannery, and then in London, in a canteen at Victoria Station. To ensure readers of her talent, the newspapers hung four of her works. At 22, she is studying in the centre of the London art world. Authorities who have recognised her as a student in a thousand are amongst the world's art leaders. Donations flooded in the campaign oversubscribed. 1953, a golden year for Betty. Galleries, romances, parties. She met Roy Churcher studying at the Slade. They didn't really want to marry but there were two old bitties upstairs who were making life difficult. It became tedious pretending that Roy wasn't living in the flat. After three idyllic years at the RCA, Betty graduated a first class pass, the drawing prize, the travelling scholarship, every prize there was. She and Roy off to Europe three months, art and beauty, oh, the wonder of it. In 1957, after six years away, Betty went back to Brisbane with Roy. She had absolutely no intention of staying there. London was her life now. But Roy decided he didn't want to leave. She hated being back in Brisbane. It was all about Roy and Roy's work. The Churchers set up classes at the Attic Studio at the School of Arts in Anne Street and at St. Mary's studio in Kangaroo Point. They took over the lease there from Jon Molvig. For Betty, a hard time floundering with her art, the thing that she loved most in the world. The transition from her own style to the trendy stuff others expected was a tussle, a sense of inferiority, an awful churning. When she became pregnant in 1959, she made up her mind, she would never paint again. Just before Ben's birth, she completed an enormous mural. The scaffolding became impossible. She had to call on Roy to finish the last strip. That was it. But her resolve not to paint wobbled when her baby was still small. Very quietly, she set up her easel and paints on the veranda. She closed the door. Ben could see her through the window. There he was reaching for her, a terrible tantrum. This is hopeless, impossible. Just forget it. Enchanting photos from 60 years ago of the little boys whom Betty totally and absolutely adored help us understand her momentous decision, perhaps. Bill Robinson hints that her retirement from painting may have been more about a desire to let Roy shine than a sacrifice made for her children. He suggests that Betty's withdrawal meant that Roy could dominate this very competitive space. That you can be born with an extraordinary talent, but if you don't have the passion to get through the diversions, you cannot keep going. Betty told herself, "If you can't paint, then the next best thing is to be in something where you are looking at it or talking about it." She returned to what she knew and loved, to teaching at girls' schools, including my own. The archives there hold endearing accounts of the enormous impact Betty had on her students across 15 years there, including a special ability to stand in front of the class between the two blackboards and write and draw on the boards with chalk in either hands. Betty found something magical about those years in high school, 13 to 17. Girls so malleable, so ready, so ready to receive things, so alive to new ideas. In 1971, Robinson, her great friend, then teaching at Kelvin Grove Teachers' College, encouraged Betty to take on a full-time job there. Not so sure about connecting with older students, the who me imposter syndrome that dogged her at every change in her professional life struck. But then she realised by training their teachers, she could reach out to more children. I have vivid, clearest fond memories of Betty in those years. The tall, elegant, beautiful woman, cool, arty, admired. I loved her style. Most of all, that unforgettable smile that summed her up in my eyes. We all wanted to be like her. I look back with enduring and affectionate nostalgia on those years. Michael and I with two little ones back home from the swinging '60s of London, the exhilarating social change sweeping the world. And it was time for change in Australia too. That's what we talked about and we loved talking about art, architecture, design. Marimekko, sleek modern Danish furniture or if it's glass Kosta Boda Arabia. So different from what we'd grown up with. The so-called superwoman had arrived. The myth that we could do it all. Jobs, children, community. Working mothers, as we were quaintly called, lived on the edge of exhaustion. We depended on each other for survival. Betty had a coterie of loyal friends, many of them painters. She never lost touch with them. Ben Churcher reminded me recently of carefree family interludes each weekends piling into the car, no seat belts in those days, setting off for the Gold Coast. Sun, sand, and serve. Lunches on Sundays, dinner parties on Saturday nights, our social life hospitality in our friend's home. Over preparation, kids tucked up ambitious, delicious, conversation sparkling which was ready, attention-seeking behaviour abundant, political argument sometimes