A horse designed by a committee: Revisiting the Tate's 1963 survey of Australian painting

The major survey of Australian art that opened at the Tate Gallery in January 1963 is often compared unfavourably with 'Recent Australian Painting', Bryan Robertson's curation of contemporary painting held at the Whitechapel Gallery some eighteen months earlier. 'Australian Painting: Colonial, Impressionist, Contemporary' was openly criticised in the press following its preview showing at the Adelaide Festival of Arts in 1962 and these criticisms surfaced again in some of the reviews of the Tate show that appeared in the London papers. The exhibition has become more famous for the controversy surrounding it than for being, as it undoubtedly was, the biggest historical survey of Australian painting to be held in London since 1923. In a vociferous letter to the Sydney Morning Herald, Albert Tucker condemned the under-representation of contemporary works, accusing the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board (CAAB) of perpetrating 'a shocking deception on the state gallery directors, the Tate Gallery Trustees, Australian artists and the Australian public.'