BACK PAGES:DR THOMAS Bodkin was an art collector, art historian and the director of the National Gallery from 1927 to 1935. A nephew of Sir Hugh Lane, whose paintings he tried hard to retrieve for Dublin, he gave up the directorship to take up a similar position in Birmingham in 1935 but visited Dublin shortly afterwards as Honorary Professor of the History of Fine Arts in Trinity College and used the opportunity to say some things he had been prevented from saying previously:
“I come before you to-day for the first time with the muzzle off. Those of you who have never been fettered by the restrictions which entangle a civil servant can scarcely imagine how galling it may be to feel deeply and think seriously upon a subject of real public moment and to be precluded from utterance. I have at last ‘the liberty to know, to utter, to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties’. I propose to avail myself of it; for at a great price I bought this freedom.”
This statement was made by Dr Thomas Bodkin, former director of the National Gallery, when he lectured before a large audience in the Graduates’ Memorial Building of Trinity College, Dublin, yesterday afternoon.
He told how suggestions and recommendations made by him were left unheeded, and when he ventured into public to speak on conditions of art in Ireland he was – like an erring schoolboy – hauled before the Head next morning and given a stern reprimand. . . .
The neglect of the fine arts in Ireland had, he said, troubled thoughtful men and women for generations.
With the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922 many hoped that enlightened action would soon be taken by their own Government to help to make up the leeway which sundered them from other civilised States of Europe. In 1922 he, as a private individual, prepared a long memorandum on the subject and forwarded it to Mr Michael Hayes, the Minister for Education, but Mr Hayes was soon translated into the office of Speaker of the Dáil, and from that day to the present he had heard nothing which led him to hope his suggestions were likely to receive official attention.
Doubtless his suggestions had been carefully considered by responsible officials in the Departments of Finance and Education, but he had been authoritatively informed that it was entirely contrary to Civil Service practice that he should be allowed an opportunity of studying or endeavouring to answer objections to his proposals. . . .
“I shot my last bolt six or seven years ago,” said Dr Bodkin, “when I gave a public lecture at Rathmines Town Hall on the ‘Condition of Art in Ireland’.
“The next morning I was sent for and received a stern reprimand from the prominent official who looks after the personnel of the Civil Service. Since then a constant issue of restrictive regulations prevented me as a civil servant from recurring in public to the topic.
“It may interest you to know, for instance, that the director of the National Gallery is forbidden to write a book on the great collection in his care unless he obtains official approval of the text before publication and unless his publishers guarantee to supply, at a probable loss, whatever copies might be arbitrarily demanded for use in the public service.
I could not even lecture on the contents of the National Gallery without previous sanction.
Naturally, under the circumstances I seldom applied for it, though I was constantly invited to lecture on the gallery, and did so in Cork, Galway, Limerick and other centres. These lectures were delivered during my official leave.”
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/archive/1935/0625/Pg007.html#Ar00700