intense. I was transfixed by the energy, the eccentricities, the gossip. Artists love gossip. Gallery exhibitions were the thing. Ray Hughes Gallery opened in Red Hill in 1969 and the Institute of Modern Art in 1975, the first contemporary art organisation in Australia. The Johnstone Gallery of Bowen Hills, in Brian and Marjorie's timber home, lush tropical garden, Shillam sculptures became famous contemporary Australian art. Brian identified a solid group of artists who became household names. Drysdale, Olley, Crooke, Nolan, Shepherdson, Dickerson, Rigby. The Boyd Blackman Doors Exhibition stands out in my mind. It was stunning. That was 1970, I think. Sunday mornings, once a month or so, art lovers, collectors, critics, the beautiful people, Betty and Roy among them, were seen at the Johnstone's. Jatz crackers and wine the people were rather snobby about, were served. Brian and Marjorie closed their doors in 1972, and in 1974, 50 years ago, Philip Bacon opened his. For some time now, the leading commercial gallery in Australia. I have always loved soaking up the ambiance, the personalities, the joie de vivre in the gallery. Betty always insisted she wasn't a party girl. Galleries were her metier. Openings, definitely not. What she wanted was quietness at home or under a tree like the little girl by the creek at Holland Park. What she wanted to do was to read and to read and to read. The serious scholar, never lonely who longed for solitude. “The cat who walks alone”, she called herself. Her devotion to art history forever apparent. From 1972 to '75, art critic for the Australian. In 1973, her prize-winning book, "Understanding Art," a triumph. It should be in every household. Betty was at Kelvin Grove until 1977. She began to feel a bit of a fraud. All of her qualifications were in art practise. She had none in art history. 1976, back to London and to New York to study for her master's degree at the Courtauld Institute. The undergraduate requirement was waived on account of the success of her book. It won a Times Literary Award. Renowned artist historian John Golding was her supervisor. She wrote her thesis on the exhibition policy of the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the '30s and '40s. This meant working with Lee Krasner, Jackson Pollock's widow, and other members of the New York School. A testing time for her, she hadn't sat for an exam since she was 17. "Can I do it?" She asked. She was living in college, money from understanding art paid for the boys and Roy to join her. They lived out of London. She had one year to get a two-year degree. Back in Australia with her classy masters, in demand as a speaker, she was headhunted, appointed senior lecturer in art history at Preston Institute of Technology. She made the difficult decision, painful I know, to go ahead to Melbourne on her own. Roy and the boys followed at the end of the year. By 1982, Dean at the School of Art and Design at the Phillip Institute, the first woman to head an Australian art school. In Melbourne, she discovered a sisterhood, a milieu that generated the women's art movement, friendships that helped change the culture. There was only one other female academic head at the Phillip Institute in the School of Nursing. Betty discovered that a woman's voice is a real problem in a big forum. "They would just talk me down." Somebody told her, "Oh, Betty, you haven't a hope. All the business is done in the showers of the squash court." Betty always opposed a hierarchical structure, ensured there was no hierarchy of opinion amongst her staff. 1983, she became chair of the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council, later deputy chair of Council. The following year, she wrote "Molvig: The Lost Antipodean." Highly acclaimed, her reputation established. Janet Holmes à Court, wife of the chair of the Art Gallery of Western Australia, went to see Betty in Melbourne in 1987. Would she be interested in the idea of the directorship of the gallery? “My heart nearly leapt out of my ribcage.” She'd always wanted to work in an art gallery but she thought that at 56 she had missed out. Her first interview must have given her more than an inkling that she was in for some challenging interactions with Mr. Robert Holmes à Court. She observed him at the outset as highly intelligent to the point of genius. She noted too that he used silence as a tactic. Exhilarated by the opportunity, a great stepping stone for her, the first woman to run a state gallery. She got stuck in, a major reorganisation lifting its public profile, doubling in its attendance numbers. She brought in some fabulous exhibitions. She took risks, made bold decisions, and she stood by them. In 1991, she collected the first of Robinson's creation series. In 2014, she described it in her second notebook. "It's symphonic grandeur that the five canvases take on together." This is the first time that this aspect of an Australian landscape has been told in this way. It was huge disappointment for her to leave Western Australia without seeing all her plans come to fruition. She felt she had no option. Robert Hughes' riveting and deeply affecting interviews with Betty explored the tough gullies she struck there. Women first seldom talk about the slings and arrows, the scars that come with breaking the glass ceiling. Betty did with candour and insight, and courage for others. 