‘It Was Tom’ s First Brush With Modernism’, a crayon and ink drawing on paper by English artist, Glen Baxter, was the quirky image that adorned the front cover of the catalogue for The Biennale of Sydney in 1986, a cowboy looking at a blank canvas (in a gallery?). It was my first brush with Baxter’s work and I loved it, still do. It was also my first brush with Nick Waterlow, the Curator of that Biennale.
The Biennale of Sydney was a very Sydney thing, or so it seemed to me at that time. Melbourne people didn’t care much for it, one way or the other. Indifferent was probably the best way to describe it, but still, I thought I had better check it out.
‘Gotham City Gossip’ was going strong on 3RRR-FM back in those days. An art show on radio, how did I do it, people asked. Easy, just talk about the art. Heard only in Melbourne, Sydney people were entranced, especially people like Ray Hughes. The program had become an arbiter of taste (or, as some said, lack of it).
So when I rang Nick Waterlow for an interview about his Biennale, of course he said yes. We met at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Nick was nervous. So far the press hadn’t been kind. And even though I was asking the tough questions, Nick liked the way I was asking them.
I won’t say we became friends. But we had mutual friends in common, Rodney Pople, Tony Oliver, Robert Hirschmann, Bob Whitaker, and always had a warm smile for each other whenever our paths occasionally crossed. He always remembered that interview.
I surprised him once in England when I was curating Bob Whitker’s survey show for the Monash Gallery of Art back in 2002. I was staying with Bob in Hayward’s Heath. Nick came to visit, curating his own show ‘Larrikins in London’ for the Dougherty. We just laughed. I think Nick was jealous, maybe 'cos he thought I had better work of Bob's in my show. We ended up sharing it and both shows looked great.
I called in to see Nick at the Ivan Dougherty Gallery when I was in Sydney in September. He was in England again. I saw him on the telly a couple of weeks back, with his old mate, Martin Sharp, talking about Luna Park. His hair and beard were long and white, unkempt almost, but that was Nick. He will be missed, terribly.
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