Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Art Worthy Of The State: Daphne Mayo And Her Cultural Mission, Jane Hunt

Jane Hunt

The Queensland sculptor, Daphne Mayo, believed in and exercised what might be regarded as a form of ‘cultural authority’, in an Arnoldian sense. She distinguished between philistines (although she didn’t necessarily use that term), and those who possessed artistic ‘sensibilities’. Those who possessed such knowledge, appreciation and sensibility were worthy of determining, in the state of Queensland, what was worthy of its state collection of fine arts. In both the 1930s and 1960s when she worked closely with them, she viewed the majority of the members of the Board of Trustees of the Queensland Art Gallery as laymen who were …