HELEN MAUDSLEY

In Part 2 of this interview, Helen talked about negotiating two artistic careers in the Brack household while raising a family, her teaching at Melbourne’s Council of Adult Education and the reception of her work over the years. This is the final part of our conversation.

Kelly Gellatly: I'd like to ask us about something you said to Susan McCulloch – this is going back into the archive – in The Age in 1986. You said, and I quote, ‘It's how you survive with or without other people's approval or permission that has fascinated me over the years. There often seemed to me to be a pressure to conform to someone else's vision of how I should be painting, rather than the way I felt was right for me. It's how to successfully overcome that I found most interesting’. And then you went on to say, ‘I don't know if it's a male/female difference or not – if it is, it probably isn't a conscious one, but rather atavistic, back to the jungle and completely unconscious. But I’ve felt it was much easier for me to accept someone else's work whether I liked it or not, as being their vision than the other way around. I suppose the question is, and I hope this is the case – has that changed for you now, this acceptance of your own vision?

Helen Maudsley: Well, like I say, you don’t know really what you've done, until you get affirmation. And then you don't know whether the affirmation you get is right, you see what I mean? You never know what you've done. And that's a problem. Now, an illustration of this is in John's work. You know that picture The Block [1954]? When he showed it in Melbourne, everybody laughed, everybody said, ‘Isn't it funny?’, and John felt the most extreme negation, because it wasn't – that was the first picture about the Holocaust. But nobody saw it like that. And because of that, John just said, ‘I haven't done what I thought I'd done’. But he had done what he thought he’d done, it was just that nobody had seen it. So you see what I mean? But certainly, he thought he’d made it quite clear that that was a Holocaust picture. And if nobody sees it, well, he hasn't done what he thought he’d done.

And I still think that’s valid – it's still valid it seems to me. You never know what you've done.

KG: I suppose it's harder for you, in a way, because you've got such a unique visual language that you've finely honed over the years and …

HM: Now, I’ll tell you about that, because John had a friend called Mack, who was a child psychologist, and he was a great friend of ours and he used to come. And in the days then, I used to call all the pictures things like The Encounter, so that anybody could put what they wanted in. And Mack said to me, ‘Couldn't you give the titles as a hint to something more?’ And that was why I then started always to give the pictures titles that seemed to me to give the viewer a leg into it, as it were. And I still do that, I still give titles that I think are going to orient people. But again, you see, you don't know. You're always in this area of not knowing.

KG: I think one of the biggest gifts of your work is coming to them and having the space and the time to negotiate and travel through them, and the titles do that beautifully, they give you a sense of a starting point, but they don't tell you how to think. They’re like a gentle hand that guides you through.

HM: Yes, that’s right. Well, that was the idea. But ever since then I have always given the pictures titles.

KG: You've always had, I think it's probably fair to say, an indifferent relationship to feminism [laughs]. Do you want to tell me about that?

HM: Oh, yes. Well, when that feminism started they had a big meeting at the university, which I went to [American curator, writer and art critic Lucy Lippard’s visit Australia in 1975, International Women’s Year, where she delivered a lecture at the Ewing & George Paton Gallery at the University of Melbourne]. It was a meeting to talk about the role of women – that it was easy for men and difficult for women. And I was really, really cross, because I said – and I made myself terribly unpopular – I said, ‘It’s not easy for John to sell his pictures. It's not even easy for him to get them seen. And it's not easy for me either; it's equal – it's not easy for him and difficult for me. It's hard, impossible for both of us.’ And oh dear, and you should have heard the sounds! Anyway, I was ostracised after that.

KG: Have you changed your mind about it over the years?

HM: No, I think it's easier for men to be accepted than women. For instance, I mean even to this day, Jan Senbergs – and I have to forgive him, because he does it with great goodwill – he says, ‘Oh yes, it will be better when you loosen up’. But he would never say that to John, you see what I mean? No, I think it’s easier for men to be taken seriously than it is for women to be taken seriously.

KG: I would have to agree.

