Dr Marie-Louise Ayres: Yuma. Good evening, everybody. Very warm welcome to the National Library of Australia. I'm Marie-Louise Ayres and it's my great privilege to be the Director-General of the Library. I begin by acknowledging Australia's First Nations peoples, the First Australians, as the traditional owners and custodians of this land, and give my utmost respect to their Elders past and present, and through them to all Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. We are so conscious that we undertake our work for the nation on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples and I especially acknowledge that art has been made on these lands, stories have been told, science has been understood, country has been cared for on this land for many thousands of years.

Thank you for attending this event either in person or online. And before I continue, I would like you to please make sure your phones are turned off or on silent. Those who were here for an event a couple of weeks ago know that somebody embarrassed themselves because they had not done so. It's such a pleasure to see so many of you here tonight for the launch of Tom McIlroy's first book, and what an intriguing topic he's chosen. There are few controversies as hotly debated to this very day as Gough Whitlam's purchase of Jackson Pollock's 'Blue Poles.' To understand why 'Blue Poles', an American abstract expressionist masterpiece, is one of the most famous artworks in our national art collection, Tom has researched the rise of Jackson Pollock, the creation of 'Blue Poles,' and its turbulent journey to become part of the National Gallery of Australia's collection.

And Tom has actually spent quite a lot of time in our reading rooms here and trawling through Trove to help to piece together the story. And I'll just mention that my colleague, Dr. Nick Mitzevich, director of the Gallery, has sent his apologies for the evening. Joining Tom in conversation this evening is Niki Savva, veteran journalist, author, and political commentator. Before that, however, it is my pleasure to introduce the Prime Minister of Australia, the Honourable Anthony Albanese, to give introductory remarks and to formally introduce Tom. Please, join me in welcoming Prime Minister Albanese.

Anthony Albanese: Well, thank you very much. And I also begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on which we're meeting this evening and pay my respects to Elders past, present, and emerging. Thank you to Tom for the invitation for me to be here and to officially be part of the launch of this magnificent work.

For a nation with such heightened passions about sport, it is to our credit that two of our most impassioned national arguments have had the arts that they core. One was over this building that I get to look at at the other prime ministerial residence, the Sydney Opera House, a saga that went so badly that a documentary commissioned by David Attenborough during its construction was called 'Autopsy on a Dream'. I kid you not. The other argument just before the Opera House finally opened was the Whitlam Government's purchase of 'Blue Poles.' Aside from the controversy that met both painting and building, what they also shared was that they were both so confrontingly new. They were both moments when our country took a chance to turn to the future.

And more than half a century later, both loomed gigantically on our cultural landscape. Markers of a nation that emerged from its old complacency with two of the prime ingredients for a bigger future: courage and curiosity. I note that I had the honour of having President Obama for brekkie when he was here on his speaking tour, and he looked across, we went next door to Admiralty House, and he looked across and said, "That is the world's best building." A fine endorsement from a fine former president.

The story of 'Blue Poles' is a story of visionaries. Jackson Pollock, those who recognised his genius, and Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, who saw in Pollock's final masterpiece a pinnacle of human achievement that could help lift up a nation. It's a story that needs to be told and it has been told here with great style. It is an honour to be here to launch this book, 'Blue Poles,' subtitled, 'Jackson Pollock, Gough Whitlam, and the painting that changed a nation'. Thomas has given us the gift of what is in so many ways a dual biography, the story of an artist's life and the story of his most famous work and its remarkable place in the cultural life of a country that he never actually saw.

It's a story in which Gough Whitlam looms large, which is, let's face it, the only way Gough was capable of featuring in an story. Gough's decision that his government would buy 'Blue Poles' for the Australian people was a bold act matched every single step of the way by his trademark mix of erudition, knowledge, absolute confidence, and his unsurpassed capacity to sledge foes with highbrow wit. And, yes, Tom does furnish readers with some top-shelf examples. Some of the spirit of those foes still lingers. Only a few years back, one liberal party senator called for 'Blue Poles' to be sold. I don't want to embarrass him, so let's just call him James Paterson.

At the time, 'Blue Poles', which was originally bought for $1.2 million, was valued at $350 million, is now valued at $500 million, reinforcing that the other side still just don't get budgets and fiscal policy. That is only one measure of 'Blue Poles' value to Australia. In his quest to bring it into the hands of the Australian people, Whitlam was blessed to have James Mollison alongside him. The NGA's legendary first director was charged with the task of assembling a collection for a gallery that was still just a dream, a quest as ambitious as Sydney's mission to build an opera house for a country that didn't yet have an opera company.

