Ron Radford, director of the National Gallery of Australia has expressed concern that Newcastle City Council's decision to remove the position of director of the Newcastle Art Gallery will leave the nation's pre-eminent gallery with little choice but to reconsider any future plans to send exhibitions or to loan artworks to the city.
"Over the last 50 or 60 years that the Newcastle collection has been built up, it is the finest collection in regional NSW and the second most important collection in NSW outside the Art Gallery of NSW and one of the top three regional collections in Australia," said Mr Radford.
"This has been built up by successive gallery directors - not by bureaucrats, not by administrators, not by councillors, not by people working in the city council, but by gallery directors."
"Now why on earth at this late stage when this great collection has been been formed and the gallery has a great reputation, the highest it's ever been, are they going backwards with this antiquated decision to appoint a sort of arts administrator of the whole complex - the theatre and other arts organisations including the gallery - I just think it's a step backwards. It's baffling. It's simply baffling that this should happen."
"Newcastle should be the beacon, the council should be showing tremendous leadership for the future but it looks like it's going backwards. It looks antiquated, it looks anti-arts and looks almost bogan."
In reference to the Newcastle City Council 'investigation' of Ron Ramsey and his 'boss', Judy Jaeger, Mr Radford says he is sure the suspension has nothing to do with any supposed mismanagement or anything inappropriate by Mr Ramsey, "No, I'm sure it has nothing to do with any of those things,"
"It's just a way of carrying on with this 'getting rid of professional staff at the gallery' and trying to replace them with some sort of general arts manager'"
"I don't know any specific details about the suspension of these two people but I'm sure it's just part of that bigger plan not to have a specific gallery director anymore, which is just really - I can hardly believe it."
Ron Radford suggests that the future relationship of lending of artworks and advice to Newcastle Art Gallery is under threat.
"As the institution that we are that lends major exhibitions to Newcastle and has given incredible advice and loans of individual works for their exhibition, we would have to look closely now - if in the future the gallery is not going to be managed well enough to take our exhibitions and to be recipient of our continuing help."
"It's not just the treatment of Ron Ramsey, it's the poor treatment of the gallery and the position of gallery director and the way the gallery might be run in the future,"
Mr Radford says the reputation of Newcastle City Council will suffer, not the reputation of Ron Ramsey.
"I think the reputation of the city council of Newcastle has already been damaged by their retrogressive attitude towards the gallery so I don't think it will reflect badly on him (Mr Ramsey), I just think it's another nail in the city council coffin in acting in such an uncultivated way."
"Ron Ramsey was an assistant director of the National Gallery of Australia. He would be very sought after."
"I've been going to Newcastle Art Gallery since 1977. I'm a regular visitor, I like to see their exhibitions and I've travelled with some of our exhibitions that we lend from the National Gallery of Australia to the Newcastle gallery. I just can't believe what seems to be going on."
"It may look like administrative efficiency, it may look like cost saving, I don't know, but whatever it is it's certainly a backward step."
"I have spoken to other regional and state gallery directors and they're all appalled at the situation."
"I hope the city councillors themselves will see the backward step in this decision to not have a gallery director anymore and change that, and people can get back to supporting the Newcastle gallery and continue to give gifts because all of those are now under question"
Major benefactors of the Newcastle Art Gallery including Wendy Whiteley, Christine France of The Margaret Olley Trust and Martin Gascoigne - son of artist Rosalie Gascoigne - as well as Edmund Capon, the former director of the Art Gallery of NSW, have already expressed deep concern about the removal of the position of director of the gallery, a situation Ron Radford is well aware of.
"I understand that important works are already starting to be withdrawn that were planned as gifts and if the gallery is not staffed correctly we will have to look at our lending to them,"
"We want regional galleries to be professionally run, as Newcastle always was, and this looks to be a step in the wrong direction."
"I can't work out why such a decision would be made."
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