The most surprising revelation from the opening last night of the Royal Academy’s Australia exhibition was that its chief executive, Charles Saumarez Smith, could have been an Aussie. “My great-grand-father sailed from Britain to become Archbishop of Sydney. I still have relatives there,” he said. There’s even a Saumarez Smith family mausoleum at Bondi.
The exhibition was opened by the Australian High Commissioner Mike Rann, who commented how his country was more noted for sport than art. “But we’re not very good at sport now,” he added. It was a remark that irked one Aussie guest, former Wimbledon tennis champion Pat Cash. Also there was David Attenborough, who has just returned from a lecture tour of Australia, and Grayson Perry, pictured left with Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson.
