ARTS
Letter to my successor
Giles Waterfield, who is leaving Dulwich Picture Gallery after 16 years as its director, writes to Desmond Shawe-Taylor On my first day at Dulwich Picture Gallery I went to see the Bursar of Dulwich Col- lege who was in charge of the Gallery's finances and was told there was enough money to buy a typewriter (an innovation) and some headed writing paper.
After this it was difficult to do anything else of a professional nature since the building was locked, I had no colleagues to talk to and no office. Instead, I went to the Army and Navy Stores and bought some red bath towels. I am sure you will be looked after better, but, since I was at Dul- wich for what seems the extraordinarily long period of 16 years, I hope you can endure a few reflections from me in my new role as elder statesman.
Rule Number One: keep the trustees sweet. When I arrived at Dulwich I was unused to the way the trustee system works, and particularly to the idea that people who had shown no apparent inter- est in the place for three months were bet- ter equipped to pontificate on almost any subject than members of staff who went there every day.
I did not appreciate the need to calculate before any meeting which trustees might be tricky, and to neutralise possible attack by prior consultation. I became aware of this problem at an early stage when we were discussing a new wall colour for the gal- leries. Innocently, I stuck three pieces of variously painted red paper against the grey walls for consideration. 'Awful!' cried the Royal Academician. 'Disastrous, back to the nineteenth century,' lamented the professor. Only the rapid setting-up of a sub-committee by the chairman prevented hideous collision.
I think I must have attended about 100 trustees' meetings at Dulwich, and even before the last one I felt nervous. Trustees have an annoying habit of asking probing questions about matters one has not thought about for weeks and expecting immediate grasp of every detail. There's the trustee who maintains a subdued but continuous chuckle while one is speaking; the one who pores over the balance sheet and invariably finds a tiny discrepancy; the one who waits with a patient smile while one explains some complicated matter and then gravely poses the question one has just answered. Remember, it's more fun for them than it is for you. Never let them see you are flustered. Be deferential, and always thank them for their advice (which, actually, is often helpful; and, if it's not, you can usually manage to miss it out of the minutes). And, as long as the chairman is behind you, you're OK. One of the stimuli of the job is the vari- ety of modes of behaviour it requires. You probably will not be called upon to engage in clandestine negotiations with Mr Smit from the Netherlands for the return of the little Rembrandt portrait of Jacob de Gheyn (and do make sure it is not stolen for a fifth time: apart from the other little problems, those jokes about the 'take-away Rembrandt' and 'Hurry while stocks last' and 'Lost anything lately, ho ho ho?', while riotous for a while, pall on the 100th repe- tition).
Mr Smit and I became acquainted when the Rembrandt was stolen in 1981. He rang me to let me know that as a man of good will he could help us recover the picture (which, though I did not know it, was actu- ally in a flat in Cornwall Gardens). We first met to discuss how he could help us at Amsterdam airport in a bar which, I later discovered, was populated by 15 plain clothes police impersonating barmen, busi- ness persons and general Eurotrash, all secretively watching our discussions. After ten days, which included nightly telephone calls, an assignation at the Playboy Club and a trip together to Barclays Bank in Dulwich Village where the hedge opposite the banks was packed tightly but invisibly with the local constabulary, our relation- ship came to an end when the picture was recovered from a taxi in Berkeley Square and Mr Smit was simultaneously arrested in my company at the Post House Hotel, Heathrow. We did see each other later at the Old Bailey but there was no time to chat.
Another skill to develop is the organising of the seating plans for Gallery dinners for the influential, cultivated and rich. The procedure is that you arrange a placement; the chairman redoes it; you negotiate a compromise so that there is no obvious duds' corner and you're not stuck with one of those rich people who demand lots of cooing before sending £15. When it is all resolved, the most important guest chucks. It's an interesting minor art form, the museum dinner, and much more worth- while than the 'benefit' which people pay to attend.
Do be wary of those £100 a head sub- scription dinners with a Patron who's late and a Committee of Honour made up of people who don't want or ought not to be involved and an auction of second-rate paintings screwed out of reluctant dealers with a net result of £14,516 profit, 1,200 hours of staff time and several years off your life expectancy. I think you're pretty sociable, which is lucky. You will meet a lot of interesting and diverse people who like the Gallery. Because it is small, Dulwich Picture Gallery can give those involved in its work, however peripherally, the sense of belong- ing, and, unusually, it functions on a local, national and international level. Don't for- get the importance of the attendants: they are the only members of staff most people will see and in what is for many the faintly daunting atmosphere of an Old Master gallery the contact they provide can con- tribute a great deal to enjoyment. But don't expect too much time yourself for contemplation of the collection. In the past 16 years, the duties required of a museum director have shifted increasingly away from scholarship towards a compro- mise between impresario and manager, reflecting both the expectation that muse- ums will raise money in a way that never previously applied and the increase in activity in museums now compared to the 1970s.
On a modest scale, these changes are reflected at Dulwich, where you will have 28 members of staff compared to the five I inherited in 1979. Just try not to feel frus- trated if your own work has to be done in the evenings, or if, as you tap out a cogent paragraph on Bernini, you are interrupted because an old lady has tripped, with unconscious symbolism, on her way into the founders' mausoleum.
Oh, and I haven't mentioned the greatest pleasure: being responsible for such a fine building and notable collection (when the curator allows one to get involved, at least); or the creative process of mounting exhibitions (ditto); or thinking about how to present a collection of Old Masters to an audience that ranges from the highly eru- dite to tiny South London schoolchildren.
As your chairman may remark, since it is something he (unlike some) feels strongly about, 'The most important thing about the Gallery is the pictures.' So, if the balance sheets and the roof problems begin to get you down, go and look at the Cuyps or `Venetia Digby' or the Watteau, and remind yourself of priorities.
Giles Waterfield will become director of the Royal Collection Studies, director of Atting- ham Summer School, member of the Muse- um Experts Panel of the National Heritage Memorial Fund and consultant conservator of Compton Verney Museum.
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