A Vincent van Gogh tag found by a tourist under the stairs of the Old Teachers’ College could point to the real deal.
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During WWII, 136 of Australia’s most salient artworks from the Art Gallery of NSW were shipped across the state for safekeeping.
The gallery didn’t own a van Gogh at the time, but, there was one on loan – Mountain landscape seen across the walls 1889.
The plot thickens.
Art Gallery NSW library head Steven Miller said the work was on loan from the Arthur Tooth and Sons gallery in London for the 1939 Herald exhibition.
It wasn’t returned because the gallery believed it would be safer in Australia.
“It is tantalising to think that this work might have been sent to Armidale, and it’s not entirely unlikely,” Mr Miller said.
“The financier of the 1939 Herald exhibition was Keith Murdoch, Rupert’s father, and from the moment he lent the Herald works to the AGNSW he was writing to remind the trustees that their insurance was their responsibility.
“They could have decided that the van Gogh was too big a risk to keep in Sydney and so sent it to Armidale with their most precious works.”
There are no detailed lists of which works were sent to Armidale during the air raid protections in 1942, largely due to the covert nature of the operation.
“I suppose this was a security precaution and the trustees and gallery staff did not want a list of their most valuable assets readily available,” Mr Miller said.
However, the minutes of the Board of Trustees meetings about hiding the art still exist.
See the timeline below:
At least 136 of the gallery’s prized watercolours, along with a collection of oils were housed under the stairs of the Old Teachers’ College, but how do we know it wasn’t just another Howard Hinton print?
When the Art Gallery of NSW rejected an artwork from the prolific patron, the Old Teachers’ College became a home for famous work again.
The collection includes more than 1000 works, now housed at the New England Regional Art Museum.
But, museum director Robert Heather said there’s no record of a van Gogh print in the Smith House collection, a group of artworks that lived in the University of New England residential college.
The State Library of NSW sent some precious items too, including 500 cases of manuscripts, pictures and Shakespeare’s First Folio – that were returned to the library in 1944.
Curator Margot Riley said it’s most likely the van Gogh came from the gallery.
“I do know there was a very big loan show trapped in Australia following the outbreak of the Second World War,” Ms Riley said.
“As the paintings could not be returned to Europe, they were kept in their crates until 1946.
“Following the show’s initial run at Melbourne Town Hall and David Jones department store, the works were offered on loan to the AGNSW.
“The gallery agreed to take them for five months and then put them into storage, it is possible that some of these paintings, including the works by van Gogh, may have been sent to Armidale for safekeeping.”
So there’s no conclusive proof a van Gogh was housed at the Armidale Old Teachers’ College, but it’s a theory that seems more plausible than not.