Australian Biography - Betty Churcher

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BETTY
I suppose it's ambition, but my determination to do things has been grounded in the fact that I was told very early and very firmly that I couldn't. Just about everything I wanted to do I couldn't because I was a girl. "No, you can't because you're a girl", or "yes, he can because he's a boy." And, you know, this difference was being highlighted all the time in our life.

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My first memories are when I was living at Southport. And we must have moved to Holland Park in Brisbane

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probably when I was about, um, three or four. And it was then in the middle of cow paddocks.

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MCU BETTY

It was just a house, standing in this great paddock full of cows.

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But the great magical thing for me as a child was just down the bottom there

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was a lovely creek. And every now and then, a little bit of the bank would break away and become a little island,

MS BETTY

topped with this lovely little pad of green grass. And I used to remember sit on that [sic]

MS PAINTING OF PEOPLE NEAR CREEK

and just watch the water run by and dream, and that was really probably one of my favourite spots. Mum, on the other hand, didn't like me going down there,

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because she thought it was just a little bit out of sight, and there used to be gypsies in those days.

MCU BETTY

Now not that the gypsies would have done anything to me at all, had the slightest interest in me, but she still had that Victorian residue of the thing that the gypsies were not to be trusted and that they might even steal children.

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All of that nonsense. The other thing I remember about those days was the Depression.

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I didn't know it was a depression, of course, but it was the tramps. And they became just a part of my, er,

MCU BETTY

early memories. And I thought the world was just divided into tramps, gypsies and other people,

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ie. us.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
What sort of a person was your father?

BETTY (OOS)
Dad was a Scot.

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A dour Scot. But I loved him very, very dearly.

MCU BETTY

And, ah, I looked on him as my support. Mum and Gran seemed to be so focussed on Ian, you know, the oldest boy

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The boy was what it was all about. Mum never lost the fact

MCU BETTY

that the most important people in her life was her parents, then her husband, then her son, and then her daughter. And she somehow made this very clear and none of us, whatever rank we were at, really liked it.

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Mum did everything domestic. Dad did nothing.

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Dad just sat and received his cups of tea and his slices of toast or whatever.

MCU BETTY

And he thought that that was how it should be. That was the natural order of things. And when I came

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to get to the end of my schooling, he decided that I should leave

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at grade ten, and I desperately wanted to go on. I knew that I really

MCU BETTY

truly wanted to go on to Senior, or HSC, you know, ah, university qualifying. And he made this very, very puzzling comment to me.

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He said, "look, it won't be useful. You'll only get married. You won't need an education."

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He said, "it spoils a girl". And I remember thinking,

MCU BETTY

'how can it spoil a girl', you know? Because I was too young, really, to get on to what he was talking about. What he was talking about is that it'd give me aspirations and, ah, hopes and ambitions that perhaps, you know, might spoil it for somebody who wanted to have his tea made for him every morning, noon and night.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
But despite this, you did feel he was your champion in the household.

BETTY (OOS)
I did.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
Where did that come from?

MCU BETTY

BETTY
And he was. Well, because Mum and Gran were so focussed on Ian. So focussed on Ian.

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And I just felt, to be honest, that I'd been born the wrong sex, you know. I'd just really think,

MCU BETTY

'what terrible bad luck to be born a girl, and I'm going to be straddled with this for the rest of my life.'

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
How did you get on at school?

BETTY (OOS)
I was completely confused about school. I had no idea why I was going, what I was supposed to be doing. And then

MCU BETTY

at the age of seven, I think it was my grandmother

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paid for Ian and I to go to private schools. Ian went to Church of England Grammar School,

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and I went to Somerville House. Miss Craig, who was the

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headmistress, was quite extraordinary. She was ... we were all terrified of her.

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She was a very sort of upright, sort of ... you know, frightened the life out of us.

MCU BETTY

But she did marvellous things, without my even knowing she did it. When Dad was determined I was going to leave after grade ten, for fear of being spoilt, she - I didn't know this at the time - but she rang him up

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and said that if it was a matter of money, then the school would waive the fees.

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So I did the last two years without paying school fees

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but doing a little bit of teaching in the junior school.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
What kind

MCU BETTY

of teaching?

BETTY
Teaching art. See, by this time, it was clear to Miss Craig that I was, um, really obsessed by art and that this was going to be my forte. And she was an extraordinary woman. She really wanted us all to succeed in whatever we did.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
Somerville House was an all girls' school. When did you start going out with boys?

BETTY (OOS)
I wasn't terribly interested in boys, then.

MCU BETTY

Really, at all. I was quite wrong for the age. I was very tall and very thin and very angular

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and the thing to be then was petite and bosomy and hourglass figure.

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I just was all wrong. and, ah, I hated dancing.