1990, her appointment to this esteemed gallery, "58, mother of four comes in," they wrote. "Betty who?" they asked. What were they expecting, that she would bring a duster? Well, she did. She dusted off quite a few things. Her start was pretty rough. James Mollison, her predecessor, the gallery's first director, had set it all up and she wanted to change it. It looked as though she was flying in the face of his wishes. Right at the beginning she foresaw the diminishment of public funding and wanted to focus more on private sector sponsorship and philanthropy, and the roof was leaking. She said she was in favour of regular blockbuster exhibitions. So the nickname, and it stuck. Her responsibility as director, she believed, was to protect those aspects of the gallery, which are most at threat. The little band of curators is what the museum is all about. She wanted to give them the opportunity to make their own exhibitions rather than just accepting prepackaged shows from overseas. I remember the thrill of coming to Canberra to see some of them. Rubens and the Italian Renaissance, Michael Lloyd's surrealism, and then the jaw dropping Turner. These enlightening, amazing exhibitions did just what Betty wanted. Arousing curiosity, encouraging inquisitive looking. Jan Meek, former Senior Advisor at the NGA observed, "Most people walked past everything in the gallery at a pretty fast clip. But if you give them a little anchor, a hook, they'll pause." Betty was fantastic at that. She expanded the purview of visual arts dramatically. Jan had a complete map on how to do things in public relations, and she did everything to support Betty's ambition. Ladies and gentlemen, leadership is a quality. Betty's distinctive trait, collaboration and consistency. The thing about Betty was she was always the same with everyone and anybody. Hers was a quiet authority. No looking over her shoulder sort of thing. She knew she was in charge. Betty had in Jan the personal support that I have observed most women in high level public office should have. Instinctive in knowing what to do, crises stuff ups, the strain of constant media, tensions with family life. The so-called balance, emotional intelligence. In 1995, Betty was due to retire. Who would succeed her? Controversy ensued. Politics in play, Betty grilled in senate estimates, the appointment halted. Betty accepted an 18-month extension. She retired in 1997 from the NGA. A new adventure and wow. Betty came into our homes with the enchanting "Take Fives," art tidbits on television, and they were gems. Entre nous never overkilled, never trivial. All her TV programmes were tops. When she was researching for her last series, the "Hidden Treasures of the National Library," she noticed her eyesight was a problem. Some scary times around the corner. In 2011, ‘Notebooks by Betty Churcher’ was published by Melbourne University Press, and it's been published many times again. A personal guide through some of the great art museums of Europe and the USA. And oh, the writing. Nobody, but nobody can do it better. Sublime reading that I turned to again and again. I took that book to the Prado with me, to help me look and see. I had waited a lifetime. In the three notebooks, 211, 214, 215, we have inspiring, engaging, enriching stories of Betty's drawings. Her erudition encased in the warmth of her invitation to come, to look. My friends, when I began looking into Betty's legacy, I did not know it would reach into my heart and mind quite so much. I've scarcely scratched the surface, enthralled by the stacks of material, the public records, the press clippings, the interviews, all of the media of the time. Betty shared her opinions, ideas, and decisions openly, candidly. A life and archive deserving, I believe, of a written biography. Never have the arts had a more powerful advocate, a more brilliant communicator, always accessible, sometimes in a deeply personal, intimate way that causes one to pause, to contemplate a boundless generosity, her extraordinary gift. In that wonderful wise treatise first published 40 years ago, "The Gift," Lewis Hyde argues that art is a gift. A gift that enriches our lives, our communities that transcends economic value. Gifts encourage reciprocity, a two way exchange. Not only physical things or objects, but in sharing one's own time, knowledge, passion. Supporting the arts is a collective endeavour that nurtures both the giver and the receiver. It makes the world a better place. Betty would want us never to forget this. Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you.

