It is absurd to me that Rinehart, as the portrait’s subject, seems without agency
Alexander Voltz Flat White
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20 May 2024
2:00 AM
It’s certainly been a week for portraiture. Jonathan Yeo’s study of His Majesty has provoked many a reaction. The painting was described by this magazine’s Alexander Larman as ‘accomplished, intelligent, and conservative’; conversely, Jonathan Jones, in a scathing polemic for The Guardian, gave Yeo’s efforts a measly one out of five stars, labelling it ‘facile pseudo-portraiture’ and ‘a masterpiece of shallowness’. Ouch. Then again, knowing well its pro-republic inclinations, perhaps The Guardian’s critique of the royal likeness is somewhat influenced.
As a child, I lived with my parents in Brisbane’s Namatjira Street. If recollection serves, we had a print of North Ranges Looking South (c. 1950s), as well as one or two ghost gum-dominated scenes. The paintings of Albert Namatjira were, and remain, an inspiration to me, and I often seek them out when visiting state art galleries. Indeed, I must ask someone who would know when I next see them if Peter Sculthorpe, whose Sun Music would seem to provide a deft counterpoint to any Namatjira landscape, was particularly disposed towards the work of this great Australian watercolourist.
Fast forward to now. Namatjira’s great-grandson, Vincent Namatjira, has been causing a national stir ever since he won the 2020 Archibald Prize for his Stand strong for who you are, in which he painted himself alongside Adam Goodes, footprints, and a belly button. Vincent’s own likeness returns in his series of panel portraits, Australia in Colour (2021), which is currently on display at the National Gallery of Australia. The country is ablaze with one particular panel in the wider painting: that which, supposedly, depicts Gina Rinehart.
Vincent says he ‘paints the world as he sees it’ and that ‘people don’t have to like’ his paintings. Thank goodness for that. What I see in his depiction of Rinehart is a caricature realised through provocative ugliness. To me, this is what Jones would be better placed to describe as shallow, pseudo-portraiture. The Oxford definition of caricature is ‘a picture or description in which a person’s distinctive features are exaggerated for comic effect’. That’s comic effect, not political effect. Certainly, I’ll take caricatures from Johannes Leak in The Australian any day of the week, but maybe not from the National Gallery of Australia. Let’s have the gallery line up Australia in Colour alongside Tom Roberts’ The Big Picture and we’ll see which artwork imbues greater national pride. Besides, what distinctive features, exactly, does Vincent’s painting exaggerate? Rinehart’s weight? Well, that’s charming.
It is absurd to me that Rinehart, as the portrait’s subject, seems without agency in this situation. Whether she is Australia’s richest or poorest citizen is of no consequence. If a person does not want their likeness displayed, no matter how accurate or inaccurate, and especially if they are a donor to the gallery choosing to display it, as Rinehart is, then such facts need to be taken into account. Indeed, that the National Gallery would so poorly treat one of its patrons, for what seems, really, to be nothing more than commercial and ideological expediency, is an irrefutable display of ingratitude.
Now, here’s the rub. What would the public call Rinehart if she decided to paint an ugly, provocative caricature of Vincent for the sole purpose of comic effect? The answer comprises one word, being six letters in length, with the first being r and the last being c-a-n-c-e-l-l-e-d. And, somehow, I don’t think Rinehart could get away with nonchalantly chiding, ‘I paint the world as I see it.’
The National Gallery of Australia should take a good, long think about the precedent it has set over this incident. In essence, it has subordinated subjective interpretation to artistic freedom. But this is a false dichotomy. Artistic freedom, in the true sense of the term, does not presently exist in Australia. There are many artists in this country whose work loosely or definitively progresses the ideologies of the Left, and those artists are frequently supported, both financially and morally, by governments and major art institutions. For instance, over at Quadrant, where I am the magazine’s founding Music Editor, I have been cataloguing the ideological biases of the Commonwealth’s new cultural policy, Revive: a Place for Every Story, a Story for Every Place, for nearly a year.
Conversely, conservative artists, or artists whose work loosely or definitively progresses the ideologies of the Right, do not receive the same degree of support – and this is by no means a sweeping assertion but, rather, an empirical reality. Remember, of all the paintings from all the painters in this country, the National Gallery bought Vincent’s Australia in Colour. Whether that was a sensible purchase or not is a separate question; the point is that the gallery would almost certainly not have bought, referring to the above hypothetical, any caricature of Vincent painted by Rinehart, regardless of its quality, because it would consider such a depiction problematic. It’s for this reason that the gallery’s artistic freedom defence is little more than a thick coat of hypocrisy.
In sum, the case as to why Rinehart’s wishes should not be respected needs to be made. To date, this has not occurred. Until it is, Rinehart’s aggrieved state – itself completely reasonable – should be upheld and the portrait’s display suspended. Unless, of course, the imputation is that, because she is who she is, Rinehart’s feelings don’t matter.
Imagine, if you will, a future in which private capital combines with enthusiastic talent to create new, major Australian arts institutions that prioritise quality and authenticity ahead of ideology. I hope all this is shifting us in the direction of that future.
Alexander Voltz is a composer and Quadrant’s founding Music Editor. He is a Spokesperson for the Australian Monarchist League and a member of the Liberal Party.
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