The campaign to salvage The Keeping Place, one of the largest collections of indigenous art in Australia, has found a staunch ally in the former High Court judge Michael Kirby.
Kirby opened an exhibition of selected works from the collection at the Australian Museum last week.
The collection is held in a railway shed in Eveleigh by Gordon Syron, an Aboriginal artist, and his wife Elaine.
They have been served an eviction notice and must vacate the property by the end of the month.
”It is an urgent and serious problem, and I hope that a proper solution can be found,” Kirby said.
”Wherever it is placed, it ought to be placed with honour and properly safeguarded as an indication of the beauty of indigenous art in Australia.”
Kirby, recently appointed to a Commonwealth ”eminent persons group”, gave a speech in support of the Syrons days before travelling to England. He took one of Syron’s paintings to present to the Queen.
”We are hoping that the powers that be take [the collection] and put it in a suitable building,” Gordon Syron said. ”You wouldn’t put the Mona Lisa in a shed. There would be an outcry.”
