Vale Edmund Capon

It comes to us all eventually but it's always a bit of shock when someone you admire passes away. Edmund Capon the former director of the NSW Art Gallery has died at age 78 from melanoma.
Pictured above (right) with philanthropist James Fairfax (who passed away in 2017) Whispers thinks the photo sums up Capon's 30 years plus stewardship of the Gallery.
Fairfax was donating over $30M worth of old masters to the gallery at this small get-together and it examples how Edmund was able to seduce and secure funding and donations from the rich and connected.

But more than that, with his unique personality Edmund Capon "opened up" the Gallery to millions of visitors who may not have ever visited the place. In 2010, the year before Capon retired nearly 1.4 million visitors attended the Gallery. 

Right: Barry Humphreys at the James Fairfax art donation function.
Born in London, Capon was an expert in Chinese art and archaeology and managed that division at the world famous Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A) before coming to Sydney in 1977 to promote a V&A exhibition. He never left after being offered the position as director of the Art Gallery of NSW. The V&A's loss was our gain. With a unique enthusiasm and an ability to mix with every possible social and business class and treat all with equal respect, Capon became the face of the Gallery and the numbers of visitors rose very year as Capon was able to attract major art shows from all over the world.
Edmund Capon 1941-2019 is survived by his wife Joanna , two children and three step-children.

Edmund Capon (left) with then NSW Premier Barry OFarrell and art patron Stephen Lowy in 2011

Joanna Capon (left) with Edmund and former "first lady" Lucy Turnbull.

Edmund Capon was able to transverse all strata of society and out the Art Gallery of NSW on the map, attracting the general public in their millions along with movie stars like Hugo Weaving pictured here at an Archibald Portraiture prize opening night.

Selfies at a Chinese New Year dinner

First Lady Lucy Turnbull with Joanna & Edmund Capon

When Sydney businessman Simon Chan announced that the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull would be the guest of honour at his Haymarket Chinese New Year Banquet, the event sold out that day. Simon has had this dinner many years (in association with various organisations) and usually he presents the guest of honour to the various tables to drink a toast. That's a traditional thing to do. So it was well behaved pandemonium when Simon took Malcolm around and 500 guests wanted to have a selfie taken with him. (you need to search Instagram for those selfies)

actor Jack Thompson & Malcolm Turnbull       William Yang & Shen Jiawei     Simon Chan & the PM

Lord Mayor Clover Moore points at something..and finds it's Chinese Dragon

One guest at Simon Chan's NY dinner was the prolific Sydney photographer William Yang (left) who has been documenting Sydney's nightlife for 40 years now. 
ABC TV just screened his documentary Friends Of Dorothy, a history of the Sydney Gay &Lesbian Mardi Gras.  Yang's current exhibition Stories of Love & Death is currently on show at Stills Gallery in Paddington as part of the Mardi Gras season.  Stills Gallery : 36 Gosbell St, Paddington NSW 2021 Phone:(02) 9331 7775

Moran Art Prize

The Moran family have at times been steeped in controversy. They also live now as a happy family unit in the extraordinary Swifts in Darling Point. Swifts, built in 1876 by Sir Robert Lucas Lucas-Tooth is possibly the most valuable house in Sydney with it's many acres.    

The Moran Art Prizes are amongst the most valuable in Australia and the awards were given out today in the beautiful Juniper Hall  (also owned by the Morans and faithfully restored) in Paddington.
Louise Herman won first prize with this stunning portrait of photographic artist Bill Henson who has also been surrounded by controversy over his work.
Alisha Staines picked up the Student Prize Year 10-11 for her photo those that don't jump will never fly (left) and below that is Emily Riley's Colour of Life the winning snap in Student Year 9-10

The exhibition of all the winning photographs and much much more is now on at Juniper Hall in Oxford Street Paddington

Right :  Bill Henson, Lewis Miller, Edmund Capon & Peter Moran with Louise Herman accepting her award.

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Cirque du Soleil opened last night in the big top at the Entertainment Quarter at Fox Studios.

Attending as our snap shows: actress Claudia Karvan and her son, Alex Greenwich MP and Sharri Markson the Media Editor on the Australian Newspaper.

Archibald Still Pleases

The Archibald Portrait prize never fails to shock and delight, always with a tinge of controversy. This year's recipient was Bathurst artist Tim Storrier with his self portrait (minus head): The histrionic wayfarer (after Bosch) .

Lucky Tim-for the first time the prize was raised to $75,000 although that's a fraction of the price he receives for a painting.

Above is Adam Cheng's portrait of film producer Emile Sherman who picked up an Oscar for The King's Voice.

The launch was also an opportunity to meet the new News South Wales Art Gallery director Michael Brand who will take over from Edmund Capon in June. Brand is the current director of the Aga Khan Museum which is being built in Toronto and formerly the J.Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.

Below are some of the finalists:

(left) Martin Sharp's painting
 'the thousand dollar bill'

and right: Garry Shead's 'Martin Sharp and 
his magic theatre'

Adam Cullen's 'Nelson & Koko'

 right : Michael Vale's 'Night of the wolverine – a portrait of Dave Graney and Clare Moore' 

Margaret Olley Exhibition Opens

An exhibition of the late Margaret Olley's paintings that have never been publicly displayed before opened on Thursday evening at Sothebys in Woollahra. Prices on the 27 works range from $60,000 upwards although most have already been sold. The one at the top which looks suspiciously like Margaret's living room is available for $440,000.

