THE BIG PICTURE
Meet the Shermans, a family with no shortage of entrepreneurial, creative and philanthropic endeavours to their name.
“HE IS VERY GENEROUS, PASSIONATE, AND KNOWS WHY THE ARTS NEED TO THRIVE IN OUR SOCIETY. SOME PEOPLE DON’T GET IT. BRIAN DOES.”
Meet the Shermans: a family with no shortage of entrepreneurial, creative and philanthropic endeavours to their name, as its matriarch Dr Gene Sherman prepares to celebrate the 10th anniversary of her boundary-pushing art foundation. By Alison Veness. Styled by Petta Chua. Photographed by Duncan Killick.
Behind the arched steel doors of a former car repair garage in Sydney’s Paddington lies the Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) exhibition space. SCAF is closed when I arrive, the works of the current exhibit by artist Greg Semu eyeing each other in the shadows. In the back rooms, young women are quietly working away and Gene Sherman sits in their midst, top to toe in black, wearing tiny round smoky glasses.
The SCAF world was many years in the planning. Gene is a researcher: forensic, thorough, she is a details woman. We sit outside in the shaded courtyard and she explains that, at age 52, she was already thinking ahead. She likes the bigger picture. “I decided then that when I reached 60 I would like to move from the commercial gallery (Sherman Galleries 1986– 2007) into similar things but in more depth, with a slower pace and with an income for the artist at the back of my mind,” she explains. “An income for us wasn’t necessary, as Brian [her husband] had made enough; we have enough resources.” In 2000, Brian Sherman sold Equitilink – the fund management company that he had started with Laurence Freedman in 1981 – for $152 million.
“He is very generous, passionate and enormously embracing of the arts and he understands why the arts need to thrive in our society,” Gene says. “Some people just don’t get it. Brian does. I am passionate about the arts and contemporary culture.” And so whenever she was travelling with him on business trips and there was a foundation, she went to see its director. “I did my usual research and I have followed the path that I pretty much established then. I’ve adapted certain things but fundamentally all that research and thinking went into a framework and it’s been very nourishing.”
There have been 33 projects to date, plus the Culture+Ideas program that includes live performances, talks, conversations, workshops and film screenings. The most fulfilling part of it all has been the Fugitive Structures, an architectural series. “This has been especially nourishing,” she explains. “I’ve always been interested in fashion, architecture, film, design in whatever form, and contemporary (culture) has always been my interest, focusing on the temperature of the times, the spirit of the times. I struggled with architecture, as it’s difficult to exhibit in a gallery: it needs to be scaled up to have the power and give it the space. So I researched and came up with the idea of doing these pavilions, which I got from the Serpentine Gallery pavilions in London, and I thought: ‘Why can’t I do this?’ A smaller version, of course.” She decided to give grants to four young architects, the last of whom is exhibiting now. “On this scale the architects become like artists, it’s playtime for them, and I’ve loved it.”
The pavilions have been her proudest achievement at SCAF, and also the hardest. “We’ve had some scary moments. This one …” she waves over her shoulder to the substantial yet delicate bamboo structure, Green Ladder (2016), by Vo Trong Nghia Architects, “was relatively easy; he is very disciplined and communicated readily.” There have been tents in the courtyard for Sway (2015) by Sack and Reicher + Muller with Eyal Zur: “The maintenance was troublesome, and involved ‘popping’ canvases. We used to hear them popping every three days,” she says incredulously. And the revolutionary structure by Robert Beson and Gabriele Ulacco of AR-MA with Trifolium (2014) was “made from materials including Corian, which robots turned into thousands of pieces, like a giant jigsaw puzzle,” she says. “It all slotted together and the precision had to be perfect … it was finished five minutes before the Sydney Biennale International curator group arrived for the opening. I nearly died of stress; I’m surprised I’m here to tell the tale!” Then there was the comparatively stress-free Crescent House (2013) by Andrew Burns.
Gene is a natural educator and a mentor. “I can’t bear the thought of history repeating itself; I hate waste. It feels important that young people don’t just repeat the same process, if I can fast-forward it for them.” Her own mentor was the late Bill Wright, the curatorial director at the original Sherman Galleries for 14 years. “He came from a much quieter time, the abstract expressionists era in the late 1950s, when there were fewer collectors, private galleries and fewer contemporary art sales, the older art world,” she explains. “He taught me lots of things, all that he could, he was a great mentor. When I look back now, what I understood from him is the role of the artist and the psyche of the artist in the mix. He started as an artist and he was married to an artist. I don’t think I would have got it without him.”
Her path, though, was perhaps predestined from her childhood in South Africa. “There were very precise catalysts,” she says, including her father, who collected art and her aunt, Silvia Freedman, who was a practising artist. “We played in her studio and followed her work, and with Dad collecting it was a given.”