The whole story, of course, stands on the shoulders of Jackson Pollock. Pollock's towering genius was matched by the depths of his very human flaws. Yet if we keep our eyes open to his frailties, we must also keep them open to the outlandish scale of his talent. This is also the story of Pollock's great hinterland, family, friends, and supporters, and all the gallery owners and directors and art lovers who were ahead of the curve recognising the importance of what Pollock was doing, able to decipher a whole new vocabulary even as Pollock was creating it. 

Among them was Blue Pole's previous owner, Ben Heller, the collector who turned his Manhattan apartment into a temple of art extraordinary open by New York City standards. It was into this temple that a delegation of Australian officials first walked and there hanged before them on a partition was this outsized masterpiece and what Whitlam would later describe as 'the majestic strength and furious energy of its abstract surface'. Worth repeating, 'the majestic strength and furious energy of its abstract surface'.

Towering above all of Pollock's supporters was his wife, Lee Krasner, a powerful artist in her own right, his strongest believer, and most persistent saviour, and the chief protector of his legacy. The story of their life together often veered a long way from happiness, yet somehow Krasner's love endured everything. It is fitting that their works and theirs alone hang together in the NGA on a partition just as 'Blue Poles' did when Whitlam's delegation first set eyes upon it. 'Blue Poles' belongs in the National Gallery of Australia. It belongs right here in Canberra. To borrow from what Prime Minister John Curtin said when he opened the Australian War Memorial, "It belongs like the capital city itself to Australia."

Tom McIlroy has given us a coming-of-age story, a nation coaxed into growing that little bit more into its own skin. For Tom's regular readers, it will come as no surprise, there's a story he tells lucidly. 'Blue Poles' is a page-turner constructed with meticulous care, his comprehensive research backed by a clear love for the subject. Tom reminds us of why it is all still so important: Pollock's wild, enigmatic, outpouring of magic, the extraordinary gallery in which it hangs, and the duty of every Australian government to be ambitious for our great country, always ready to withstand the short-term tempers of the present for the benefits of the future. And with that, Tom has given us something of true power.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to hear from the author himself. Please put your hands together for Tom McIlroy.

Niki Savva: Well, thank you, Prime Minister, for that introduction and welcome to everyone to pay tribute to Tom's magnificent achievement. All too often we've seen what happens when political and cultural worlds collide. Usually, everybody ends up splattered. The collisions don't come any bigger than they did in 1970s involving 'Blue Poles' and the Whitlam government. The difference then was that the politician at the centre of the conflict stood up to the barbarians. The result eventually was brilliant for all of us. It is an epic story filled with epic characters. Jackson Pollock, Gough Whitlam, and James Mollison, set in a time of profound political and social changes, which exhilarated many Australians and terrified others. Whitlam okayed the purchase of 'Blue Poles,' then insisted the price be disclosed. He wanted every school kid to visit the National Gallery and to stand in front of it.

Then as if to say to the rest of Australia, "It's time to grow up," he put it on his Christmas card in 1973. This is a most fabulous book by Tom, reminding us what an extraordinary time it was, what it takes to get the big stuff done, and the toll it takes. Tom's research, along with his own interviews with surviving characters both here and in the U.S., his phenomenal research has provided depth and context to this work. Above all, Tom's love of art shines through. So, congratulations, Tom, on your first and very important work. I'd like to begin by asking you what it was that drove you or induced you to write this book and to ask whether you were one of those school kids who stood in front of 'Blue Poles' at the Gallery.

Tom McIlroy: Well, thank you very much, Niki, and thank you, PM, for such kind words. I'm thrilled that you're both here. I was one of those school kids, my sisters and I travelled to Canberra to visit our beloved Aunt Cathy who lived here in Canberra, and we visited this institution where she worked for a long time and we visited the Gallery. And I'm not sure if it's from that time in particular, but from some time in my growing up I became aware of this controversy and this quite Australian story really as you say, Niki. And it kind of lodged in my consciousness. And then when I came to Canberra for work and found it to be such an iconic story of this city and an iconic institution, it has kind of festered away and became something that I thought would be good in this kind of treatment, and great characters as you say.

Niki Savva: Yeah. And when you saw 'Blue Poles' for the first time, how did it strike you? What did you think?

Tom McIlroy: It's hard to take in, isn't it? It's such a big, Pollock used to talk about all over paintings, and I think it's the perfect phrase, because every inch of it is different. You could look at it for an hour, you could look at it for a whole day, and continue to see different things. Just yesterday visiting the Gallery with family, we were trying to find the pieces of glass and the pieces of hair that are embedded in the paint, and the surface is so rich and textured. So yeah, I think probably like most school kids and adults who see it for the first time, it's kind of awe-inspiring and you have to stand back and then you have to go and look at it closely and kind of experience it in different ways.

Niki Savva: Yeah. How difficult was it for you to write the book, given that so many of the characters are no longer with us?

