The first blockbuster art exhibition brought to Australia ,by the Melbourne Herald, in l939, caused an " unprecedented furore " and production of the above book , on sale for $50 in the latest wide ranging Australian Art acquisitions list , from colonial days to the present , from Douglas Stewart Fine Books , Melbourne.
It Included 215 works of modern French and British paintings and sculptures . There were paintings by Gauguin,Matisse, Dali, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh.Picasso and many others.
Despiau, Malliol, Zadkine,Epstein and Maurice Lambert were some of the sculptors .
The exhibition opened in Adelaide before making its Melbourne debut, backed by the Herald's managing director, Sir Keith Murdoch,curated by the newspaper's art critic, Basil Burdett.
Large crowds attended day and night sessions . It resulted in lectures by avant-garde critics and many letters to newspapers.
There were strong responses for and against in New South Wales and leading art writer , Lionel Lindsay, wrote a reactionary book, Addled Art.
The exhibition was placed in storage in Australia during the war and items not sold returned to Europe later on .
It was said Australia missed a golden opporunity to buy a fabulous collection for peanuts.
The book , written by Eileen Chanin and Steven Miler, included an essay by Judith Pugh and was published by Miegunyah Press, an imprint of Melbourne University Press, in 2005. It won a NSW history award and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Literary Award.
The title was derived from a comment by art gallery director J. S.McDonald that modern art was " the work of degenerates and perverts."
(Art. Uproar. Australia.)
