Zsa Zsa's photos shook the Tate to its foundation

[emad]

Zsa Zsa's photos shook the Tate to its foundation

David Smith
Sunday January 2, 2005
The Observer

Hollywood star Zsa Zsa Gabor caused uproar in the art establishment when she was photographed half-straddling a sculpture in the Tate Gallery in London.
The film actress posed with her leg up on the waist-high work The Fake for a spread in the magazine Illustrated in the Fifties. The demonstration appalled trustees, who criticised the gallery's director, John Rothenstein.

The chairman of the trustees, Earl Jowitt, presented a report headed: 'Staff Troubles at the Tate Gallery.' It read: ' Illustrated of 25 October 1952 contains an article entitled "Zsa Zsa Gabor plays to the gallery". It is a cheap, vulgar and altogether deplorable article in which this film star is seen in the Tate Gallery with her leg on the base of some statuary and there are other pictures of her with John Rothenstein. Directly I had it brought to my notice, I wrote to Rothenstein telling him how much I disliked it. He agrees that it was indeed deplorable.'

But the row escalated and Viscountess Davidson MP put down a parliamentary question to the Chancellor, Rab Butler, asking why the Tate had authorised publication of the article. The reply came back that the director had allowed the pictures 'because he understood Miss Gabor was appearing in a film about Toulouse-Lautrec and that she wanted to visit the gallery to see the picture by him there'.

Rothenstein was also criticised for 'misuse of trust funds' in a 23-page letter sent by Graham Sutherland, the leading artist, to the Chancellor. Sutherland, explaining his reasons for resigning as a trustee, said the gallery had overpaid for a bronze by Degas because two vital documents were not produced. 'My considered opinion was, and is, that their non-production was a gross dereliction of duty of the most serious kind,' he wrote.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1382057,00.html

SO...not Sharon Tate then......

[Coventina]

1. Where the hell was the conservator when this happened?

That sort of behavior is a curator's nightmare.

Especially as it encourages the public to do similar things.

[Deja Q]

2. What, no pics?

:-(