HM: Now, I had an interesting experience, in that there was a competition – it was down at Langwarrin [McClelland Sculpture Park+Gallery], I think for watercolours. Anyway, when Betty Churcher went to the NGA [National Gallery of Australia] there were rails everywhere, and she wanted them removed, and it was difficult because of this and that and the other, and we talked about it. So I went home and did a very big watercolour to demonstrate what could be done. And as you know, the NGA walls get darker as they go up, and so I’d done this, and I put some decoration like that [gestures with her hands], because the thing was, there were holes where the picture rails were. So I did frieze where the picture rails were, above and below. Anyway, I entered this picture into the watercolour exhibition down at Langwarrin. I forget who was the judge, but I think he gave me a commendation or something. But when he was giving the prizes out, he said, ‘And this one by Helen Maudsley, she should realise that saying it's the walls of the National Gallery of Australia does not influence me to give her a prize’. And I went up to him and I said, ‘That is an actual design of the thing’, and he said, ‘No it's not and you know perfectly well it's not, and you were just trying to influence me to give you the Prize’ [laughs].

KG:  Oh my goodness.

HM: Well, no man would have said that to another man. So you do get all these sorts of things still.

KG: There are great pieces of writing in your archive, and there’s a piece that I don't have the date of, that you wrote in your notes … In going back over them, I've been fascinated by the way that your notes, and your copies of your letters often talk about your desire for your work to, as you've touched upon, to connect with and truly engage with the viewer. And in return, what your work sort of expects and demands of the viewer, if that makes sense.

If you don't mind, I just want to read you something that you wrote, because I think it's fantastic, and I'd love to hear what you think about it now. You wrote: ‘To come to terms with abstractions, the viewer has to take his time. We need to watch the associations that arise in our mind while looking and give the combinations of shapes the opportunity to act on our imagination. The reader who follows an author through the 20-odd pages of a story, invests time in his pursuit. He does not dismiss the story, after the first few sentences to move on to a new title. The concert goer has to sit through half an hour or more of a sonata, a trio or a symphony giving the music time to work on them. There is a startling discrepancy between the time the creator takes over the execution of a work of art, music or literature, and the brief moments in which his public light heartedly judges the finished result, yet it is often hard to come to terms with an unfamiliar style at first encounter. Given time, patterns work on us, colour harmonies disclose their mood. To be lifted out of our habitual mode of perception is part of the pleasure provided by abstract art.

I just think that's so beautiful, and so apt. And I'm really interested and grateful that you've sort of stuck to your guns over all those years Helen, and you've kind of refined … I think if you look back to, even those watercolours you were doing in the 50s to the work now, there's a kind of refining and honing of your visual language over time that just shows that you haven't deviated from your sense of visual analogy in your work, and the importance of it. Have your thoughts about it changed over the years, or it really is that continuing to …

HM: That's why I developed the course called ‘Art, The Viewer’ [at the CAE], because people don't give time to viewing, and, you know, if they go to it and they say, ‘I like that’, or ‘That’s awful’. ‘I like that, like that, hate that … let’s go and have a cup of coffee’.

And nobody ever looks at the rectangle to engage. I mean, that's the key point of the ‘Art, The Viewer’ course. And in the second session of that course, we visit pictures, and we go to the NGV first and then we go to the … I can't even recall the name of the artist. Anyway, it's a tall, long vertical picture. And we look at it, and everybody by now, they've done the first bit which is about look at the rectangle, and so they go through it – we talk about you see, and always, after we've finished with it, somebody says, ‘I can't believe we spent 30 minutes looking at one picture’. So, it's the time that it takes, and also, it's very hard in interpretation to get out of your framework, into somebody else's framework. So you've got to spend time trying to do that, even if you think it's idiotic, you still have to do it.

And one of my examples of that, is when I went to Europe, and you've got to get around the Round the World ticket … One of the pictures I always look at is …Oh, I can't think of his [the artist’s] name … whatever his name is. He's got pictures everywhere in the galleries, and I can never see anything in them – you know, they’re just dead losses. So I went all through the European things, and saw his work, and thought it was a load of rubbish, but it obviously isn't because all the museums have it. And then I went to America. And there was one museum that had something, and my dear, I saw exactly what he was doing. And I felt, ‘I want to go right back and have a look at everything else’. But you see, it was just that one thing, that suddenly … because it was building up on shapes – he builds up on shapes, and he keeps going in it, and once you get the motif, you’re on. And they’re exquisitely made. But it was so funny because when it hit me, that’s what I thought – ‘I have to go and see them all over again’. So that’s a something with me, you see? So, you always have to give leeway in case there's something there that you haven't seen. You never close your mind in other words.