MCU BETTY

because, ah, I was always taller than any of the boys. My father used to say, "watch the chin, dear. Watch the chin." I'd say, "what do you mean?" "Brylcreem". You know, when you get the Brylcreem under your chin.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
What made you apply for a scholarship to study overseas?

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Was that necessary for art at that time?

BETTY (OOS)
Yes.

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My main aim was to get to somewhere

MCU BETTY

where I could study art seriously.

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And the paintings that I submitted, one of them was a, ah,

MCU BETTY

a religious painting we had to do, and I did the raising of Lazaraus.

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And I had my brother pose for Lazarus. Lazarus was lying on the ground, you know, going

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into the picture. But of course I'd drawn him badly.

MCU BETTY

His ... he didn't have enough space for his legs. And Dad called the picture, he said, it was called, "Jeez, You Lover Of Our Souls, See Me Standing In A Hole".

MS LAZARUS PAINTING

And that's the sort of thing you'd get from Dad, you know. Completely, ah, devastating but very, very funny. But anyway, it won.

MCU BETTY

It was the best thing that I've ever had. Nothing has ever touched it. I remember riding home

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in the tram, and it was just as if all of my dreams

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had come to fruition. I remember as the old tram turned the corner at Greenslopes, and I thought,

MCU BETTY

'I'm outta here. I'm going to have a whole new life.'

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
You went to London

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and the Royal College of Art. Did it give you what you wanted?

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BETTY (OOS)
No. The teaching at the Royal College was really almost non-existent in those days. And every now and then one of them would shuffle up the corridor and make a remark or two but, um,

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The only remark that this Ruskin Spear ... Ruskin Spear was probably the best painter who was there. He said, "you know the trouble with you?"

MCU BETTY

I'm sort of all agog, you know. I'm going to find out at last. "You try too hard." Now I know what he meant. I know exactly what he meant, but I didn't know at the time what he meant. You know, relax a bit. You know ... I was you know, trying to screw ... catch that image, you know, and screw it down much too rigorously and firmly. And he was trying to tell me, "loosen up a bit, you know. Just let it happen."

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Went over my head, I'm afraid.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
It was during this time that you met another artist,

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Roy Churcher. What made you decide to marry him?

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BETTY (OOS)
I was just really attracted to him physically, to start with. He was as tall as I was,

TI MCU BETTY

which helped. Um, I think you sort of sense someone's going to be husband material or not. I don't know. I don't know. I just felt that, you know, he was someone that I would like to spend my life with.

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And that's how it's turned out. And in the 1950s, when we came home, Roy's beard was enough to have

TI MCU BETTY

policemen stop us in the street, to have the whole tram, you know, slowly turn around and solemnly stare at this bearded creature. It was extraordinary. Men did not wear beards in the 1950s. Roy's, I think, was the first beard in Brisbane.

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And I had to prepare Mum very carefully.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
Why did you stay in Australia? why didn't you go back

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to England?

BETTY (OOS)
Roy fell in love with the place. Ah, all of our grand schemes of how we were going to raise the money to get back

MCU BETTY

fell through. Roy was going to be a sugar cane cutter, if you don't mind, in North Queensland. And it all just, you know, was just crazy

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pie in the sky stuff. And you know, it just didn't happen.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
And instead, you started an art school

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together and that went well. But what was happening with your own painting?

BETTY (OOS)
Well that was about the time when my own painting was getting a bit frantic.

TI MCU BETTY

I was just floundering, splashing around there in paint, not really knowing what I was doing.

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And to be honest, I think becoming pregnant gave me a wonderful out. You know, people say

TI MCU BETTY

"oh well, you gave up painting because you had children." You know, and well, there's something to be said for that. But I also think I had reached that point

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where I didn't know where I was going. but if I hadn't had children, I probably would have been forced beyond that, you know,

TI MCU BETTY

over that hill and continued, you know. Who knows.

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I tried to start painting again. I remember setting myself up. I had this verandah, and I started to paint.

TI MCU BETTY

And one of them ... I forget which one it was, woke up, came in looking for Mummy and wanting Mummy, and I can remember this face squashed against the glass. This dribbling screaming face 'cause I wouldn't open the door and I wouldn't and wouldn't. And I kept on doggedly painting away and ignoring this sort of frantic little face at the window. And then I gave up, you know, and I thought, 'well, no, this is ridiculous'.

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I've never regretted it, you know. People think that I must have regretted it

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but I really didn't. But there was a point when I thought, 'well okay,

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you've stopped painting, now what?' It had been my total

TI MCU BETTY

focus, you know, of my mind and my emotions. So I ... that was when I thought, 'well if you can't paint, the next best thing is to be in something where you're looking at it or talking about it.' And that's when I moved into teaching, first in high schools. Teaching art in high schools.

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But I did enjoy teaching.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
And did you still enjoy it when you went on to lecture adults at Teacher's College?

