How the contemporary Chinese art collection of a former Australian ambassador to Beijing was accidentally pieced together via ‘friendship and serendipity’
- Geoff Raby’s collection of 174 artworks donated to a Melbourne university ranges from ribald to rueful, with nods to the scurrilous, salacious and political
- Roughly half of that mostly contemporary trove of art is showing at Sydney’s National Art School until the end of March
Soon after assuming his post as Australian ambassador to China in 2007, Geoff Raby visited a restaurant in Songzhuang, Beijing, and was captivated by what he saw: oil paintings of cheerfully industrious pigs.
So taken was the diplomat by the works that he asked for an introduction to the artist. An invitation to Li Dapeng’s workshop followed.
“But it just so happened that on the afternoon we were going, Andrew Forrest was in town,” Raby says, referring to the Australian mining billionaire, who subsequently joined the workshop excursion.
“It was full of happy pigs building things,” Raby remembers of the works they saw. “Happy pigs building the Three Gorges Dam. Happy pigs building car parks and shopping malls. And Andrew bought this enormous piece of happy pigs building the railway to Lhasa.”
Raby laughs about seeing the painting again while visiting the headquarters of Fortescue, Forrest’s mining and energy company, in Perth, Australia, a few months later.
“I said, ‘Look, mate, I’d suggest you don’t have that in the waiting area because it’s politically sensitive.’ And he said, ‘You know we’re celebrating building railways. What’s wrong with you?’”
