Facing Percy Grainger
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Unknown photographer
Percy Grainger ‘In the Round’ 1933
silver gelatin print
Grainger Collection,
the University of Melbourne |
David Pear tells the story behind the exhibition opening at the National Library in July
Co-curating an exhibition about Percy Grainger (1882–1961) has been one of the most enjoyable professional experiences I have had. Archives and museums are my lifeblood in one sense, but there are times when it would be delightful to have greater opportunity to present the findings of research to a broader audience, and to see the delight of others as they discover an enchanting world of music, languages, literature, art and much more besides. The Grainger exhibition provided that.
My initial motivation to present an exhibition on Grainger was seeing Treasures from the World’s Great Libraries at the National Library several years ago. I’m sure many readers will remember what a tremendous exhibition this was: in the final week, the Library had to open its doors at 6.45 am to cater for the sustained popularity of the event. Like many others, I was stunned by the quality and significance of the isolated items on show, but also inspired by the skilful manner in which the disparate items on display were put together to form a cohesive whole. It was a fine example in fact of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts. People left the exhibition feeling changed—‘improved’ even. It was more of an ‘installation’, a complete experience, than just another exhibition.
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Unknown photographer
Percy Grainger, Fort Hamilton, New York 1917
silver gelatin print;
25.4 x 20.0 cm
Grainger Collection,
the University of Melbourne |
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Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882–1961) and Ella Viola Grainger (1889–1979)
Diamond-patterned towelling outfit worn by Percy Grainger c.1934
Grainger Collection,
the University of Melbourne |
I knew immediately that this was the approach I wanted for Percy Grainger. But Grainger was a strange character. Even in today’s relatively tolerant environment, many of the issues which he makes us confront require some caution. I was aware that any public presentation about him had to be treated with a degree of sensitivity. He was often dismissed humorously, cynically even, as a man with ‘weird sexual interests’, and many Australians still cannot get beyond this. Some don’t even reach this point with any degree of accuracy—for while they know that Grainger was ‘kinky’, they have no idea why, or how.
It’s true: Grainger certainly was concerned with such matters. Yet it is rather ironic that some aspects of his philosophy, which he was careful to present selectively during his lifetime, are now less unacceptable than other issues which he could not have remotely considered offensive while he lived. We rarely think that issues move from being inoffensive to offensive: increasing social toleration (perceived or real) suggests the movement is in quite the opposite direction. We learn toleration—or so we think. But Grainger’s racial intolerance is one example where the opposite is true. His attitude leaves many of us bewildered today, though it was quite acceptable for much of his own lifetime.
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Percy Aldridge Grainger (1882–1961)
Rose Grainger c.1897
watercolour on paper;
17.8 x 24.0 cm
Grainger Collection,
the University of Melbourne |
It was therefore important to us in curating this exhibition to present the Grainger ‘facts’, including his sado-masochism and his anti-Semitism, without distracting the public from the enduring significance of the musical work he achieved. Co-curator Brian Allison and I wanted Grainger to be represented both truthfully, and in a balanced fashion. We wanted those attending the exhibition to leave with a mental portrait of Grainger which was informed, and excited by, the broad nature of his activities. I was convinced that if any institution could achieve this, it was the National Library.
What sort of exhibition did we get, in the end? Few individuals in history have stored, noted, duplicated, analysed and diarised their lives to the degree that ‘Perks’ did. Working in the Grainger Museum in Melbourne during the early 1990s was for me akin to being the ‘child let loose in the lolly shop’. Grainger had kept so much documentation of his life (including some
20 000 or more letters), that I soon stopped ‘grazing’, as intellectual indigestion threatened. While the letters alone would easily have provided the material for a fascinating and substantial exhibition—coming as they do from such individuals as Rudyard Kipling, John Singer Sargent, Frederick Delius, and Béla Bartók—this would not even have begun to represent Grainger’s breadth of knowledge, wealth of experience, and his own desire to present it all to others. Grainger was one of Australia’s first ‘internationalists’: he was also one of our great ‘sharers’, in true Australian democratic fashion.
