Eric Westbrook

Dr Eric Westbrook (29 September 1915 – 2005) was a British-born Australian artist, curator and gallery director of Auckland Art Gallery and the National Gallery of Victoria.

Early life and education Eric Westbrook was born in Peckham, south-east London on 29 September 1915. In childhood, he accompanied is father, a businessman in the textile industry, on his travels in Europe and waiting for him in museums, an experience which made a lasting impression on his love of art and of galleries.

During World War II, and after graduating from art school, he was rejected for service in the infantry on the grounds of 'puniness' He took up art teaching after the war for the London County Council before being appointed art master at Ardingly College, Sussex. This led to work for the Arts Council of Great Britain as one of four guide lecturers touring Britain with art exhibitions, and in another role he set up art education for the army and advised the YMCA Youth Clubs in Britain.

For the next four and a half years as director at Auckland he was innovative in exhibitions and expanding activities of the gallery in other arts by inaugurating poetry readings, concerts and summer schools, lecturing and broadcaster. In recognition, the Art Galleries and Museums Association of New Zealand appointed him an honorary life member in 1959.

Westbrook oversaw an 'unusual exhibition' in July 1952, where drawings for the top 16 entrants in the Sea Spray magazine 20' LWL fast cruising yacht design international competition were displayed in the gallery.

National Gallery of Victoria In 1955 with Daryl Lindsay’s impending retirement as director of the National Gallery of Victoria, Westbrook was invited to apply for the position and he was appointed on 1 January 1956, aged forty-one years, on a salary of £1,868 p.a. (A$287,800.00 at 2025 value). Negotiating with a new Victorian Government, he worked to restructure the gallery and increase staffing, raising the profile of the Gallery through his lectures and on the media. He supported the establishment in 1957 of the Victorian Public Galleries Group (later named Regional Galleries Association of Victoria).

A period of travel in Europe 1957 enabled Westbrook to inspect museums in the Soviet Union and elsewhere, following which in 1960 he and architect Roy Grounds toured 122 galleries and museums and other cultural buildings in Europe and America, as they planned for the removal of the gallery from Melbourne’s public library to a new complex at Southbank and St Kilda Road and the development there of an Arts Centre. Study leave on a Carnegie Fellowship in 1965 led him in 1967 to establish the NGV voluntary guide service as an interactive and friendly means of introducing audiences to art in institutions which they may find daunting. In a 1965 interview for a Walkabout magazine profile, he asserted an aim to make art and all forms of culture more accessible.

In 1968 construction of the new building for the National Gallery of Victoria was completed, though the design, met with the disapproval of some commentators, including art patron John Reed of the Museum of Modern Art Australia, who ridiculed it as "an unmitigated disaster." The first exhibition in the new building, The Field, is still regarded as historic and influential for breaking with nationalistic Modernist Australian art to represent emerging artists working in challenging international styles. He proposed in a 1962 interview that the Centre in St Kilda Road would provide "information, stimulation and relaxation for citizens" and that from it a huge creative effort by artists would result in a building designed for its best display, adding that "...it's an ‘instrument’ which we are learning to play,"

In 1970 he was appointed president of UNESCO Visual Arts Committee, eventually with its own curator Jennie Boddington; in 1973 Westbrook mounted a large retrospective of work by socialist artist Noel Counihan to criticism from the staff and trustees on grounds that it either was insufficiently 'modern' or that its subversive nature might bring the gallery into disrepute, but Professor (Sir) Joseph Burke's support in opening the exhibition carried weight with most trustees, leading to Counihan's acceptance as a major Australian artist; and an exhibition of Leonard French, who was then Westbrook's exhibitions officer met the disapproval of Professor Bernard Smith and his Antipodeans. for which he had formerly provided advice on building its collections while in his role of Director at the NGV.

Awards

1974: Honorary Doctorate of Laws, Monash University 1974: Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters 1981: Companion of the Order of the Bath 1981: Ordre des Palmes Académiques

Publications