Tom McIlroy: Yeah, I came to it a little bit late. History has a challenge in that way, doesn't it? But a couple of the main characters, James Mollison, who I think is a giant, and Ben Heller, who, to use the PM's phrase, is a visionary. Both had died just really before I started the project, but I was able to speak to people who knew them, to family members and friends and colleagues. And I feel a bit of pride actually. I think both of them are people whose story needs more prominence, especially James Mollison.

I'm sure there's plenty of public servants in the audience tonight and plenty here in Canberra who go to work every day and do important things and probably don't get the recognition that they deserve. And he, Mollison, copped a lot of criticism his whole life. It really overshadowed his career and I think probably in his time here in Canberra and at the end of his life, I think my theory anyway, is that he resented a little bit, that this one picture was so synonymous with what was really a career of collecting, a career of championing artists and making sure that their stories were well told and building this great institution that we all love. And-

Niki Savva: It's not a bad legacy to have.

Tom McIlroy: No, no, it's good, it's good. And Heller as well, quite a wealthy man, very successful in business. His family was prominent and he was quite well known in New York, but I think probably that falls away soon after someone dies sometimes and his family beam with pride when you talk to them about 'Blue Poles.' And they live a long way from here, but I think a piece of their heart is here, and they are so proud of their dad for his friendship with Pollock and his understanding that this thing was really important and it wasn't just like every other picture.

Niki Savva: That is one of the really interesting aspects of the book, I think, his continued friendship with Pollock over all those years, and you have to say that Pollock probably wasn't the easiest person in the world to get along with.

Tom McIlroy: I think that's an understatement.

Niki Savva: So can you tell us a little bit about Pollock and the demons that drove him, and in the end how they came to destroy him?

Tom McIlroy: He comes of age in the period after the Great Depression and his family, he's one of five brothers, his parents had some happiness and a bit of success, but mostly challenging raising little kids and moving around to try and provide for their family. So I think he never got that much love as a child, the youngest of five kids probably, it's a hard position to be in. And from early on, even from school age, he starts demonstrating pretty difficult personal characteristics and later in life, addiction, and I think it would've been a very difficult person to be around.

And as the PM said, it's lucky that Lee Krasner was so committed to his talent and advocated for him. But at the end of his life, Heller and his wife travelled to the studio to consider buying a picture. And there's something about this moment, these two men who are completely different have a meeting of minds and form a friendship. And for a period of less than five years, really, at the end of his life, Heller is a real rock for Pollock. When he travels into the city to see his psychiatrist, usually the first thing he does after the appointment is ring Heller and they meet up. And so there are a couple of Pollock's in Heller's collection, most notably this one. And it's the centrepiece of their house and really I think kind of a centrepiece of their life as well.

Niki Savva: And the family of Heller was distraught about his sale of the painting. They had grown so attached to it that they weren't really sure that they wanted it to be sold. But before we get to that, can you tell us about Pollock's technique and how he came to paint in the way that he did when he moved out to Connecticut, I think it was, with Lee Krasner?

Tom McIlroy: It's an amazing story. His whole career, really his whole, from his teenage years until his death in his 40s, he's searching and searching and searching, trying to find this style that will be his. And he's surrounded by, I mean his brothers are all in artistic professions at one point or another, and he's friends with lots of artists and his mentors are artists, and he goes to art school. And he's got a bit of talent, he can draw, he's got an awful temperament when someone tries to shape him and teach him. 

But slowly but surely, he meets people who put him on the right course. And it's only right at the end of his life, in the last 10 years of his life, that he starts abandoning all the things that he's been taught using a paintbrush, sketching a picture before you painted, all these things. And I shouldn't say by accident, because it's not by accident, but I think it could have easily never happened. He stumbles on this drip style that completely changes the game.

There are other people in the New York school at the same time who are doing completely revolutionary things, but for him, he has to put aside the lessons that he's been taught and the people that have taught him them, and do this breakthrough thing. And there aren't that many big Pollock canvases like this. 'Blue Poles' stands out as the kind of last one of the big ones. And I think he finally gets the personal satisfaction of having done something different. And I think he's maybe through all his alcoholism and his depression and his pretty toxic personality, I think he starts to realise that he's changing the game and we're the beneficiaries of that here.

Niki Savva: So he painted 'Blue Poles' and it was painted on the floor, wasn't it? Because it was too high to put on a wall. And after it was over, how was it received at the time?

Tom McIlroy: Poorly in a word.

Niki Savva: Yeah.