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True Thrills vol.1, no. 4, 1942
USA: Country Press Inc.
Grainger Collection,
the University of Melbourne
Part of Grainger’s collection of penny dreadfuls |
The place to start understanding Grainger, and this was how Brian Allison and I arrived at our vision for the exhibition, is to consider his role as ‘all-rounder’. Grainger hated specialisation with a vengeance. His life is testimony to this. His reading was broad but substantial. He spoke several languages (including German, Danish and Swedish), but also had a reading knowledge of many others (including Spanish and Maori). He was fascinated by ethics, anthropology, and the embryonic study of sociology. In many ways his reading made him a wise man, and his letters are brimming with quotable passages. In contrast, he quite often fell into a trap of broad—and sometimes inaccurate—generalisation. This characteristic, in a man equally committed to a daunting openness about all his beliefs, gave rise to a sometimes slightly ‘trigger-happy’ public speaker. Indeed, as the luxury of hindsight shows us, Grainger walked a fine line throughout his life between being loved by his audiences and being potentially scorned by the press. He was lucky to come through his career as unscathed as he did.
As I have already indicated, to present Grainger as fairly as we could, we had to show each of the main facets of his character. To have presented, for instance, just ‘Grainger the Composer’ would not simply have been to have told only part of the story. It would actually have misled people into thinking that this role was more significant than others which Grainger undertook in his life, and would also fail to demonstrate Grainger’s most important strength: his ability to synthesise a wide variety of disciplines. Of course, we could not document everything that Grainger represented, so we settled on Grainger as performer, as composer and arranger, as social commentator, and finally, as auto-archivist. The entire exhibition revolves around these multiple ‘faces’ of Grainger, and the photograph which we used as a promotional aid, serves as its virtual ‘icon’.
The ambiguity of the image, and the exhibition’s title, Facing Percy Grainger, are intentional, and encourage the public to confront some of the delicate—and indelicate—issues which motivated this very great man.
Related to the promotional photograph is the exhibition’s ‘sub-theme’: to present to the public the dramatic range of faces that Percy Grainger showed to the world. Like Queensland premier Peter Beattie, Grainger would have quite happily proclaimed himself a ‘media tart’. It would be a challenge indeed to ask which other historical figure could be represented in as broad a range—of situation, milieu, condition or media—as Grainger. As Brian Allison’s article in the exhibition catalogue highlights, Grainger also possessed a tremendous sense of the visually artistic. Well aware of his own physical attractiveness to many people, male and female, he did not stint to use it to his own advantage. Though this vanity was not ‘cheap’: it was coupled with both an aesthetic sense, and a sense of history. Posing for every picture taken, every portrait painted, was for Grainger a highly conscious act. Today we can revel in the result of this fortunate conglomeration of skills.
There was no shortage of material for this exhibition. We began with a wish-list of several hundred items. When conservation and fragility issues weighed against some objects, the list was pruned. Gallery space was another problem: the National Library is sorely tested when large objects have to be exhibited. A few more items thus stayed at home. Despite this pruning, we were still overly-blessed with material. After eliminating the images or items which had already had high public exposure, we concentrated on keeping the collected integrity of the exhibition as tight and focussed as possible. There are still over 200 items to enjoy. From whips to watercolours, Meissen monkeys to manuscripts, we hope that Grainger’s broad portrait, from all angles, comes through clearly from this collection. With all its furrows and wrinkles, blemishes and birthmarks, the face is a truly fascinating one, deserving your exploration.
Dr DAVID PEAR is an Adjunct Fellow/Associate Professor at the Humanities Research Centre, ANU, and Senior Lecturer in Music at Monash University, Victoria. He has co-curated the exhibition, Facing Percy Grainger, with Brian Allison of the Grainger Museum, the University of Melbourne. It will be showing at the National Library from 6 July to 15 October |