Nobody ever mentioned “no” to Maudie Palmer.
Not as a result of she was formidable – though she most actually was. Nor as a result of she was daunting – she was a famously adventurous and energising thinker.
It didn’t matter should you have been a board chair, philanthropist or investor, nor certainly the mayor, arts minister, premier or prime minister: you didn’t say “no” to Maudie as a result of she had lengthy since earned the deep admiration and absolute belief of everybody who ever knew her.
Maudie Palmer, AO, pictured in 2022.Credit: Bronwyn Kidd
A titan of Australian modern artwork, Dr Maudie Palmer, AO, died unexpectedly at dwelling on December 3.
Maudie’s imaginative and prescient conjures up us to beat doubt and negativity and try to be extra. To honour First Peoples. To do the whole lot we presumably can to safeguard the surroundings. To prolong inventive follow past the boundaries of our creativeness.
As one of many most interesting advocates for the facility of the artist that Australia has ever recognized, Maudie’s phrase was transformative: championing artists was her ethos and her calling. For Maudie, this went past vocation, past occupation. She was devoted to making sure that Australia’s future was knowledgeable by inventive views, and she or he was dedicated to honouring First Nations sovereignty and the knowledge of elders.
For Maudie, this ethos was ecological in addition to cultural: “In the instant future, all of us must urgently take care of this land. We want to make use of our ardour and creativity to convey it again from what is definitely the brink of destruction. We must hearken to our First Nations folks. We must hearken to the scientists.”
Mourning and celebrating Maudie are the numerous establishments she impressed and remodeled: as founding director of Heide Park and Art Gallery (now Heide Museum of Modern Art), TarraWarra Museum of Art and Herring Island Environmental Sculpture Park; as initiator of the collaborative Birrarung Project spanning Art Water Refuge, her poetic movie Birrarung, the Bulleen Birrarung Cultural Precinct venture, Birrarung Valley Walk and the long run Birrarung Cultural Pathway; as a trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria, a founding Ambassador of CLIMARTE, and on numerous boards and advisories, together with her steering of InPlace; and as a former curator, director or strategic advisor on the University Gallery (now the Potter Museum of Art), Melbourne International Arts Festival, New Commonwealth Law Courts, AAMI Stadium, Barak Bridge, Moët and Chandon Australian Art Foundation, St Arnaud Street Museum, Art Gallery of Ballarat, Gosford Regional Gallery, Hamilton Art Gallery, McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park, Shepparton Art Museum, Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery, Warrnambool Art Gallery, Yarra Valley artists-in-residence program and so many extra. In recognition of her profound achievements and generosity, in 2006 she was made an Officer of the Order of Australia.
Portrait of Maudie Palmer, by Jacqueline Mitelman.
Across her each involvement, Maudie positioned art-making as central to nation-building and uppermost in political priorities. She was a classy architectural advisor, having overseen main cultural infrastructure initiatives and daring new builds at Heide and TarraWarra, guiding our expertise of artists’ work in areas designed for that goal. She tirelessly superior the fitting of artists – and certainly, of all of us – to form the civic realm and information the choices that form our lives. Her work protected artists from the vicissitudes of politics whereas perpetually championing their voice.
In her 2022 Monash University commencement tackle – at which she was awarded an honorary doctorate, and from which I quote above – Maudie targeted on the transformative energy of creativity. She challenged college students “to formulate a imaginative and prescient, to set one’s sights on how one can obtain that imaginative and prescient, and to be relentless about its advocacy”. Importantly, she additionally emphasised the invaluable function of the relationships we foster: “The precedence in my working life has been to convey artists along with the group. This bringing-together has been an underlying consider all my initiatives.”
To be in her world was to really feel recognised, understood and exhilarated.
In doing so, Maudie remodeled the world round her. To be in her world was to really feel recognised, understood and exhilarated. Countless artists owe their careers to Maudie’s cautious nurturing. Private collectors owe their artwork information and their direct relationships with artists to Maudie’s eager eye. Galleries throughout the continent owe their origins and their continued success to Maudie’s skilled foresight and recommendation. Australia’s modern arts scene owes its main establishments to her imaginative and prescient.
Just like John and Sunday Reed, whose dwelling close to Heidelberg went on to grow to be as we speak’s Heide beneath her inaugural course, Maudie readily opened her dwelling to artists. Surrounded by artworks, with books piled excessive in each accessible house, Maudie’s dwelling was probably the most welcoming place I knew.
Maudie Palmer was the founding director of Heide Park and Art Gallery, now the Heide Museum of Modern Art.
Maudie and I have been very shut. Our relationship went past collegiality, past friendship and past household. I do know I’m not alone on this: Maudie was devoted to so many people, with an limitless capability for perception and care. I liked seeing her complete physique tackle a fair larger class when she spoke with deep affection and admiration of her daughters and her grandchildren. I liked seeing that forthright posture when she spoke of artists and colleagues whose follow she was mentoring, and when reflecting with delight on the evolution of that follow a long time later. I liked listening to her exhort a politician to search out that inside braveness and take decisive motion for the larger good.
An advisor works strategically and with quiet integrity. A curator deliberates, displays and facilitates. A director units a daring imaginative and prescient and leads with readability. Maudie was all of this: she set the usual. Tall, trendy, with piercing blue eyes and a devastating intelligence, Maudie raised the bar, after which she raised it increased. She explored and she or he critiqued, she questioned and she or he inspired, she challenged with all her muscle and she or he liked with all her coronary heart.
It was Maudie’s want that there be no funeral, and her household have requested that we respect their privateness.
To honour Maudie’s legacy, articulate your imaginative and prescient and say “sure” to your best ambitions. Understand the facility of your voice to create change. Act now to cease ecological catastrophe. Support the artists who create our future. And love along with your each fibre and nerve.