Tom McIlroy: Yeah. Like a lot of his exhibitions, he would package up the artworks, he'd paint 20 or 25 exhibition pieces for shows in New York, send them off to Manhattan, and almost all of them would come back. Maybe one or two of them would sell, but he would be lucky. And the first time 'Blue Poles' was shown in Manhattan, the same thing happened. It was written up a couple of times, a few people observed that this painting was maybe something a bit different, but after the exhibition was over, it was taken down off the wall, it was taken off its stretcher, and it was rolled up and put, and I tell the story in the book, it was put in an unlocked stairwell at the back of the gallery and no one thought of it again. And it's only that Lee, his wife, remembers this huge picture is somewhere and tracks it down, and says, "We better unroll it because it might get damaged if it stays." And imagine, it could have been lost at that stage.

But when you see his studio, which is preserved as a historic monument, it sort of feels like 'Blue Poles' comes to life. There is paint on the floor of the studio that is matched to the paint in 'Blue Poles.' There's a can of marine paint that is the blue of 'Blue Poles' there, and this little barn that became a studio first for Jackson and then for Lee is preserved. And you can feel our picture came from there, you can really sort of feel the heart of it, I think.

Niki Savva: And all of that, I think the fact that it was a bit of a flop and didn't sell, do you think that contributed to his spiral?

Tom McIlroy: Oh, yeah, definitely.

Niki Savva: And how did that end up for him?

Tom McIlroy: Yeah, his various spirals, because there were quite a few of them, and his peaks as well, sort of track with someone writing something nice about him or an exhibition going well and some pictures selling. He would get these kind of spurts of creativity and drive, and in those last few years around the time of 'Blue Poles,' which is three or four years before his death, he's really at rock bottom. And for the first time after many years of marriage, Lee is starting to think, "I don't need this. I've looked after you." She's struggling. And she's really put her career and her life on hold for him and they have a bit of a fracture.

But yeah, I think the fact that people had stopped talking about him as one of the breakthrough New York artists and had started to move on from Pollock really contributed to the alcoholism that eventually killed him. You know there's theories about what particular kind of mental illness that he had. No one's really sure and it's sort of difficult once someone is no longer around to diagnose them, but I think bipolar disorder or certainly depression is evident. And the people that worked with him, there's three or four psychiatrists, deal with him through his art. And you can see when he's good, he's really good because of his art, but when he's bad, he's awful.

Niki Savva: I think that applies to a lot of artists.

Tom McIlroy: Yeah.

Niki Savva: Even journalists.

Tom McIlroy: Yeah.

Niki Savva: So describe for us how Australia actually came to acquire this work. It seems that the stars aligned a bit.

Tom McIlroy: The stars aligned, yeah.

Niki Savva: With Whitlam and Mollison, but in fact it was William McMahon who hired Mollison at the urging of his wife, Sonia, even though Mollison had made all sorts of outrageous demands because he didn't really want to be here, so talk us through that.

Tom McIlroy: Well, Mollison was the director of the art gallery in Ballarat, which is an incredible collection, but very old world, not particularly modern, more modern now. And the federal government was working, you correctly say, it was McMahon's government, working to put together a national collection for a gallery here in Canberra. And Canberra's kind of at this breakthrough moment, Menzies had sort of recommitted to Canberra as the national capital and started investing in the city, including building the lake. 

And the first job that was assigned to Mollison was to go around the country and work out what the federal government actually owned because there were lots of pictures in offices and public buildings, and so he makes a survey of them. And then the stars align, as you say, Niki, he stays in the job working from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, and eventually he's given a budget to start buying pictures.

And he's a pretty worldly guy and he knows a lot of important people, including people like Robert Hughes, the art critic, and Max Hutchison, a gallerist from Sydney who was working in New York. And he says to them, "Let me know what you hear. We want everything. We want a survey of the great pictures of the world." And he particularly wants a Pollock and word comes back that there's a Pollock in private ownership and that this guy, Ben Heller, might be interested. 

What's not in that letter is that Heller had talked to other people about selling it and that he kind of had this idea of his collection as transitional. He was a custodian and he would sell and buy. Anyway, it almost doesn't happen, the price isn't right at first, and there's another Pollock picture that the gallery's interested in, but eventually all the parties are in the same place and the deal's done, big check, and everybody knows it's going to be controversial, and Heller's devastated after he sells it, which is amazing.

Niki Savva: Yeah. The story about the impending sale was broken by Terry Ingram, who works on your now paper, the Australian Financial Review. And he told you in an interview that his source was totally unconnected with the affair, which I find hard to believe given how well-sourced it was and how much detail he had. So do you think that the leak was designed to help the painting be sold or perhaps put a break on the painting being sold, or was it just somebody busting a gut to have the story out?

Tom McIlroy: I think it might be the last one. It was too late to stop it, it was too late to stop it and I think anyone, first of all, Terry Ingram would not tell me who his source was. I asked a lot of different ways, and in some ways I was pleased that he wouldn't, because I might've thought less of him if he revealed his source.