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BETTY (OOS)
I wasn't a hundred percent sure that I was going to be happy there. I was feeling ...

TI MCU BETTY

I always think, 'am I adequate?' That's always ... and I think this is a female scourge. I call it the 'who, me?' syndrome. You know, someone says, "why don't you do that", and you think, 'who? Me?' You know, as if anyone else but me is the appropriate person to do that job. And I think a lot of women suffer from that. Well, a lot of women my age. I don't think younger women do anymore, thank God.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
When you took up an academic position at the Phillip Institute in Melbourne, you had to leave your family behind

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for a year. How did that work out for everybody?

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BETTY (OOS)
In retrospect, I think

TI MCU BETTY

I made a mistake. I think I shouldn't have left the kids at that stage for a year. I think I should have

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taken my courage in both hands.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
Why do you feel that?

BETTY (OOS)
I think they needed me.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
What about your needing them?

MCU BETTY

BETTY
That's a very good question. They'd say ... they'd be cheering now. Um ... now let me be absolutely honest, and needless to say I missed them terribly and used to write regularly and look forward to their letters regularly. But I'm a bit of a cat that walked by itself and, ah ... and this has been a problem for Roy. I think it's been a problem for all of them, this sense that I'm sort of going along this tunnel, which is mine, and I'm being very self-critical here, you know, because I think this is, um, a great fault of mine.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
You were successfully running the School of Art and Design at the

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the Phillip Institute, and you were well into your fifties when you decided to move to Perth. What made you leave academic life?

BETTY (OOS)
Well I was actually headhunted for the Art Gallery of Western Australia

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and I think that I had made quite a, um, a reputation for myself

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on the Australia Council. And I was Chair of the Visual Arts Board, then I became

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Deputy Chair of the council itself. and that brings you into Australia wide prominence, you know. You're noticed. Anyway,

MCU BETTY

I'd always thought, you know, where I'd really like to be is working in an art gallery.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
You were hired by the entrepreneur Robert Holmes A' Court, who was chairman of the gallery board in Perth. how did you get on with him?

BETTY (OOS)
Wonderful man, you know, and I learnt a

TI MCU BETTY

huge amount from him. I admired his composure and his ability, but he was a killer, you know, he really was.

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Absolute control freak. I'd never met anyone quite like it. I thought that his aim was for the gallery to

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progress and therefore, he as chairman, you know,

MCU BETTY

would be seen to be doing a good job. And, ah, that that would be the most important thing. The most important thing was that I did what he said.

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But, um, I get the phone call from Canberra to say was I interested in Canberra. And I ...

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my first reaction was no, because I'd only been there three years. And then about ten days later, something else happened that Robert did,

MCU BETTY

and I remember sitting at my desk thinking, 'I can't cope with this'. And I thought, 'hmm, I wonder do I have to?' And I rang up Canberra. I said, 'is that position still available?' She said, "yeah". I said, 'okay, count me in'.

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I remember the announcement when I became Director

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of the National Gallery here in Canberra, was "58 Year Old Mother of Four Gets Top Job".

MCU BETTY

And I remember thinking, James Mollison had just moved to Victoria, and I could imagine a headline, ... he and I are the same age, "58 Year Old Father Of None Gets Top Job". You know, it's just unheard of. When you turn it around, reverse it, it becomes as outrageous as it actually is. And I actually think that that did contribute, to some extent, to my, ah, slow take at the National Gallery. I think a lot of the staff were thinking that. You know, she's just a 58 year old mother of four.

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I knew it was going to be difficult, because James Mollison was such an icon. But I hadn't quite realised the implication of what it was to inherit an

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institution begun by a single man. Every rule, every

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regulation initiated by him. Every purchase had been initiated by him.

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Anything I did was seen to be flying in the face against the wishes of James Mollison, which didn't

MCU BETTY

make it easy for me at all. Because there were some things that I thought really needed to change.

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I thought the National Gallery of Australia had to take its place as a much more national institution.

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And I thought, 'here's an opportunity for Australia

MCU BETTY

to devise exhibitions with our own scholarship, tailor made to our audience, relating it to things in our collections, you know, putting our collections into a broader context. And, um, that's what really excited me.

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And that was the first thing that I really wanted to do when I got there. Now an exhibition takes

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about two years to three years to get together.

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And there was nothing there. Nothing had been worked on. So I

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immediately started working

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on an exhibition, and that was the exhibition Rubens

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and the Italian Renaissance. And that happened in

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'92, two years after I'd been there.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
What were you aiming to achieve

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with the series of blockbuster shows you became known for

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at the gallery?

