LAUSR

Australian dependence that the directors, trustees and selectors relied on art dealers to provide information about the authenticity, quality and value of what was for sale. He stresses that the Australian galleries did not necessarily accept the views of dealers as to the artistic worth of particular work, nor that the prices set by dealers could not be bargained down. Still, Potter could have saidmore about how dealers as the main buyers at auctions would adopt bidding strategies to push up or stabilise prices, often combined with inducements to brokers, consultants and experts to influence the representatives of galleries to buy artists for whom the dealers acted. According to Potter, even though their London advisors and agents made recommendations, it was still up to the trustees and their selection committees to approve acquisitions. Whilst this meant that the responsibility for the failures of the London advisors and agents had to be shared and measured against their successes, in the 1940s some Australian national gallery directors started to react against the purchase of mediocre British art and suggested a shift towards emerging modernist Australian, European and American artists. However, most directors, trustees and selectors doubted the merits of modernism, which they claimed was beyond the imaginative reach of the general public, so that their London advisors and agents were still required to focus on conventional British genre pictures.