Historically speaking, the commercial or private gallery is a youngster, and the public museum is only just approaching middle age—arising as it did partly out of the nationalist and educational imperatives of certain nations, or from the kernel of a wealthy monarch’s or individual’s personal delectations.  In Australia from the 1930s to the 1950s the private or dealer gallery was a rare bird indeed, and the fledgling state galleries could still be hostage to the predilections of their boards of trustees, who sometimes favoured their own coteries of Sunday painters. Artists had few venues for exhibiting, and they were subjected…