Look, I had an interesting thing with Sasha [academic and art critic Sasha Grishin] over that, because Sasha has never been enthusiastic about but what I do. And then for some reason, with that exhibition at the NGV [Our Knowing and Not Knowing], there was something about that that triggered it. And he wrote to me and sent me the most gorgeous appreciation of what it was, but he just said that he hadn't realised that that's what it was before. So you have to allow for the doubt.

KG: I always think that that the difference between so many people's approach to an understanding of art is being comfortable in the space of not knowing. People want to know. They want to be able to read a label and get a sense that that's exactly what it is. Whereas, once you're comfortable with art in the way that we are, you're happy to stand in front of something and go, ‘I don't know’, and give yourself time to try and figure it out.

HM: That’s right. You give it time, and let it talk to you, you don't talk to it.

KG: Very true. Do you think it's harder for contemporary audiences to give that time, that sort of slow time?

HM: I think nearly everybody is saturated in their own orientation and can't get out of their own orientation. It takes seven generations for an idea to get rid of, if you see what I mean. And that's why the past art is safe, because it's been trolled over, but the present art hasn't been trolled over, so you don't know what's spurious, and what’s what, and you won't know, until the right over there [gestures with her hands]. We can't know what's happening now.

KG: And why you need to bring a healthy scepticism to fashions and fads.

HM: Well, that's right. You listen because you may be missing something. But it's been cleaned up by past art, which is why past art is so useful to study.

KG: You and John first went overseas for three months in 1973, when you were in your mid-40s, and you travelled to London before going to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam …

HM: Well, let me tell you about that.

KG: Yes, please do!

HM: The week before, you know, I had to make all the arrangements.

KG: I can imagine! [laughs]

HM: It was absolutely hideous. And we had the most terrible rows during that week. We were leaving on the Saturday, or whatever day it was, and I said to him on the Thursday, ‘Look, I don't really want to go overseas, and I know you do, and it would be easier if you just went without me’. And John looked at me and he said, ‘If you don't come, I don't go, and I will never forgive you. This is something I've been looking forward to all my life. And this is the first opportunity I've had’. So I went.

But the curious thing was, he’d made a whole thing about where we were going and what we were doing, and I was in a hideous state, going there worrying about everybody. And the minute I got on the aeroplane … for some reason, you know, you've got to go and you find your seat and I had a window seat, and John was next door to me. You know, I was then looking forward to it. And we got into the aeroplane and John – ‘the seats were too narrow, my knees hit the thing. I've got a horrible person next door to me’. He was as grumpy as grumpy. Everything was wrong.

And so, anyway, then we got to England, and that was awful – everything was wrong, and nothing was right – he didn't like the food, and we did all the things we were going to do in England, and he was grumpy, and he said, ‘It’s going to be all right when we get to France’. And when we got to Paris and we got the taxi, and I told the taxi in my schoolgirl French, where we were going, and that was okay, and John said something to the taxi man and the taxi didn't understand – ‘Non compris’ – and so I translated into French, and he said, ‘Ah, ya, ya’. And so we went. And nobody would talk to John because he would only speak in English, and he knew they all understood English, but everybody spoke to me, because I spoke in French, however awful my French was. And John couldn't wait to get out of Paris for this reason. He was furious that he couldn't get in any response from anybody – ‘They know perfectly well what I’m saying!’ But they wouldn’t say. We went through the whole thing, and every time it was worse than the last.

But the final funny thing was, we went to Mexico City because the Round the World thing. And we got into Mexico City and we’d got out of the city part into the other part, and we turned a corner, and there was another corner there, so there was a block, and we were coming down here and somebody was coming up here [gesturing with her hands], and we bumped into Bernard Smith.

KG: Oh my goodness.

