The _Tate _Gallery Affair
By J. W. M. THOMPSON
T T was in 1952 that the first rumours of 'some great scandal at the Tate Gallery began to circulate widely in London, and towards the end of that year the thing erupted in public. For upwards of a couple of years after that, the innermost affairs of this admirable public insti- tution were reduced to the level of dirty linen, washed and rewashed in pitiless publicity. The question that remains, however, even today, is, what precisely was it that erupted in public? At the time it was exceedingly difficult for any- one to be quite sure what the Tate Gallery Affair was supposed to be about. The press, which joined in the row with relish, had unusual access to private documents, but this tended to increase rather than diminish the confusion, so great was the partisan manipulation of the material. What was indisputable was that large sections of the British establishment—including the art world, the higher civil service, and Parliament—were convulsed by bitter and even venomous argu- ments about the management of the Tate: and that through it all the anguished figure of Sir John Rothenstein, the gallery's director, was visible, trying to smile unconcernedly as the half-bricks and rotten eggs flew incessantly past his ears. It was an extraordinary and probably a unique episode in British public life. But what was it exactly? It appears that Lord Robbins, one of the many eminent men swept into the storm, has defined it in the coolness of later years as 'a case of collective madness.' It may well be that no better description is available.
Not surprisingly, Sir John Rothenstein, vindi- cated though he was eventually, has suffered a sense of deep injustice ever since. This explains his decision to publish, in the second volume of his autobiography,* a long account of his ordeal. Some people, including those with un- comfortable memories, will regret his rattling of so many old skeletons, and admittedly his narrative is a remarkable outpouring from a former senior civil servant. However, everything about the Affair tended to be remarkable, and it is only fair that Sir John should have his say at last. At one level, after all, the whole episode consisted of a series of charges against his com- petence and his integrity. It was suggested that under him staff relations at the Tate were deplor- able; that works of art were bought for exorbi- tant prices, probably for corrupt reasons; that trust funds and bequests were misused in a sinister manner; and much else besides. When one public accusation was succeeding another at a sensational rate, almost anything took on a scandalous appearance. The press and nation were much agitated (hard though it is to believe now) by such questions as whether Rothenstein should have permitted Miss Zsa Zsa Gabor to be photographed in the Tate. In the prevailing hysteria, such an issue became big news and was even brought before the House of Com- mons. The thing became a wild and ugly stampede.
The essential point about Sir John's account, however, is not simply that his lips have been unsealed by his ultimate honourable retirement, but that he has also been given the freedom of the laws of libel by the death of one of the prin- cipal characters in the drama. Thus he is able to
* BRAVE DAY, HinEous Mom. (Hamish Hamil- ton, 42s.) write with unsparing disgust about the conduct of a former Deputy Keeper of the Tate, one LeRoux Smith LeRoux. It was he, Sir John relates, who created the 'collective madness. This person, whom the unlucky Rothenstein invited to the Tate from South Africa and pressed upon an unenthusiastic Board of Trustees, emerges from his account as a villain of classic propor- tions. Persuasive, self-assured, even charming— those who met him even briefly will not quarrel with the description—LeRoux was also, it would seem, a totally unscrupulous plotter who turned his con-man's gifts to bringing about Rothen- stein's ruin in order to step into his place at the head of the Tate. He came very near to suc- ceeding. too. It is a long and complicated story of faked accusations, imaginary scandals, and hopelessly bamboozled Trustees. And as to the spate of unsavoury rumour which flooded London at the time—the fount of that was LeRoux, also: 'half monster, half buffoon,' in Rothenstein's words, or, in the earthier phraseology attributed to Lord Beaverbrook, 'the biggest swine I ever met.' (LeRoux was indeed a rogue of parts—taken up subsequently by Beavertrook, he is said to have defrauded that formidable peer of many thousands of pounds.) This portrayal of LeRoux as the evil instiga- tor of the whole Affair will not go unchallenged. Indeed, the counter-attack has already begun with a circular letter to the press, reminiscent of the verbal bazookas discharged so liberally at the height of the Affair, from Mr Humphrey Brooke, secretary of the Royal Academy. From my knowledge of the business, I am quite pre- pared to give my vote to Rothenstein, although, of course, he made mistakes. Meanwhile, one reflects what a novel it could all make. Oh, for a Balzac to do it justice! In these lean times,' rather than leave it to Lord Snow, one must hope at best for a musical—The Millbank Story?— in which artistic gang-warfare at its most ferocious could be displayed.
