Blue poles, 50 years on: what would we get for the same price today? - Lisa Reihana

The Whitlam Government sparked outcry when it bought Jackson Pollock’s famous drip painting in 1973. What would our shopping list look like in 2023?

 

Fifty years ago, on July 16, 1973, the director of the yet-to-open National Gallery of Australia, James Mollison, spent $1.3 million of taxpayers’ money to acquire Blue poles, by abstract expressionist artist Jackson Pollock. At the time, it was the highest price paid for an American artwork, and the conservative outcry was swift; Mollison even received death threats.

“Never had such a picture moved and disturbed the Australian public,” The Age’s former art critic Patrick McCaughey and NGV director has said of the 1952 abstract “drip” painting.

 

Because Mollison did not have the authority to sign off on purchases over $1 million, then-prime minister Gough Whitlam gave the sign-off, and more controversially decided the $1.3 million price paid should be public. Fifty years after the brouhaha that followed, the painting is now valued at $500 million.

 

But what if the government were to go on an art spending spree today? What would, or should, we get for the roughly equivalent sum of $11.3 million? While none of our major public galleries were willing to comment, we asked several art experts what would be on their shopping list.