HM: And Bernard Smith was one person who John had a bloody awful fight with was never going to talk to again! It was the funniest thing. Anyway, because we were there, and Bernard was there, and we were both absolutely non-knowing of any of the language … but Bernard had booked to go to see some of the pyramids, and so actually, we had a very jolly time with Bernard. Anyway, then we got home, and when we get home, John said, ‘Thank God we’re back in Australia’.

And then later on I wanted to go to Germany, because there was … well actually, I went because I wanted to see – there's so few Vermeers, and I'd seen most of them, but some of the ones I hadn't seen were in Germany. So I really went just for this purpose. But John wouldn’t, come with me, because he hated traveling so much. And I'd swotted up on German enough to be able to, you know, manage, with Germany. Anyway, he wouldn't come, so that was, that. So I went by myself.

KG: And I'm sure you had a great time.

HM: Well I did, because when you're by yourself, you talk to people.

And one of the very interesting things about this was, in Berlin I think it was, I went to the museum there, every day, and I had lunch in the place. A young man came to sit with me because he thought I was English, and it was very unusual for anybody to come, you know, tourists came, but if you're looking at the museum, they only came for one day. But I was coming every day, and he worked in one of the museums, so it was very unusual to see somebody. So he came to ask me about what I was here for. And I explained I was Australian, and that was fine, and we had a long talk. And he was asking me what I thought about Berlin and I said, ‘There's such an overtone of something there’. And he said, ‘You know, the awful thing is, we all ask ourselves what were our grandfathers doing during the Second World War’. He says, ‘You know, there's a terrible feeling of guilt still there; none of us know whether our grandfathers were SS men, and so on. In fact, they must have been because everybody was’. And that was very interesting to me to know that there's still that awful feeling. 

KG: That kind of sense of generational trauma in a way.

HM: Yes, it’s terrible. And it just goes on and on. But the other curious thing, which was interesting, I wanted to go out of the tourist area, just to have a cup of coffee. And so I got out of the tourist area, and I found a place, and it was one of those places where you go in on top and then you go down like that [gestures with her hands]. So I went in and I went down. And everybody avoided me. You know, they turned their backs to me as I walked in, and I thought, ‘Oh God, I suppose they know I'm English’. And anyway, I couldn't even find a seat, but eventually I found one, then no waiter would come. And I stopped a waiter, and said, ‘Can I have a coffee?’ And he said, ‘Oh, in a minute’. And I said, ‘What’s the matter?’ And he said, ‘If you'll excuse me, I'll tell you. When you came in, you just came down and came straight over looking for a place’. He said, ‘You don't do that. When you come down, and you get onto the top level there, you say, “Guten Tag” to everybody, just like that. And then it’s right’. So, the next day I went, and I felt an absolute fool, but I thought I’’’ try it out. So I went down, and I stood on the thing and I said, ‘Guten Tag’, and everybody smiled at me, and everybody wanted to sit with me! Isn’t that bizarre! How would you know?

KG: Those kind of cultural nuances.

HM: That’s right. So you see, that’s all terribly interesting in understanding everything, you know, understanding your own … and all these sorts of things. But understanding the idiom of a place. You know, all places are not the same and they do have things that you're allowed and you're not allowed to do. Anyway, I thought that was very amusing.

The other funny thing was – it was when the wall [the Berlin Wall] was there, and I had to go through to the Russian part, to see the museum there. So, I went on the Monday, and the Russian guards take you down – oh, dear, you’re going to be murdered you think – they empty your handbag … it’s really appalling all the stuff that goes on, and it takes about half an hour for them to interrogate you. And they take away everything you've got, out of your handbag – all money and all this sort of stuff, and they say you've got to be back by whatever time, or you'll be shot, is the implication. Anyway, I went to the museum, and I came back, in time, thank goodness, and they didn't steal anything – everything was put back into my bag. And that was okay, and I went home. And then the next day I went again, and this time, oh! – ‘What are you going through for?’ And I said, ‘I'm going through for the thing’ and he said, ‘You went yesterday’, and I said, ‘Yes, but I'm coming in today’. And he said, ‘No you're not, you're coming for another reason. What reason that you're coming for?’ And I said, ‘I'm coming, because there's some things I want to look at’. ‘You’ve seen it!’ My dear, this was absolutely hideous this time. Anyway, they said, ‘You will be shot if you don't come back on time’. 

