News | Betty Churcher dies aged 84

Betty Churcher. Image via Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/former-director-of-national-gallery-of-australia-betty-churcher-dies-aged-84-20150331-1mbppj.html

Sad news that Betty Churcher OAM has died at the age of 84. She was the first woman director at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and at the National Gallery of Australia. At her death she was still only one of a handful of women who have held the top job in a state or national gallery (UPDATED, see below). As well as being one of Australia’s most accomplished arts administrators, Betty Churcher was also a great communicator about art. She is well known far beyond the gallery sector for her journalism and her television programs, which brought art and art history to a wide audience.

From the ABC, full story here.

Churcher was one of the most adored figures in the Australian art community and a formidable and talented arts administrator.

She was known to thousands of Australians as the face of several television series on art, such as the ABC’s Betty Churcher’s Take 5.

Churcher was appointed director of the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in 1990, a position she held until 1997.

She was the first and so far only female director of the NGA.

Before that, she was director of the Art Gallery of Western Australia.

While at the NGA, Churcher earned the moniker ‘Betty Blockbuster’ for bringing a string of high-profile art exhibitions of European masterpieces to Australian shores.

She also acquired Arthur Streeton’s Golden Summer for $3.5 million for the NGA.

You can watch an interview here, which she did last year talking to Radio National’s Books and Arts program.

NB: Thanks for the corrections to the list of female directors of state and national art galleries/museums. As well as Betty Churcher other female directors include Paula Latos-Valier was director at AGWA, Anna Malgorzewicz was the director at MAGNT, and Patricia Sabine and the (recently appointed) Janet Carding at TMAG. Please let me know if I have missed anyone else!