BETTY (OOS)
Yeah, well the idea of the blockbuster was really ... if you

MS BETTY

remember back to Betty Cameron in Brisbane in the thirties not seeing anything, and knowing that Australia, beginning collecting as we did, inheriting no great royal collections like the collection of the Hapsburgs or the collection of Catherine the Great,

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THEN TILT DOWN TO WMS BETTY

having no Gettys or Carnegies to endow our collections. what we couldn't buy we'd have to borrow.

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And I was determined that Australians would get to see the very best.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
You were criticised for not collecting enough contemporary

MCU BETTY

Australian work.

BETTY
Yes, I was. I didn't see ... I don't think that was valid. I didn't see the National Gallery's role for collecting untried artists.

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I don't think that's the task of a national gallery. It's an encyclopaedic collection, and one of its real problems

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is how does it keep judiciously adding

TI MCU BETTY

to this without grinding to a halt? You see, the, er, Metropolitan Museum in New York is also encyclopaedic. It's almost ground to a halt. I remember asking to see something and the curator just said, "oh, please don't ask to see that." Because they just didn't know where it was. It was just sort of ... it's ... it can be chaotic.

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What do you do with a national collection that must keep growing? it certainly must keep growing,

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but I don't think you buy untried artists out of young people's studios.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
How did you feel about your role as the public face of the gallery, always promoting and publicising it?

BETTY (OOS)
It all costs.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
What do you mean, it costs?

BETTY (OOS)
Oh, it costs me nervous ... my nervous system, because I'm not, er,

TI MCU BETTY

naturally a gregarious person. I'm not naturally a person that can, um, just stand up and talk easily and comfortably.

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I'd sit up in my office before

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going down and swallowing aspirin

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and

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digesics to get myself into something

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of a state where I could cope. I had headaches almost daily at the National ... purely tension, you know, stress headaches.

TI MCU BETTY

But, ah, as soon as I retired, they vanished.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
All through

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your life, there have been headlines about you being the first woman to do this, or the first woman to do that.

BETTY (OOS)
Yes, well I was the first woman

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to become Dean of a school of art and design, and

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I was the first woman to ever direct a state gallery, and certainly

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the first woman to be the director of a national gallery. And it amused me when I got there to find that when I went along to the toilet,

MCU BETTY

only going to be for men. Only men were going to occupy that top floor.

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Like at the Royal College of Art. There wasn't a single woman on staff. Brisbane Technical College, not a single woman on staff. And this is why I think it was so good for me to go to Somerville House,

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where they were all women. That was really terribly important.

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I think if I'd gone to a co-ed school,

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I would have been still in that same, um, cycle

MCU BETTY

of it being about male achievement and female achievement sitting somewhere down here.

INTERVIEWER (OOS)
And has achievement

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and success always been important to you?

BETTY (OOS)
I think it probably has, yes.

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I think it has. I've never been ambitious in setting out and saying, "I want to be ... you know, by the time I'm

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forty I want to be ..." And I know people who think like this. I've never, never, never thought like that.

TI MCU BETTY

BETTY
I always say to my sons, "whatever you're doing, make yourself indispensable at what you're doing. Don't be sort of thinking what you want to do next. Just make yourself absolutely indispensable at what you're doing now." And that's really what I've done all my life.

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BETTY
I've been a little bit slow to resign, but this time,

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I really am going to do it.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
Betty, what are you feeling that you most want to get out of the

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next phase of your life now?

BETTY (OOS)
A little bit more peace, which sounds a bit defeating,

TI MCU REV BETTY WITH CREEK IN BG

but I want a little bit more time to myself.

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BETTY
I was saying to Roy, I get to the point now,

MCU BETTY

I was opening so many exhibitions in schools, in all the, you know, and they're all worthy and it's terribly hard to say no. I said to Roy, I felt that every ... when I opened a can of sardines, I expected them to all stand up and applaud. It had got into this sort of thing of opening things. So I've really tried to step back from that.

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INTERVIEWER (OOS)
Do you see a link between the mothering, the teaching, the gallery directing and of course, your style

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of leadership as well?

BETTY
I think they do, one leads into the other. I used to think sometimes, when I was dealing with a really difficult situation at the gallery, I'd think, 'well thank goodness I've had four sons and I've had to deal with all of their different personalities and their conflicts and their problems'. I think it does help you. One thing that you do in life does lead into another.

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And I think the overriding thing in my life is to get the best out of every

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situation I can. In Phillip, they were the other teachers,

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the people who were actually in contact with the students. Well, I had

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to really create a situation where they could operate to their optimum. Not as dissatisfied, frustrated artists, but as inspired and enthusiastic teachers.

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And I introduced a system whereby they could job share and have half the time to be an artist. And so they stayed

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enthusiastic artists and productive artists and therefore, better teachers. And the same thing in the gallery, you know. My aim was to let everybody, or to try and have everybody, operate to their optimum, or their particular satisfaction, and their particular ambitions. And of course, their ambitions helped me.

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