Niki Savva: And you know he probably lied about when he said that it was no one to do with anything.

Tom McIlroy: Yeah, that's right, that's right. Someone must have known something.

Niki Savva: Yeah.

Tom McIlroy: He rings the gallery on a Sunday afternoon knowing that no one will be in the press office on a Sunday afternoon in Canberra, and he leaves a message on the answering machine and he thinks, "I should be right. They won't hear it." He's worried that they'll brief somebody else and the story will get out that way. And I'd started researching 'Blue Poles' before I found out that it was on the front page of the Financial Review. And it's a great story, and he had a very long career and unfortunately died just before the book was published. But yeah, he says the source was not connected with the purchase and he wouldn't say anything else. 

And for some reason, I think my theory is that it might've been someone connected with the money side of the transaction. It wasn't an everyday thing that the federal government in little old Canberra would arrange for more than a million dollars to be sent to New York. And for some reason, I think that might've been it, but I put that to him and he said, "I'm not telling you who my source was."

Niki Savva: Well, it broke and it was a shocking environment for Whitlam. Gough was travelling pretty badly, there was a by-election that he lost, inflation was what, 13% or 18%? And we think we've got it bad now, but yeah. So how did Gough handle it when it broke?

Tom McIlroy: Well, he never stepped back from it, even for a minute. He defended it from the first time he was asked about it. You're correct that the government was really starting to wobble, and there's things like the loans affair bubbling along. I must admit, I knew the sort of broad outlines of the period that you're describing, but I didn't know exactly the kind of ins and outs of the politics of it. And you think about someone like, the PM's left, so we can all relax now, but you think about a government like that-

Niki Savva: We can speak freely, yeah.

Tom McIlroy: Yeah. The last thing they needed was Jackson Pollock on the front page of the paper, an artist no one had heard of, a picture that a lot of people said was rubbish. So I think in one sense it breaks at the worst possible time, but Gough stood up for it, his fluency and passion in defending the artwork easily, easily outstripped the criticism from the people who didn't agree with it. And I think he knew that he could out-argue, you know there's senators from Queensland and MPs from New South Wales who probably put a lot of effort into these really zingy questions in question time, throw at him as barbs. And he just hits them back and he says, "If the critics hate it so much, let them sell the picture. No one ever does." And even after he's prime minister, he's constantly asked about it, as is Mollison.

And, yeah, he has such pride in it. And you mentioned the Christmas card, which is the perfect symbol of his pride in it. Even long after they were out of the lodge, Margaret kept putting 'Blue Poles' on their Christmas card even into the '90s, I believe. So, yeah.

Niki Savva: The painting itself arrived here on a warship with Chinook helicopters.

Tom McIlroy: Yeah.

Niki Savva: So what was the reception like when it arrived? Because it did a tour of the press, of the state galleries, didn't it?

Tom McIlroy: That's right. Yeah.

Niki Savva: So how did they go?

Tom McIlroy: There was no gallery here for it to go into. I don't think the building had even been started. It was some years away.

Niki Savva: No.

Tom McIlroy: So it visits each of the state galleries starting in Sydney, it goes to Melbourne, and Adelaide, and all around the country. It goes on show at the Brisbane Town Hall. Someone reminded me the other day, a ticket was 20 cents to see 'Blue Poles,' and there's civic receptions and there's VIP events, there's lines around the block. In Adelaide, there was literally a protest on the street outside the gallery, people so angry about 'Blue Poles.' So it's a mixed reception to say the least. There's a great photo of Paul Hogan, the movie star, holding his nose and doing thumbs down in front of 'Blue Poles.' 

So yeah, people wanted to see it. Thousands of people saw it, not everybody liked it. And I think the media probably catering to some of the lesser impressions of, the role of the media sometimes fueled this controversy and revelled in it. But supporters start coming out pretty quickly as well at that time and defending not only the decision to buy it, to spend a lot of money on it, but to buy something really different from the other pictures in the collection.

Niki Savva: Do you think because the times were so tough, that 'Blue Poles' in any way contributed to Gough's demise, did it become, do you think, a totem or a symbol of recklessness in spending?

Tom McIlroy: Yeah, I think it did. I think even now when people criticise the economic management of that time, they mention 'Blue Poles,' they mention kind of profligate spending. I think it's a small piece of the puzzle. And obviously, as history shows, the budget bills are what really contributed to the dismissal and brought Gough down. I think a small piece of that is 'Blue Poles' just because it was such an outsized piece of his political legacy in the moment and in history now.

Niki Savva: But did it change the country?

