Museum of Modern Art Australia (MOMAA)


The Museum of Modern Art Australia, alternatively named the 'Museum of Modern Art of Australia' or 'Museum of Modern Art of Australia', was founded by Australian art patron John Reed in 1958 in Tavistock Place, a lane-way off 376 Flinders Street, Melbourne. It held exhibitions of important contemporary Australian and international art of the late 1950s and early 1960s. The Museum operated until 1966 and was formally dissolved in 1981.

Background

In July 1938 John and Sunday Reed were active in the formation of the Contemporary Art Society to promote modernist art in opposition to the prevalent conservatism of Australian art. Through the CAS John met Sidney Nolan, to whom the Reeds gave friendship and financial support, and from 1941, housing him until their estrangement in 1947 at their property, the former Bulleen dairy farm 'Heide' that they had purchased in 1934. Other artists in their circle were Albert Tucker and his wife Joy Hester, Arthur Boyd, John Perceval, Danila Vassilieff and the writer Michael Keon.
John abandoned his legal practice in 1943 and by the end of World War II he and Sunday had become the major supporters of modern art in Australia, supporting several artists with regular stipends. They revived the Melbourne branch of CAS and its Gallery of Contemporary Art early in the 1950s, and their association with artists and writers—the Heidi Circle—expanded to include Charles Blackman, Barrett Reid, Laurence Hope and Mirka Mora.

The Gallery

In mid-1958 with the assistance of patrons Justice John Vincent Barry, Warwick Fairfax, Kym Bonython and Gerard Noall, and businessman, restaurateur, art dealer and close friend Georges Mora, and using mostly their own capital along with a fund-raising subscription drive, the Reeds transformed the CAS gallery, where Mora's wife Mirka had exhibited in August the year before and in May 1958, into the 'Museum of Modern Art of Australia', modelled on MoMA in New York, with John as its director, and Phillip Jones his assistant. Daughter of Myer Emporium director Sir Norman Myer, Pamela Warrender, whom Mora came to know through their visits to his Balzac Restaurant, a gathering-place for artists, became chair of the museum.
The gallery was on the top floor of a three-storied bluestone former warehouse in Tavistock Place, Melbourne, on the eastern Flinders Street corner. In 1956 architect and artist Peter Burns had overseen renovations to make it an art gallery to a design by the Contemporary Artists Society Victoria secretary. A wall of coloured Perspex panels arranged in a geometric design surrounded the entrance at one end of the main gallery space, a long rectangular room with dark grey matting on the floor and a ceiling of dark blue. The wall at the far end opposite the entrance and the bluestone side walls were painted white, the latter being covered in wire mesh which served as a hanging system, and later also used as dividers. The space was lit by fluorescent strips and spotlights.
Works gifted to the museum by the Reeds' artist friends were shown in an inaugural exhibition. In 1962 the museum relocated to a vacant floor of the Ball & Welch department store at 180 Flinders Street.
The Museum vigorously promoted modern Australian artists; in August 1958 a Charles Blackman painting Dream was presented by council member Bernard Dowd to the Paris Musée National d'Art Moderne.

Reception

National Gallery of Victoria Director Eric Westbrook acknowledged that:

Exhibitions

163 works of art that the Reeds had collected themselves over 30 years, figurative, abstract, expressionist and realist, formed the basis of the Museum and was drawn upon for some of the exhibitions held there, many of which were landmark. The Museum's architect Peter Burns showed in 1959. Albert Tucker exhibited there 18 October – 4 November 1960, and in 1961 held ‘The Formative Years, 1940 – 1945’ with Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and John Perceval, at which important Tucker works, his Modern Evil, No. 2, Figure 6, Modern Evil, No. 6, Figure 7, Modern Evil, No. 27 and Modern Evil, No. 28, Figure 8, were displayed with other iconic works including The Futile City. The Sydney Pop Art trio the 'Annandale Realists', Mike Brown, Colin Lanceley and Ross Crothall show of 13 February – 1 March 1962 was accompanied by a catalogue essay by Elwyn Lynn. While the trio were in the city Georges Mora commissioned from them a mural, the largest surviving example of the Australian Pop Movement, in his Balzac Restaurant, painted as individual panels in exchange for meals and accommodation.
Other exhibitions included:
In the hope of accommodating larger shows and openings, the museum relocated to the Ball & Welch emporium in 1964. However, financial difficulties proved insurmountable and in April 1965 John resigned, and the Museum shut down a year later. The enterprise continued informally at Heidi while its new, modernist buildings were completed in 1967 to become Heide II which, not long before both died in ten days of each other, the Reeds sold in 1980 to the Victorian Government for the establishment of a public art museum and park, Heide Museum of Modern Art. A meeting of the remaining members of the Museum of Modern Art Australia to formalise its dissolution was announced on 27 July 1981 at which its permanent collection was transferred to the National Gallery of Victoria The terms of agreement with the National Gallery of Victoria following dissolution and the transfer of its holdings specified that "within a reasonable time after the donation, the collection be exhibited at the recently established Heide Museum at Bulleen as a tribute to John and Sunday Reed who were primarily responsible for the establishment of the collection". The consequent exhibition was Forgotten treasures - works from the original Museum of Modern Art and Design Collection, 7–17 July 1994, at Museum of Modern Art, Heide.