- Thank you so much for a tremendous oration.

- That was scary.

- Was it? Relax. Have a drink.

- Oh.

- There's some questions coming from the audience. So I'm gonna start asking them.

- I know.

- Don't forget, if you do want to submit, please use the Slido app. Dame Quentin, you're a role model for a lot of people. Can you share some of the women who are role models for you?

- Oh, heaps of them across my life, but I suppose like girls of my generation, we all grew up with the stories of the suffragettes and some of them were a pretty wild lot. You know, and when I think of the wild lot of boldness, I think of Earhart, you know, the aviator.

- Amelia.

- Amelia Earhart, who said never say no when a new adventure offers. And that's what we loved about the suffragettes. And really since then, there have been generations of women who've inspired me and being a role model in terms of courage and belief in oneself, and having a go and taking risks like Betty.

- Yeah.

- And I think of the wonderful women scientists like Marie Curie and reading all those stories growing up. And we loved the nurses who came back from the Pacific when their ships were bombed during World War II. And then the 1956 Olympians, we all got around their shorts and little white sand shoes thinking we were going to be like that. I think that was in '56. I mean so many wonderful women. And coming up to more recent times in my life, I think of people like Dame Beryl Beaurepaire who was chairing the National Women's Advisory Council when I was on that, watching her leadership and how she did things. And of course we were terribly impressed. 12 of us, 12 women from different parts of Australia. Some of us had met before but most of us didn't know each other and we were getting each other's measure. I remember how impressed we were when Beryl would pick up the phone and go, "Get me Malcolm." And very, very many wonderful women. And I suppose my, I think of the headmistress at my school, at Moreton Bay College where the things we took most seriously were art and music and Betty, she wasn't teaching there in my time but at every stage in my life, I've worked with marvellous women, yes, who have been great, great role models. And they are very important too, I think. Yeah.

- You described in your oration some of the attitudes that Betty faced, you might call them sexism. Did you identify, did you have moments in your career as being a first where you say faced similar challenges or had crises of confidence or any of those?

- Oh, all of that.

- Yeah.

- All of those things.

- Yeah.

- You know, I'm a girl of the '40s or the '50s I suppose, and in my 80s now. Yeah, so all of those things. And I like to pass on the lessons I've learned to younger ones. I do recall, of course, the shock of discovering in, I think it was, it wasn't really till I was at university or maybe even after that, that I realised that, the extraordinary discrimination that women faced. I mean, finding out for the first time and it wasn't until about then I think that the person working beside me was earning 33 and a third percent more, I think. And also, that extraordinary bar that we faced of having to resign when you're married. And that's what Betty, I think Betty's would've had to give up her scholarship if it had been or her place, yes, I think at the Royal College, if she was married and the story about the marrying was tied up with that and they thought nobody knew. And of course everybody knew. I think when she left the Royal College, they made some comment about it.

- [Adam] Yeah.

- So many double standards.

- Yes. And were you conscious of them then or has as things have improved, do they seem more unfair in the rear view mirror?

- Oh, outrageously.

- Yeah.

- They sort of shock you, you know?

- Well, I was talking to Penelope Seidler last time I was on this stage, and we were talking about her role in Christo's "Wrapped Coast." And she did an enormous amount of organising. In fact, Christo was sending her letters to organise the material, and she's saying, "How much material do you need to wrap a coast at Little Bay? I don't even know." And all her work was credited as Mrs. Harry Seidler. And she said, "No, I didn't think twice about it during that time, that was the way it was. But now I would never stand for that." And so, I'm interested in whether it was an injustice you were rallying against and conscious of or whether it's become, you know-

- Oh, it's been part of my life. I mean, going back to the role models and the influence of one's early years. I mean, I grew up just expecting really to have it all really. I suppose I had the advantage of being in a family of all girls, but I look back and think of the enormous debt of gratitude I owe to my parents, who in the '40s when we were starting school, that they were completely different from Betty's father. And we just assumed we would be going on at school and going to university. Yes but so it was a natural thing to grow up as a feminist, the stories that we read and influenced always, of course, by my mother particularly. And I had correspondence classes with her, she was my first teacher. Yeah.

- In the interest of paying it forward, you like to pass on those lessons to those younger than you. I think if you're in the middle of your career, it's often hard to take that leap into senior or leadership roles.

- It is hard.

- What advice do you have?

