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ABSTRACT
When art dealer and entrepreneur Kym Bonython's new gallery opened in Sydney in 1967, it was believed to be the largest commercial gallery in the southern hemisphere. In early 1970, Bonython brought Melbourne-born art dealer Alannah Coleman over from London to take on the management of his gallery. Sadly, her appointment was not a success and lasted less than a year. Coleman re-organised the records and accounts along European lines and tried to put the gallery on a firm financial footing, but she met with opposition from staff, artists and Bonython himself. Bonython wanted the gallery as a showcase for new talent and was always on the lookout to spot 'the next goer'. The opening parties at Bonython's deplored by Coleman as 'open slather' evenings proved to be significant social events and the focus for cultural exchange, whilst in his solo shows, Brett Whiteley made innovative use of the gallery as a 'theatre', combining painting and sculpture with light and sound to transform the exhibition into a completely new synesthetic experience. In 1971, with funding from John Kaldor's Public Art Project scheme, Swiss curator and gallerist Harald Szeemann used the Bonython Gallery to stage a groundbreaking show of conceptual art that went on to show at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne. Without a regular external source of sponsorship or support, however, Coleman's fears for the financial viability of the gallery were eventually proved right when, after several further years of losses, it finally closed in 1976.
The period of c.1967-1972, now re-visited for its retro-culture fashion appeal, began with the Summer of Love and progressed toward a fashion free for all-a time when floppy wide-brimmed hats, sarongs, long muslin dresses and flared trousers proliferated. The period was also distinctive for its counter-culture, excess and progressive blurring of the gender divide. But in 1970, the year that Germaine Greer published The Female Eunuch, Gough Whitlam was still Federal Opposition Leader, waiting to seize power, and Australian troops were still in Vietnam. The pressure for change, both cultural and political, was building fast, and the Whitlam years (197275) would soon see an unprecedented period of Federal support for the visual arts, exemplified by the far-sighted and controversial acquisition of Jackson Pollock's Blue Poles in...