TAASA Review Issues

Richard A Woolcott AC, Director, Asia Society Australasia Centre

The AustralAsia Centre of the Asia Society is pleased to have the opportunity to support TAASA with this issue on Australia’s major public collections of Asian art. This is consistent with the AustralAsia Centre’s commitment to developing programmes which promote better understanding between the countries of Asia and Australasia. The Asia Society was founded in New York by John D Rockefeller III, a major collector of Asian Art, who saw art as being an indispensable tool for promoting better understanding between the countries of Asia and the United States. The AustralAsia Centre, as the newest of the Society’s five regional centres, will benefit from the reputation and long-established networks of the Asia Society and inject an Australasian perspective to the Asia Society. The Centre is overseen by an Advisory Council which includes representatives from the arts (including the directors of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the National Gallery of Victoria and the Queensland Art Gallery),politics, business, academia and the media. The AustralAsia Centre looks forward to working closely with both the public museums and TAASA in promoting Asian arts in Australia.

From the first recorded acquisition of an Asian work at the National Gallery of Victoria in 1862 to Queensland Art Gallery’s contemporary art purchases from Asia Pacific Triennials, the institutions surveyed here have developed collection policies based on Australia’s role as a good neighbour in the Asian region and on the need to promote deeper understanding of Asian cultures at home. Each curator has demonstrated awareness of changing tastes and fashions in collecting and the very subjective nature of their business. Their articles acknowledge the role of individual interest and passion in building their unique collections. Many of the curators speak of a cross-cultural influence in their collections, which both recognises Australia’s multi-cultural society and the web of influences between Asian countries at different periods in time.

The AustralAsia Centre is very pleased to have been involved with TAASA in producing an issue of such high quality which can be used as a ready reference on the major public collections of Asian Art in Australia.