Amongst the guests were long time friends of Olley's including retiring NSW Art Gallery director Edmund Capon, Barry Humphries, movie director Bruce Beresford and artist Ben Quilty who became a good friend of Margaret;s after he won the Archibald Portrait prize for his painting of Olley last year.
2nd-17th March 118-122 Queen St Woollahra.

left : Margaret with Ben Quilty                                                        ********************

Best Look at The Oscars : Forget Angelina Jolie's leg, Rick Rubin pictured with Amanda Santos had the look with his famous whiskers combed to excess when he attended the Academy Awards and the Vanity Fair after party last Monday.

Rubin is the co-president of Columbia Records and possibly one of the greatest record producers in the world with a fortune estimated at $300M.
                                                     

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Madame Tussaud's has just unveiled one of it's waxworks that will appear in it's new Sydney exhibition that will open in Darling Harbour in May.

Nicely timed for today's Mardi Gras it's Felicia Jollygoodfellow from The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, in red, yellow and white feathers. Hopefully they will also include Guy Pearce who played Felicia in the film-he's much better looking.

Scenes from Picasso

  The Picasso exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW  is a rare privilege-a must see. These are Pablo Picasso's own choice, the works Pablo kept for himself, the ones he couldn't bear to part with. The entire collection comes from the Musée National Picasso in Paris.

On Friday evening the Shuttle attended a private viewing along with Premier Barry O'Farrell, Federal Arts Minister Simon Crean, Mrs Ros Packer, M. Michel Filhol-Ambassador for France, Spanish Ambassador

H.E. Carlos Sánchez de Boada y de la Válgoma, and the retiring Gallery director Edmund Capon.

'Extremists' We Like

Brian Sherman & daughter Ondine with a friendly Kangaroo
courtesy Voiceless

The billionaire Brian Sherman last week hit back at the Shooters & Fisher's Party MP Robert Borsack who claimed in the NSW Parliament on May 11th that Sherman's Voiceless was an "extremist animal rights group".

On it's website Voiceless says: “Voiceless will bring the institutionalised suffering of animals to the forefront of Australia’s agenda; ensuring that animal protection is the next great social justice movement.” 

 Borsack says that Voiceless was one of many 'extremist' groups attempting to buy credibility at Universities and other teaching bodies. Sherman is a well known philanthropist who donates millions of dollars with no strings attached to education bodies throughout Australia.

He is also a dedicated animal right's activist and a vegan who wears or uses no animal products that have been produced through animal suffering.

The Shooters and Fishers Party with just 2 state MPs also thinks The Greens are an extremist party despite The Greens now holding the balance of power federally with 9 senators, 5 NSW upper house MPs and one in the lower house.

MP Robert Borsack & the elephant he shot in 2008
 www.wildhunts.co.nz

Borsack who proudly tells anyone who will listen of how he slaughtered an elephant while on safari in Zimbabwe in 2008 basically wants everyone to be free to blast away at any living creature while rampaging through state forests in 4 wheel drives.

Brian Sherman started Voiceless with his daughter Ondine in 2004 to raise awareness of the suffering of animals.

It's fair to say the writer AA Gill who is in town at present wouldn't have received an invite to the fundraiser  Sherman hosted last week-Voices of Art 2: An Evening Of Art For Animals. AA Gill infamously shot a baboon last year because he wanted to see how it felt to kill.

And who were amongst the extremists at the Voiceless fundraiser ?. Noted Japanese designer Akira Isogawa, prominent artist Adam Chang, one of the world's most respected neurosurgeons, the brilliant Dr  Charlie Teo (Isogawa and Teo are Voiceless board members) Brian's son Emile Sherman who just picked up an Oscar at the Academy Awards in  Hollywood for his production- The King's Voice  ( he thanked his mother & father from the stage) Emile's mum Gene who runs the superb Sherman Gallery in Paddington and Lord Mayor Clover Moore and Edmund Capon, director of the NSW Art Gallery.

Don't miss tonight's Australian Story Hearts Of Gold: 23rd May 2011, 8pm which features the prodigiously talented Sherman family and their great passion for animals.
You can catch the show later on the ABC's Iview.

Art'n About

Joanna Braithwaite's 'Royal Mount' from the Sulman exhibition

Now in its 90th year, the Archibald Prize is one of Australia’s oldest and most prestigious art awards. JF Archibald’s primary aims were to foster portraiture, support artists and perpetuate the memory of great Australians.

There was little controversy this year. No-one is suing anyone as has happened several times in the past - once over a claim a charcoal drawing was not a painting. Although the Archibalds thrive on controversy and out of hundreds of entries only 40 get hung as a twelve trustees of the NSW Art Gallery-led by the president Steven Lowy (his family own the world-wide chain of Westfield shopping centres) finally decide on a winner after much debate.



Margaret Olley &  Ben Quilty



This year's winner of the $50,000 prize was Ben Quilty with his portrait of Australia's doyen of art, 88 year old Margaret Olley acclaimed as our greatest living artist who was also the subject of the 1948 winning work by William Dobell.

Richard Goodwin won the Wynne Prize for his sculpture of a vertical motorcycle titled ' Co-isolated slav.'and the Sulman Prize was won by Peter Smeeth for his painting 'The artist's fate'.

Hugo Weaving admires a painting of his pal Richard Roxburgh

All the works  go on public exhibition from tomorrow until June 26 at the Art Gallery of NSW and will then tour regional NSW and Victoria.



Rodney Pople with his family portrait



round the world sailor Jessica Watson by Tom McBeth

Judy & Ken Done with his self portrait

Nicholas Harding's portrait of actor Hugo Weaving



Gallery director Edmund Capon, new NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell , Steven Lowy



Song Ling's self portrait