Anyway, so I went in, and I wasn't allowed to go out for anything, and I came back, and that was okay. And again, they give me back all of my things, and I go through. And then I was going on the third day because I was going for the whole week because there were so many things I wanted to see. So, I went through again. At this time the guards looked at me and they said [waves her hand], and I was allowed just to go through as long as I was back by a quarter past or whatever. But nobody even looked in my bag.

KG: You were an old hand [laughs].

So, John passed away in early ‘99 just shy of his 79th birthday. I can't imagine what it was like to lose a life partner after marriage of over 50 years Helen, and on top of your grief, and the impact on the family you then found yourself in charge of a substantial and very important estate. As we know, in 2006 The Bar [1954] was sold at Sotheby's for $3.12 million, which at the time was the highest price realised at auction for an Australian painting and then it was surpassed the following year by The Old Time [1969], which sold at Sotheby's again for $3.36 million, the highest price ever realised at auction for a painting by Brack. We've talked a little about this before, but how did you feel about that responsibility, and how did you initially tackle it?

HM: It’s not really anything new – I'd been looking after it all for such a long time. I mean, there had been all those years when he was deteriorating, that I’d been looking after the thing. And you see the awful thing about the deterioration is, you've got to go and book in for these places, but by the time it comes around for moving into the next thing, he's gone to the next stage. So it really was awful that part. You know, you get used to that. And then with the funeral, I knew that there'd be a terrible battle between people who felt they had rights to do this, so I thought well, it's just easier if I do it myself. So, I did it myself. But you know, it was fairly simple, because everything belonged to me. So that wasn't a big deal really.

KG: You've been managing the estate now for quite a while. Is it something that you enjoy doing?

HM: Well everything has been … I mean there's no more sales – it's all been sort of absorbed. So it’s just fixing up … I forget what you call it … but the prices they owe me now with the tertiary, the third sale.

KG: And managing that for John's work, how has it made you feel about your own legacy, and your oeuvre? Have you thought about it?

HM: For my stuff it’s just awful because I don't sell. So, I don't know what everybody's going to do when I go, and just that room [gestures with her hand] is now full of mainly my stuff.

But I was very angry over that sale of that picture [The Bar, 1954] to that thing down there …

KG: MONA?

HM: And they sold it, and then they sold it back to the Gallery [the NGV], with all that extra money on it. I mean, what a shocking thing to do! And then he [David Walsh] was writing a book about the thing and he wanted to use a reproduction of one of John's pictures and I just said ‘No’, because I thought it was outrageous that they should demand the full price, plus the price for work that they said had been done on it. So, he doesn't speak to me, and I don't speak to him [laughs].

KG: Well, I'm sure the girls will manage well with your work.

HM: Well, you know, Vicki lives next door and so that’s a help, but look, what does happen to it? There's artists who have rooms full of work, and what does happen to it? That's why I think it's all a more important for public collections to make sure they do have collections, but then of course, again, you're going to collect from me once maybe.

KG: On the trajectory of your career alone, and the way in which you're so stoically and graciously navigated it, I think you've got much to teach younger generations. Is there any advice or words of wisdom that you'd like to share with the women who come after you?

HM: Not really, except don't regard yourself as a woman artist.

KG: [laughs] Fair enough! You're an artist.

HM: It’s horrid this woman artist bit.

KG: That's the end of my questions Helen. Is there anything that you'd like to ....

HM: Not really. It's just that the most important thing is looking at the rectangle, which nobody does, and that gives you the orientation. And the ‘Art, The Viewer’ thing, as I say, sometimes we see something, and it may be something that's part of the oeuvre, but it might be just something that's an error, or just a passing thing, so you need to see not just one example of somebody’s works, you need to see at least three. And if you get a movement going through, well then what you've seen is genuine. But you've got to check that you haven't imposed on the work all the time. But it is amazing how people don't look at the rectangle.

KG: Well thank you, thank you so much. What a privilege and a pleasure to sit here with you today.

Helen Maudsley is represented by Niagara Galleries, Melbourne.