Tom McIlroy: I think it did. I'm pretty upfront about that in the book that it's in the subtitle, 'the Painting that Changed a Nation'. Maybe I'm a sucker, but the PM said it as well, a bigger vision, a bigger idea of what art was and the importance of art in the national consciousness. When Whitlam is elected in '72, in his famous speech just before the election, the 'It's Time' speech, he says that, "A civilised country has to have art at the centre of its culture." That's a pretty big statement. And for all the supporters of 'Blue Poles' and supporters of the arts in federal parliament, and there are a lot, they don't really talk like that anymore. You don't hear Prime Ministers saying stuff like that very often, I don't think.

I think it did change the country, it expanded the cultural understanding, it pushed us into modernity. And if you think about, I was at the Gallery with my family on Sunday and we were watching people come and go from 'Blue Poles' and it's really a magnet and it brings people here and they see other things that they're not expecting in that building and in all these great institutions that we're lucky to have.

Niki Savva: So, in the end, it was worth it not just financially, but in terms of what it did to cultural institutions in this country and also to Whitlam's legacy. I mean, obviously it's worth a hell of a lot more money now than it was then. So, yes, it was worth what we paid for it, but it was worth it in so many other respects.

Tom McIlroy: I think so, I think so. I think Gough believed that. I think maybe even some of the people who say that they don't like 'Blue Poles,' and Mollison doesn't always speak that highly of it himself, I think they all agree that it's worth it in a sense that a gallery should challenge the visitors who come and see it, you should see things that you love and things that you don't understand or don't like, and plenty of people don't understand 'Blue Poles' or don't like it. 

And it is a bit of a magnet for the world as well. People know Canberra, we heard a story the other night at the Gallery that a VIP flew into Canberra on a private jet, was here for 45 minutes, visited the Gallery to see 'Blue Poles,' went back to the airport and flew back overseas. I'm not sure where, but people know it's here and they know it's a thing of Canberra. Yeah, so I think it was worth it in every sense.

Niki Savva: And just one final question, can you see any politician today doing what Gough did back then?

Tom McIlroy: In one sense, yes. The Lindy Lee sculpture that's just been unveiled outside the National Gallery cost $14 million. So 'Blue Poles,' $1.4, whatever. And no controversy at all, and people are there taking pictures and walking in and out of it, and I'm sure some people don't like it. So in a sense, governments allow that kind of spending to happen. But probably the moment of a group of arts administrators going to the government and saying, "We've got this idea, what do you think?" And a politician saying, "Buy it and disclose the price," I don't think that magic will ever happen again. It's probably the conditions will never be quite right.

Niki Savva: I think you're probably right. That might be a good point on which to invite questions from the audience, so if anyone would like to put a question to Tom.

Audience member 1: We are hearing a lot about what the Americans think has been stolen from them lately. Do you think America might feel that this painting was stolen from them?

Tom McIlroy: It's a great question, and you're exactly right, they did. There was a opinion piece in the Washington Post and a letter writing campaign in the US saying that the painting shouldn't be allowed to leave the United States, that 20 years after it had been painted, or 25 years after it had been painted and 20 years after Pollock's death, that they needed to protect these kind of things for the American collections. 

And it stops in Washington before it comes to Australia for an exhibition there, and there's real consternation about whether it should come. So while Pollock at that time was recognised as one of the greats, I think a lot of people probably didn't imagine it'd end up somewhere like Canberra, a long way from New York. But yeah, there was a push for it to stay and a push for a kind of European protection, a set of rules that would protect American works to stay in America. Fortunately for us, it didn't succeed in this case.

Audience member 2: Thanks very much, Tom. Apart from Senator Paterson's intervention, have there been any efforts to sell 'Blue Poles'? And do you, I guess, see it ever been like any attempt in the future to try and sell it given I guess it's been become so synonymous with the NGA?

Tom McIlroy: I don't think there's been any real attempt to sell it. It's constantly viewed as a financial asset with a value attached to it. The security guards at the museum, at the Gallery told us the other day how much it was insured for, so people see it through that lens. I don't think you would be able to sell it. I think there'd be sufficient outcry if you did. Even, and I asked Dr Mitzevich, the director of the gallery about this, even for it to be loaned to collections overseas would take a special set of circumstances, I think. I think 10 years ago it travelled to London for a couple of months, but to have it missing from the collection here would be a big deal. And for it to go forever would be almost impossible, I think. Yeah.

Audience member 3: I was one of those children who went to see it at the Art Gallery of New South Wales -

Tom McIlroy: That's great, that's great.

Audience member 3: - when it first came in. But my question really is more about what the painting was saying, and the Prime Minister mentioned this, about art being part of the national conversation. So Australia was exiting from the Vietnam War. What did the painting tell us at that moment of the kind of global shift in our relationship with America, or can you extend that to that sort of level? And the National Gallery has built up one of the best collections of American abstract painting. Certainly, the curator from Washington said our collection was better than theirs, but just at that moment of global politics and that shift in Australian political relationships.

