Interviewed by Robert Whyte
What was your main motivation in wanting to start up a gallery?
While studying architecture I became interested in the visual arts and to have a place to paint and show paintings I took out a lease on a small area in the basement of a building in Latrobe Terrace, Paddington. It was a fairly low risk, cheap rent venture. I found I was spending more time with the gallery than I was painting. I had to make a decision between continuing the gallery or painting. Art dealing won out.
From the beginning of the gallery, I tried to establish some personal aesthetic direction. I looked at pictures a lot and read but I hadn't worked at an art gallery before, so I was really at a loss to know exactly what I was supposed to do. It was a slow process. Early on I went to Sydney to meet people in the business. Returning from my second venture down, I found myself organising a show of paintings and drawings of Sidney Nolan who was coming to Australia that summer. I realised then that it would be very inappropriate to have the exhibition in the space that I was in. It wasn't long after that I found a place that was suitable at Logan Road, Woolloongabba. That was the official beginning of the Milburn Galleries, almost exactly one year after I opened in Paddington.
In May 1986 I moved into the city where I am now and will stay for a while I should imagine. When we open in Sydney this June that will mean five different locations in six years - all the moving is a nuisance but each... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline