This was published 8 years ago
New head of Art Gallery Society Ron Ramsey walks delicate tightrope amid ongoing tensions
By Andrew Taylor
The new head of the Art Gallery Society will be walking a delicate tightrope amid ongoing tensions between the Art Gallery of NSW and its volunteers and supporters.
Ron Ramsey began the role of executive director of the society on Monday as the gallery's management seeks to renegotiate its relationship with the society – talks that have been shrouded in secrecy.
The executive director of the Art Gallery Society Ron Ramsey.Credit: Jonathan Carroll
Ramsey, the former director of Newcastle Art Gallery, said maintaining the loyalty of members was "extremely important".
He also said members had to see a "tangible benefit" from paying their annual subscriptions.
The donation of a Brett Whiteley sculpture to Newcastle Art Gallery triggered controversy during Ron Ramsey's tenure.Credit: Dean Osland
But he emphasised the society's purpose was to support the gallery by buying artworks to add to its collection.
"Those acquisitions have been works that the curators and director have wanted the society to support," he said.
"It's not as if the society has the independence to go off and buy a work by bloggsy and bring it back to the gallery and say, 'Here's a work for you'."
Ramsey's new role will reunite him with AGNSW's director Michael Brand – the duo previously worked together at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra in the 1990s.
The society has 16,550 paid-up members who raised $1.28 million for the gallery in 2014, including more than $1 million to acquire artworks.
Ramsey's predecessor Judith White left in December, warning the society's independence was under threat.
In a fiery farewell speech White said the society was "largely misunderstood and undervalued in the higher echelons of the gallery".
She also expressed horror at plans to charge schools for tours that gallery volunteers had provided free for more than 40 years.
White said the society would not be successful if membership "were managed bureaucratically, from the top down".
White had warned against alienating supporters at the society's annual general meeting in March 2015 following the gallery's decision to replace front-desk volunteers with paid ticket sellers.
Some members of the society fear the gallery is seeking to take control of the society, which was set up as a not-for-profit company in the 1950s by Chief Justice Sir Kenneth Street to develop popular support for the gallery.
But former president Les Moseley said the society was "surprised and disappointed" by White's speech.
Ramsey said he could not comment on the issues raised in White's speech: "I'm too distant to be really able to tell."
However, he said the current model of the society operating separately from the gallery "seems to work".
Ramsey is no stranger to controversy. A planned $21 million renovation of Newcastle Art Gallery fell through and the donation of a Brett Whiteley statue to the gallery led to an investigation by the Australian Tax Office amid doubts about whether it fell within the rules of the government's Cultural Gifts Program.
The Newcastle City Council led by then lord mayor Jeff McCloy later abolished the position of gallery director – a pattern since repeated by other councils in regional NSW – ending Ramsey's tenure in 2014.
McCloy later resigned after admitting to the Independent Commission Against Corruption he made illegal donations to several Liberal candidates in the lead-up to the 2011 state election.