You may (or may not) be aware that the Tate Modern Gallery in London is celebrating its 25th anniversary with a big solo exhibition of our Emily – ie Emily Kame Kngwarreye (or Emily Kam Kngwarray as they’re confusingly calling her).
Well 29 years ago, the very same Gallery, not yet open but in its planning stage headed by Sir Nicolas Serota, was offered a single Emily in the year she died, and roundly rebuffed the idea. They’d just bought a Fred Williams landscape, so Australia was not an unknown place for a museum that now touts that you can “See some of the world’s most exciting modern and contemporary art at Tate Modern”. But back then, Australian gallerist Rebecca Hossack was elegantly rejected in a letter from Serota assuring her that “I do not think it would be appropriate to move further (than some recent Indian art purchases) and to take an interest in Australian Aboriginal art, any more that we would do the same for equivalent work being undertaken in Africa or South America”.
“Now, although we shall look more widely, we have decided that it would be prudent to limit our initial explorations to those artists whose work has a connection to the current Collection”.
