State Library of NSW staff angered by acquisition of Jacinta Price portrait by controversial cartoonist

The State Library of New South Wales’s state librarian and chief executive has signalled he will retire, amid staff unrest over senior management and the acquisition of a controversial painting of Country Liberal senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price.

Dr John Vallance, who served as principal of the prestigious Sydney Grammar School for almost two decades before the Liberal government appointed him to one of the state’s most senior public service positions, told library staff in an email dated 14 February that he would leave “sometime in July or August” to concentrate “on my own work”.

The email also said his interim position as acting CEO of Museums of History, the new flagship cultural institution created by the Perrottet government, was concluding in June “and there is no plan to extend that”.

“Contrary to one rumour I have heard, I do not wish to ‘jump ship’,” Vallance wrote in the email.

Staff at the State Library of NSW told the Guardian that the atmosphere in the 197-year-old institution has been fraught recently, particularly over the library’s decision to buy a portrait of Price painted by the Australian’s chief cartoonist Johannes Leak.

Several staff members, including some First Nations employees, allegedly told Vallance they were offended by the decision to buy the portrait of the Northern Territory senator, which a library spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian had cost $20,000.

Price, a Warlpiri/Celtic woman who is a conservative Country Liberal senator for the Northern Territory calls herself “unafraid to call it like it is”, and is a vocal critic of the Indigenous voice to parliament

Last year, Leak accused the Archibald prize of “identity politics” when Dunghatti artist Blak Douglas won for his portrait of Wiradjuri artist Karla Dickens. And in 2021, the Australian Press Council found that Leak’s cartoon in the Australian of Joe Biden calling Kamala Harris a “little brown girl” had caused substantial offence and prejudice, and “undermin[ed] measures to overcome the obstacles facing women, particularly those of colour”.

A State Library of NSW staff member, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Guardian that after Vallance heard the complaints about the purchase of the painting, the CEO gave assurances that it would not be displayed in the library’s public portrait gallery. The painting is held as part of the library’s special collections.

The State Library is not required to demonstrate a link between an acquisition and NSW, but some staff were unhappy that Leak’s portrait of Price, who was born in Darwin and is based in Alice Springs, had been singled out for acquisition.

“Jacinta Price has no relevance to NSW and its history … there’s a lot of people really upset about this,” one staff member told the Guardian.

“It’s the whole political background of the thing, the artist, the subject, and it’s a public waste of money … So what’s the point of it? What’s the point of the purchase?”

A spokesperson for the State Library of NSW, which holds one of the biggest art collections in Australia, said it “collects work of interest to the people of NSW, created in many formats and which documents the culture and society of Australia, both present and past”.

The Price portrait was one of 80 paintings, drawings, watercolours and architectural plans acquired by the library in 2022 at a total cost of $1.7m. The spokesperson would not say who initiated the decision to buy the Leak work.

“The painting by NSW artist Johannes Leak is an example of a contemporary portrait of an Indigenous woman prominent in public life in Australia,” the spokesperson added.

The spokesperson did not confirm or deny that Vallance had told staff the painting would not be displayed to the public when asked by the Guardian, but said that members of the public could request to view it by signing up for a special collections card and making an appointment.

Another State Library employee who asked to remain anonymous said the decision had been seen internally as a provocation to Indigenous staff members, given the controversies around both Price and Leak.

In response, the library’s spokesperson said the institution had a “robust acquisition process where a number of staff have the opportunity to express their views”.

The portrait was bought from Leak in late 2021 with the endorsement of Vallance and the library’s council, which is presided over by former National party leader George Souris.

Four months before, sections of the conservative media had claimed Leak was a victim of political correctness and “cancel culture” because his portrait of Price had failed to make the finals of the Archibald prize.

The Spectator and Quadrant accused the Archibald’s judges of “cultural Marxism” for not including Leak’s portrait among the finalists. Christopher Allen, a member of the library council and Leak’s colleague at the Australian, described the exclusion as a sign “the Trustees were afraid of implicitly raising the real questions that need to be asked about Aboriginal communities”.

“It’s so much easier to get kudos by including some harmless Aboriginal portraits and filling up the Wynne [prize for landscape painting] with bland dot paintings,” Allen told the Australian’s arts reporter Matthew Westwood.

Staff unrest at the library was captured in an internal survey conducted across the NSW public service in late 2022. The People Matter survey revealed 50% of State Library staff who took part felt that if they had a grievance to raise, it would not be handled in a “fair and objective manner”. The average score for grievance handling across the NSW public service was 53%.

Only 38% approved of senior management’s commitment to inclusion and diversity, compared to the state average of 44%.