Tom McIlroy: It's a great question and I think you really capture what was going on at that point. If you consider the artistic preferences of Robert Menzies and Gough Whitlam, who aren't that far apart in the span of history and who their government's kind of, but a few prime ministers in between, you see the real change, I think. Menzies is more traditional, Whitlam, more modern, both very valuable and great art from both camps. 

Equally, the creation of 'Blue Poles' comes at this time where the art world in Europe is absolutely shattered by the Second World War and by the chaos caused by the Nazis looting art and moving art all around. And people like Peggy Guggenheim, who's so important in this story, is going back and forth between Europe and America. I think it is sort of a symbol of a cultural change there in the '50s and here nearly 25 years later where Australia's changing course a bit and probably the course correction that happens then will be one of history's big ones. We might be looking at another one now. You never know.

Audience member 4: Tom, I feel that your interest in the artwork may be more about the story than the art, as a journalist. Can you tell me what you feel, putting your art appreciation hat on, how you feel about the painting yourself? Apologies if you answered this early before I came in, but how you feel about the painting and whether you've come to appreciate it as great art through the process of the story or through coming into contact with it through this book or not?

Tom McIlroy: All my favourite people are here tonight, this is a really surreal experience taking a question from Kirsten Lawson, who taught me how to be a journalist. I have really come to appreciate it. I have a low quality reproduction of it above my desk at home where it's flat and not very, the colour doesn't work from the poster, but when you see it in real life, particularly now at the gallery where it's lit so well and has been restored so well, it just sort of smacks you in the face. It's amazing.

And just as I was coming to the end of writing the book, I was able to see an exhibition of Pollock's early works, which are completely different. And I sort of felt like I was seeing old friends, like I'd seen these pictures before. There's this synchronicity between the completely abstract and the figurative naive drawings, even though they couldn't be more different. You can kind of feel the personality. So that confirmed my love of the picture, but I'm not sure if I should even say this, there are definitely better Jackson Pollock paintings than 'Blue Poles.' If you're lucky enough to go to MoMA in New York, you see that there's one called 'Autumn Rhythm', and it must be like what taking really hard drugs is like or something. It washes over you. It's great.

Audience member 5: Hi, Tom.

Tom McIlroy: All my favourite people are here. This is great. Sorry.

Audience member 5: Yes, hi. Speaking as a Canberran as you are now, I'm happy to call you that because you've been here for at least 10 years, what do you think this painting did for Canberra? Because we forget that Canberra was also on a journey as the Capitol, but also as a city. And I think 'Blue Poles' is very synonymous with Canberra, and Canberra was actually, people forget, was very outward-looking international, especially in its creation and its design and particularly in the '50s. Can you talk to that aspect of it? Did you come across things that speak to that when you were researching the book?

Tom McIlroy: Well, it's a great question. And the first place that 'Blue Poles' goes when it gets to Canberra is to a warehouse in Fyshwick. And all these important people get taken out in a taxi to, I think it's an old shopping centre turned into a warehouse, and they pull off the shroud and there's 'Blue Poles'. Can you imagine? 

Yeah, I think even though Canberra still gets a bad rap now, I think it was a pretty small place back in the early 1970s, but a lot of people were coming here because they believed in what they were doing in work, or they believed in this place, and contributed to it in so many different ways. Including forebears of people who are here in this room who made it the city that it is. And I think if you think about Canberra without the national institutions, without this library, this amazing library, without the gallery and all the others, it'd be so much worse, it'd be so boring. And I love Canberra.

So, yeah, I think it puts the country on a path on a different path, and it definitely puts Canberra on a different path. And when you read the clippings about the tours of the gallery, journalists going to see this modernist, brutalist building made of concrete and where all these pictures are going to go, and they call Mollison the man with the golden wallet because he's spending all this money and all of them are knocked over by 'Blue Poles.' It just jumps out of it. So, yeah, I think it's important in our city as much as anything.

And when Ben Heller's family came, his wife and his daughter and son-in-law, first time they'd come to Canberra and first time they'd seen the picture in a long time, they were buzzing. They couldn't believe this great place that they'd heard some stereotypes about was actually kind of great. And I think they were really proud that it had come all this way and there it is in great company in that room.

Audience member 6: Do you think there's a relationship between the relationship with Gough Whitlam who bought the painting and the painting itself? Is it our complex relationship with Gough that makes our complex relationship with 'Blue Poles' so enduring?

Tom McIlroy: I think he might be, would you agree, the most divisive prime minister, you either love him or hate him?

Niki Savva: I thought he was magnificent.