Because, of course, even accepting Sir John's identification of LeRoux as the curious genius who conjured up the whole Affair, one must remember that the acrimonious condition of the art world at the time greatly assisted such machinations. This seldom tranquil section of the community was disturbed, in the late 'forties and early 'fifties, by a degree of bitching and feuding rare even by its own standards. For illustration, one may recall poor Munnings's vulgar onslaughts on the 'moderns,' or the sour- ness of the Chantrey Bequest dispute.
There existed an assorted group who, for their own different reasons, were critical of Rothen- stein's management of the Tate. The most eminent of these was Mr Douglas Cooper, a rich and formidable scholar of modern art, whose hostility to Rothenstein was certainly no secret at the time. This hostility reached its most startling expression in a letter which Sir John reproduces in his book, and in which Mr Cooper declared: 'There are still more than ten years in which to hound you out of Millbank —and it shall be done.' The public did not know about this threat when they read, towards the end of the Affair, that Sir John had floored Mr Cooper with a single punch before a fascinated audience at the Diaghilev exhibition. But the Tate Trustees did: and the irony is, so I have been informed subsequently, that this 'hounding' letter was in fact of enormous service to Sir John. When it was handed round at one of the Trustees' innumerable anxious meetings, it sickened them.
Rothenstein now feels, and understandably, that he was let down by many of the Trustees. They listened too readily to the poison from LeRoux. But one can sympathise with the poor men. Exposed to constant argument and pres- sure, badgered by newspapers, surrounded by suspicion and innuendo how appallingly different their lot from what it must have seemed in prospect when the flattering invitation to serve the cause of art was first received! Indeed, to complete our picture of the whole bizarrely shocking episode, we now need a Trustee's story of the Affair. They endured many a long and heated meeting at which Sir John was not present : even he. the chief victim, does not know the whole story. I recall one Trustee proposing, at the time, that they should all don sackcloth and ashes for these tormenting sessions; and another remarking dolefully, after a series of meetings lasting long after midnight, that they should fix a lamp on the roof of the Tate, to shine out when they were in session, as the light shines over Parliament. One of their number, Mr Graham Sutherland, resigned in a blaze of publicity, and may perhaps have come to regret it. The chairman, Lord Jowitt, who should have been the sheet-anchor, was proved wanting, retreating to angry panic when his agreeable public position suddenly became an alarmingly hot seat. Had his predecessor, Sir Jasper Ridley, still been in charge, the Affair would most probably have never taken wing at all.
There is, unfortunately, no reassuring lesson to be drawn from an examination of the Affair today. It demonstrates, once again, that human institutions can never be made proof against human failings. Other public bodies may profit by the awful warning of what can happen if their simple mechanics are allowed to become out of date. It was the archaic system of dealing with paper work at the Tate which gave LeRoux his main opening: the gallery was still subordinate to the National Gallery at the time, and all accounts and related documents were kept there, an arrangement which made all too easy the infringement of certain trust obliga- tions (none of them very important, and cer- tainly not in any way corrupt). Equally, the folly of trying to maintain a 'dignified' silence in the face of a sensational press hue and cry was shown. (Rothenstein was not even permitted to answer allegations about himself.) Rothenstein's adversaries established a remarkably productive liaison with Fleet Street, and he was given the roughest possible ride by some newspapers.t When the press scents blood, it is best to turn and fight.
The Affair, in fact, was a disturbing and shameful one. Perhaps other people, too, will remember, when reading Sir John Rothenstein's account, that at exactly the same time the late Senator McCarthy was generating 'collective madness' in the most powerful nation on earth with his campaign of -vilification and injustice. We in Britain were saying, complacently, that it could surely never happen here. If Sir John's book has any message at all, it is that we were wrong.
t Sir John Rothenstein names two journalists whose fairmindedness and independence earned his gratitude: Gerard Fay, then London editor of the Manchester Guardian; and lain Hamilton, then assis- tant editor of the SPECTATOR, whose article of- October 8. 1954, 'caused a sensation and was worthy of "The Thunderer" in its most robust days.'
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