Museums
Bob Edwards was a man who has played so many parts in creating and re-creating museums....
"He was responsible for the new concept of the Museum of Victoria; he played a central role in redeveloping the Museum of South Australia, the Museum of Western Australia, the Hong Kong Museum of History. He was the founding chairman of the National Museum of Australia and the founding chairman of the National Portrait Gallery."
"But in this field there is a skill that I have to say I find completely incomprehensible, magical and verging on the sinister — and that is Bob's capacity to manipulate politicians. Every one of us in this room, I suspect, who has worked in a museum or a gallery has had at some stage to confront that moment when you go to see the minister and somehow time after time federal ministers, state ministers, state governments, federal governments were persuaded by Bob to fall into line and to come up with the cash... It's the part that the public never really grasp. Most visitors never think of those endless hours explaining to the politicians and to the civil servants why what we are doing is the most important thing in the life of the nation and simply has to be supported. But you did it, and the landscape of Australian museums was transformed in the process."
From: Neil MacGregor, "A Tribute to Bob Edwards." National Museum of Australia, 22 March 2011.
His influential Edwards Report for the South Australian Museum (commissioned in 1979, final report 1981) provided a detailed blueprint for the modernisation and articulation of South Australia's cultural precinct — a document considered "extraordinarily futuristic even now" and "still remarkably current."
It led directly to the establishment of a new Science Centre and the State Centre for the Restoration of Cultural Property (Art Lab), and to the creation of the History Trust, which in 1986 opened the South Australian Maritime Museum and the Migration and Settlement Museum — a world first, predating both the Immigration Museum in Melbourne and the Ellis Island Museum in the United States. The Trust went on to take over management of the Constitutional Museum and Birdwood Mill Motor Museum, and took responsibility for accrediting and evaluating museums across the state.
While reshaping South Australia's museum landscape, Edwards was also lending his expertise abroad, serving from 1982 to 1996 as Advisor to the Hong Kong Museum of History, where he affirmed the role of the history museum in preserving Hong Kong's "disappearing" past and fostering a distinct Hong Kong identity.
In 1984 he brought the same reforming vision to his foundational directorship of Museum Victoria, transforming, in his own words, "the dry and dusty institutions of the past to which reluctant school children were dutifully marched" into "dynamic centres of learning and experience" offering fresh insight into human society, ecology, and scientific and technological achievement. Under his direction, visitor numbers rose from 300,000 to one million, securing government commitment for a new building.
Edwards' expertise in museum reform was sought well beyond his own directorships. He advised on the redevelopment of the Western Australian Museum and helped establish its Art Lab conservation facility, and in 2002–03 authored the City of Greater Geelong's Arts, Culture and Heritage Strategy: The Next Decade.
His board service extended across the sector for decades: he was a member of the Victorian Museums Advisory Board, chaired the Council of Australian Museum Directors (1985-1987) and the National Cultural Heritage Committee (1988-1991), sat on the Committee of Management of the National Air and Space Museum of Australia, and served as a board member of the Stockman's Hall of Fame and Outback Heritage Centre (1989-2005, Director from 1991) and the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne (2002-2005).
Later in his career he returned to his professional roots as a Board Member of the South Australian Museum (2001-2010), chaired the National Museum of Australia's governing Council (1990-96), and served as the first Chair of the National Portrait Gallery (1997-2000), setting its direction and Collection Development policy.
Honours & Recognition
Edwards' contribution to Australia's cultural life was formally recognised throughout his career.
In 1989 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), with his citation crediting him for: "extension of knowledge on Australian rock art; special initiatives in the preservation of Aboriginal sites of significance; initiation of programs to foster indigenous arts throughout Australia; contributed to design and development of museums in Australia and overseas; management of 40 major international touring exhibitions of art and antiquities."
That same year, France made him a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, promoting him to Officier in 2003 by decree of the Minister for Culture and Communication, Jean-Jacques Aillagon, with the insignia bestowed by the French Embassy in Canberra.
Neither award letter spells out a specific reason — both use the Order's standard language, honouring those who have "contributed to the advancement of culture both in France and throughout the world" — but the connection runs deep: as founding director of the Aboriginal Arts Board in the 1970s, Edwards sent an exhibition of Aboriginal art to the Australian Embassy in Paris, and two decades later, as chief executive of Art Exhibitions Australia, he brought three landmark exhibitions of French art to Australian audiences — Van Gogh: His Sources, Genius and Influence (1993), Renoir: Master Impressionist (1994) and Matisse (1995) — a reciprocal thread of cultural exchange that plausibly explains the recognition, even without an explicit citation to point to.
In 1991 Monash University conferred on him an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD honoris causa) — the source of the "Dr" honorific used throughout his later career. In his occasional address at Robert Blackwood Hall on 20 March 1991, reflecting on almost five decades in the museum sector, he offered a prediction since borne out: "The Centenary of Federation in the year 2001 will see the emergence of a long needed museum in Canberra to provide a national perspective on our past, insights into the present and inspiration and leadership for a future as one nation."
He was later made an Honorary Life Fellow of the National Museum of Australia (1996) and of Museum Victoria (2000), Honorary Curator Emeritus of the South Australian Museum, and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
From:
Order of Australia citation, The Australian Roll of Honour, National Honours & Awards 1975–1996." Sydney: Alister Taylor, 1997.
Robert Edwards, "occasional address on his admission to the degree of Doctor of Laws (honoris causa)," Monash University, Robert Blackwood Hall, 20 March 1991.
French Ministry for Culture and Communication, certificate appointing Robert Edwards Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, 20 February 2003.