Tom McIlroy: But I think it kind of matches, they're both larger than life, they're both so controversial. Yeah, I think it tells you a lot about him. He liked European art. There's great clippings from around this time where they're starting to get a bit wobbly politically and you can see what's coming down the pike for them as a government. 

And he goes on these trips to Europe and the United States and the press can't believe that he's finished all his meetings in Washington and he goes all the way to Los Angeles to go to the Getty Centre and do a tour there. And they're writing this in the newspaper every day and his ministerial colleagues are saying, "What is he doing? We're getting torn to shreds back here." So, yeah, I think it's the perfect match of a man and, a man and a symbol of political ambition or something. Yeah, good question.

Niki Savva: Maybe one more.

Audience member 7: Hi. Perhaps an unfair question. What do you think has been the impact of 'Blue Poles' on the practise of artists since the painting came here?

Tom McIlroy: I think it's a great question. The poles themselves, the blue lines that go across the painting, are this little piece of DNA that can be directly linked to a guy called Thomas Hart Benton, who was Pollock's first artistic mentor. And he taught him how to structure a painting using these invisible lines that ran through the work. And his idea was maybe you draw them a little bit in pencil on the canvas and then you'd paint over them.

And Pollock reverses them and puts them on the front, and the whole thing is built around it. I think it shows that if you are going to make great art and you are going to have a lasting legacy, one way to do it is to change the game. He breaks the mould. Every rule he's taught, he throws out the window. And so I think that's why it's such an important piece of his artistic legacy.

And I learned this talking to people in the United States, they don't really see it as a huge piece of his legacy because it's sort of forgotten there and they point to these big canvases in the institutions there. It's sort of a little bit our own in that sense. And the only other thing that I would say is there are so many artistic endeavours that are derived from 'Blue Poles,' plays, and poetry, and novels, and bottles of wine, and chocolate, and all these amazing creative things that are sort of originated in the picture, so it clearly inspires people even to today. Great question. Thanks.

Niki Savva: So should we finish with what Pollock's nephew said about 'Blue Poles' summing it up?

Tom McIlroy: Please.

Niki Savva: "It's a defining picture, it's magnificent, it's strident, exciting. Who am I to say it's a piece of shit?"

Tom McIlroy: Thanks, Niki. That was so great.

Niki Savva: That obviously came from Tom's interview.

Tom McIlroy: My sister, Mary Helen is here, I got the address wrong and we were about 15 blocks away from where I was supposed to be for that interview, and I ran. And I must have looked like a crazy person when I got there because I was very late to meet him. But it was a great interview. Thank you.

Niki Savva: Great interview.

Tom McIlroy: Thank you so much.

Niki Savva: So, Tom, you can close now and thank your friends.

Tom McIlroy: Thank you. Yeah, I just wanted to mention thank you so much for hosting us, Dr. Ayres. I really appreciate it. It was so wonderful to have the PM here. And a few family and friends have travelled to be here today and it would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge them. My mum and dad, Ann and Tony, my sisters, Mary Helen, Kate, and Pip, my cousins Andrew and Claire are here. My friend Sam came up from Melbourne. So many people from interstate have travelled. The Heinies are here and I'm thrilled about that, and some colleagues who have travelled to be here as well. It's a delight, so thank you very much. And thank you, Niki.

Niki Savva: A pleasure.

Dr Marie-Louise Ayres: Thank you, Tom and Niki, for that fabulous discussion. I was just thinking about that notion of the inflexion point and Tom thinking that this building opened less than 10 years before the National Gallery building.

Tom McIlroy: There you go.

Dr Marie-Louise Ayres: But of course, this work came from the heart of Robert Menzies. He wanted something with columns and got it, but it was a very internationalist view. And of course, only a few years later, internationalist and modernist. And the other thing, I suppose, there was a question about the impact that he might've had on later art practise, but I've often looked at 'Blue Poles' and wondered whether it helped us as modern Australian audiences to better understand the art that we can see now by our own greats, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, who also of course painted on the ground in an abstract way and also stands in wonder. I wonder without 'Blue Poles' whether we would've been ready for that, so thank you for those. I love it when I have thoughts prompted in the middle of these.

Now, if you'd like to hear this talk again or to share with friends and colleagues, you will be able to access it via our website or our YouTube channel, so share it widely. Now, copies of 'Blue Poles,' the book, not the painting, are available in the Bookshop tonight. And Thomas kindly agreed to sign these in the foyer. And we're also leaving our exhibition open Fit to Print that we opened last week. In fact, journalistic colleagues, you might be here for the second time in a couple of weeks. So that will be open until eight o'clock if you want to see it. But please do join me again in thanking Tom and Niki and come upstairs. Thank you.

Tom McIlroy: Thank you.