- And, you know, Betty's story has so many issues in it that are universal, really. I identify so much with the difficult decisions she made because she took on really being the breadwinner in the family. It's always been incredibly challenging for women who are artists but I think it's obviously doubly hard when a husband and wife or partners are both artists. Yeah. And of course, it's been a very exciting thing to watch at this Gallery the wonderful campaign. I always get it wrong. Is it Know My Name?

- That's it.

- Know Your Name. Know My Name.

- Know My Name.

- And I know Alison Kubler's here. I think it's been such a wonderful thing that campaign has been incredibly successful for us all to learn about the unsung women artists. I've absolutely loved it myself.

- Yeah.

- And enjoyed enormously learning about people like, you know, we call them Simons Bowers. Everybody knows those two names now. And that opens up all these wonderful stories. It fascinates me that it took so long really for women artists to be their activist and feminist issues.

- Yeah and so many of them.

- With Linda Nochlin, yeah.

- Yeah.

- Took longer than many other areas of women's endeavours.

- That's right and so many of them in the shadow of men. You mentioned Lee Krasner. It's hard to compete with Jackson Pollock with the gender disadvantage.

- Well, the wife of the man who planned this beautiful, beautiful city.

- Exactly. Marion Mahony Gryphon. Exactly right.

- Gosh, it's a beautiful city. I have to say big back there. The architecture and the trees and people often say to me, "Oh, do you miss being in Canberra? Do you miss your alum?" And I always say, "Oh, I miss the gardens."

- Controversial question. Do you have a favourite work of art?

- Oh, yes. Yes, I showed it to you.

- Is it Bill, is it?

- Yes, that's what I really want.

- It was lovely. Well.

- And of course the most gorgeous thing is that Will Robinson has become such a dear friend of mine. He and Betty shared a great friendship across their lives and Bill did a lovely thing 'cause I've been really struggling writing this, writing this. I had to cut it down from 8,500 words to 4,500. But Bill did this lovely thing, he sent me the very last letter he wrote to Betty, and he's a quiet man. And he said, "I've never done anything like that before." And I was so touched that the world of art that I've become part of really since I married an architect who knew a lot about art and loved art, it's enriched my life so much in so many ways and it's such a thrill to be, I'm feeling like it now, I'm sitting down. But to be in this beautiful, wonderful gallery and coming to see the exhibition upstairs. Is it upstairs?

- Yes.

- Yeah. Last night it's such a knockout. And so, it's a great compliment to be asked to be here on this occasion.

- That's a great compliment that you agreed.

- Thank you.

- And we do have a programme called Sharing the National Collection. I'm wondering whether your home would qualify to share this. We'll check the guidelines for that. But thank you so much. I'm gonna introduce one final speaker, but before I do, please join me again in thanking Dame Quentin Bryce.

- Thank you. Thank you so much.

- To close out the evening, we have one final speaker, the Deputy Chair of the National Gallery of Australia Foundation, Mr. Philip Bacon AO.

- Wow, I mean, could we have expected anybody better than Dame Quentin to be speaking about Dame Betty? That's the only thing missing really. She should have had that, that damehood as well. I've been a friend of Dame Quentin's for many years. I was also a great friend of Betty's. In fact, I first joined the Council of the National Gallery in 1996 in the last months of Betty's tenure. And it was a fantastic introduction to this great museum. Dame Quentin, of course, is one of the great people of Australia, but she's also probably more connected with the arts than most of us realised or I know, now you know. She's been a friend of artists and art historians and the whole milieu of the arts really right from the beginning. And I think when Adam rang me and said, "What about maybe Dame Quentin for the Betty Churcher Oration?" I just couldn't think of anybody better. It's been a fantastic voyage with you through Betty's life and as you said earlier, somebody's gotta write a book. I think it should be you because she's done all the work, she has these beautiful instincts about things. The only thing you'd really have to read, it have to be a, it'll take a long while. 8,500 words just for the oration. I mean, the book will be longer and you'll have to read, it'll have to be a talking book as well. Yep. Off we go. We'll do it. So, Dame Quentin, I'd like to thank you on behalf of everybody here for the most wonderful, insightful voyage into the life of Betty Churcher, and also, I might say, into Quentin Bryce as well. What a life you both have led. Thank you.

- Yes.

- [Quentin] So many pals.