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Alan Boxer was a most enthusiastic collector of Australian art, particularly of Aboriginal paintings. He possessed a keen eye for a great work, and enjoyed the narrative of each painting in his collection, whether it be allegorical or a painterly. Alan’s academic background was probably the reason he always asked the most incisive of questions regarding a work of art: the how, why, where and when not only of each artist and of each picture, but of just about every mark and brushstroke, The sheer passion with which he would devour a picture was infectious.

Alan was born in Hong Kong and held degrees in economics from Melbourne and Oxford Universities. He was an authority on foreign aid and tax reform, and in 1975 he became a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, the year he took up residence in Canberra. Alan had commenced his collecting in Melbourne in the early 1960s, mostly of figurative painters such as Albert Tucker, Arthur Boys, Fred Williams and Sydney Nolan, to which he added paintings by Sydney artists John Olsen, Elwin Lynn, Colin Lanceley, Stanislaus Rapotec and Brett Whiteley, as well as Ian Fairweather amongst others. In 1961 he made his first acquisition of a work by an Aboriginal artist, a bark painting by Mathaman Marika that he purchased from Argus Gallery, directed by Ruth McNicoll (who was to become the curator of Australian Indigenous, African, Oceanic and Pre-Columbian American art at the National Gallery of Australia). This was a one-off, although in the early 1970s he acquired the bark painting Lumahlumah by the doyen of West Arnhem Land bark painting, Yirwala, from the artist’s patron, Sandra Le Brun Homes (lot 8).

Alan’s collecting went into abeyance for nearly twenty years, After spending three years in Japan, Alan returned to Canberra in 1985. On his first visit to Judith Behan’s Chapman Gallery in Manuka, Alan made the first acquisition of what was to become his outstanding collection of “Desert Art”, as he called it, a canvas by Turkey Tolson Tjupurrula. That was it: as he said some years later, he became hooked on Aboriginal art. He and Judy and Ron Behan became close friends, and Alan would often “Gallery-sit” for her, as he did on occasion for Kristian Pithie when he took over Chapman Gallery.

Once back in Canberra, Alan joined the National Gallery of Australia as a volunteer guide, and was one of the institutions longest serving. Naturally, he had a special interest in Aboriginal art and took advantage of every opportunity to enhance his knowledge of Indigenous cultures, art and society – Alan’s understanding of artist’ kin relations was prodigious. His collection grew to include works from Papunya, Yuendumu, Balgo, Utopia, Ngukurr, the Tiwi Islands, and across the Kimberley, from Derby to Fitzroy Crossing and Warmun (Turkey Creek).

Alan Boxer collected art for his personal enjoyment, and for that of his family and friends. He would hang every work he acquired in his house and each room was a salon hang par excellence. He juxtaposed Aboriginal and non-Indigenous art, believing that one would ‘reinforce the visual impact’ of the another. As Morris Low wrote in his introductory essay in the catalogue of the exhibition of the Boxer Collection in 2000, aptly titled Crossing Cultures, Alan’s collection ‘…provides a guide to how we might enter into dialogue, and achieve practical reconciliation [between indigenous and non-indigenous Australia] thorough art’ (p7).

Alan Boxer had always intended to leave some of the jewels of his collection to the nation, wand these he bequeathed to the National Gallery of Australia. Alan died on 28 June 2014.

Wally Caruana, with thanks to Kristian Pithie

17 Mar 2015 ~ 6.30pm

926 - 930 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143 Australia

27 Feb 2015 ~ 10am - 5pm
Martyn Cook Galleries
98 Barcom Avenue
Rushcutters Bay, NSW 2011
Australia

28 Feb 2015 ~ 10am - 5pm
Martyn Cook Galleries
98 Barcom Avenue
Rushcutters Bay, NSW 2011
Australia

01 Mar 2015 ~ 10am - 5pm
Martyn Cook Galleries
98 Barcom Avenue
Rushcutters Bay, NSW 2011
Australia

13 Mar 2015 ~ 10am - 5pm
926 - 930 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

14 Mar 2015 ~ 10am - 5pm
926 - 930 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

15 Mar 2015 ~ 10am - 5pm
926 - 930 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

16 Mar 2015 ~ 10am - 5pm
926 - 930 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia

17 Mar 2015 ~ 10am - 2pm
926 - 930 High Street
Armadale, VIC 3143
Australia