Strictly speaking, Leon Paroissien, who has just been appointed the founding director of Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA), has a staff of one.”For the time being, there’s just me and the bookshop manager, Gary Pressey — the others are still employed by the University of Sydney,” he said.And when the Herald photographer asked if he could pose Mr Paroissien inside the former Maritime Services Board building, which will reopen as the new museum late next year, the new director said that he didn’t have a key. He would have to borrow one from the Public Works Department, which is refurbishing the art deco edifice. October 9, 1989. (Photo by Quentin Jones/Fairfax Media via Getty Images).
Leon Paroissien, 5 March 1937- 5 November 2024
Leon Paroissien was the first Director of the Visual Arts Board of the Australia Council, the founding Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, a former editor of Art and Australia, and the Director of the 1984 Biennale of Sydney. With his partner, Bernice Murphy, he was an active enabler of the establishment of what is now the AAANZ.
It is fair to say that any examination of Australian visual culture will find evidence of Leon Paroissien’s benign intervention. We now take it for granted that when priceless works of art travel to (and from) Australia, there is no need to spend millions of dollars in insurance premiums. The Australian Government’s Art Indemnity Scheme, has saved millions of dollars in exhibition cost since it was formalized in 1979. It was however devised by Paroissien, and agreed to by Gough Whitlam, for the groundbreaking Manet to Matisse exhibition of 1975.
Very early in his tenure at the Visual Arts Board, Leon Paroissien persuaded the Board to provide seed funding and support for the fledgling Art Association of Australia. I remember going to what I think was its first conference at the National Gallery of Victoria. He enabled Geoff Parr to undertake a national art and design inquiry, which resulted in The Parr Report of 1980 that influenced art education in later years.
It would be best to describe Parossien as a visionary, someone who could imagine a future, and then work out how to achieve it. After he left the Visual Arts Board in early 1980 he travelled to broaden his perspective on art and life. His next full time position was as Director of the 1984 Biennale of Sydney. When the position of Curator of the University of Sydney’s Power Collection was advertised, he and his partner, Bernice Murphy, applied to hold it as a shared appointment. Within a few years they had parlayed this into the idea of a harbourside Museum of Contemporary Art,and had gained NSW government support for locating it in the old Maritime Services Building. In 1989 he was appointed the first director of the MCA, and later Director of the the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei. At the same time he was the Chair of the Public Art Advisory Committee of the Olympic Co-ordination Authority for the Sydney Olympic Games.
In addition to his administrative and curatorial roles Leon Paroissien was also an exemplary writer and editor. In 1982 and 1983 he edited the annual Australian Art Review and was the editor of Art and Australia from 1987 to 1992. His most recent book, Andrew Andersons: Architecture and the Public Realm, was co-written with Bernice Murphy in 2022.
Joanna Mendelssohn
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