When Gene, Brian and their two children Ondine and Emile initially immigrated to Australia from South Africa in 1976, she took a teaching job at Sydney University and finished her doctorate in French literature. From there she moved to Ascham School to teach French. As Brian started to enjoy financial success in the mid 1980s and they knew there was a “viable business and we could see we were going to have a bit of money for the first time ever”, Gene opened Sherman Galleries.
“At the beginning, Brian helped me a huge amount,” Gene says. “He is so special, I think we’ve just meshed and matched so well, we fit together. He is a man who is so empathetic he can get into the headspace of somebody else – really to his detriment – and suffer with him or her in a way that isn’t altogether healthy for him. But then at the same time he has that straight business ‘what’s to be done’, ‘ how can we prioritise it in the best possible way’. I am a detail person, I worry about this and that; Brian doesn’t remember a single detail, and he just gets to the heart of the matter. His intuition takes him to the core.”
Emile Sherman, Gene and Brian’s son and the Academy Award-winning film producer for The King’s Speech (2010), agrees. “My father has an incredibly creative and unusual mind. He is a lateral thinker who can think his way through a problem in an incredibly insightful way and I’ve learnt an enormous amount from him,” Emile says as we talk over Skype. “He has been a driving force behind the Sherman Galleries and now SCAF, and building the art collection, and in the trenches. He has been a great source of support and information as I’ve been building my own business.”
Art was a big part of Emile’s way of life growing up: “Australian artists were at the house all the time, and it’s been like that ever since, this journey through Australian artists, Asian artists, Asia-Pacific. My mum has really grown into that world.”
Emile and his sister Ondine were raised with “a real work ethic and discipline”, he adds. “We were very much focused on looking forward. I think that flowed into film where I’ve never really tried to do anything crazy that was well ahead of my abilities but I would always be pushing myself to take the next step.”
His next step is Lion, directed by Garth Davis and starring Dev Patel, Nicole Kidman, Rooney Mara and David Wenham. The reviews have been positive; the film is already being talked up as an award contender. “Our hope is that Lion reaches a large audience and touches people,” he explains. “We are all very proud of the film and it addresses some important issues; it’s an incredible story about finding home and the primal urge to connect with your mother.”
An absorbing story is perhaps what defines all Sherman endeavours and lies at the heart of See-Saw Films, the independent production company that Emile started with Iain Canning in 2008. “We have definitely found a niche for real stories, many of which are based on true events. We try to mold them into cinematic experiences that touch the audience and say something about the human condition: what is the layer beneath the story that we think is important to communicate? Why are we telling
this story? Why will the deep essence of the story resonate with audiences today?” Emile says, explaining a tiny part of their thought process. There have been many successes: their first TV series Top of the Lake was nominated for eight Emmys and two Golden Globe awards, winning one each (a second series, with a guest appearance by Kidman, will air next year).
Their next film, Mary Magdalene, starring Rooney Mara and Joaquin Phoenix, began shooting in Sicily in October, also directed by Garth Davis. “We’re on our way and, yep, that’s a massive story; we felt it was the untold story of the Bible. It leaves a lot of clues to Mary Magdalene but maybe the discussions around the last 2,000 years hadn’t given her the priority she deserves. This is a film that puts her front and centre.”
Emile and his sister are both inspiring touchstones for Gene. She says she is a proudly committed grandmother to all her grandchildren. Emile has three boys who sleep over regularly at her home and she reads them some ageappropriate Shakespeare.
Ondine has three children, a daughter and twin boys, who were both born with a shattering disability, the rare genetic disorder Allan-HerndonDudley syndrome. She shared the story in her 2013 memoir The Miracle of Love: A Mother’s Story of Grief, Hope and Acceptance (Allen & Unwin).
“Ondine is really the star of this family, the unsung hero,” says Gene. “She has quietly got on with it, living a life full of empathy and achievement. She was an organiser, starting Voiceless [a non-profit animal-rights think tank] with Brian, but now she is writing as well. After we knew the huge tragedy of these two boys, Ondine said to me: ‘I will run and build a happy home.’ Most people would crumble, most men leave the marriage, women barely hold their lives together and without the fortune Brian made I don’t know what would have happened. Given that we have this bedrock and Israel is great at dealing with trauma [the family lives in Tel Aviv], it has worked and they have adapted.”
Emile is more “standardly successful”, she says, which might seem a bit tough given his credentials, but Gene is tough on her children. She admits instilling a “politesse jeune” and sense of commitment from a young age. “Emile is very bright: he is like my father, clever, whatever he does he does it to perfection, he is good at everything. He is one of those people.”
“It’s not hard to stay grounded,” says Emile. “I live in Australia [See-Saw Films is based in Australia and the UK], and I recognise that the Oscar was lightning in a bottle and may or may not happen in the future. It’s unlikely … I also have children, a great group of friends not in the film world and it’s not my entire life.”
Emile’s wife, Caroline Sherman, helps keep him on track and his ego in check. She is currently building her own business, Among Equals, devoted to selling Bilum bags made by women in Papua New Guinea, which were exhibited at SCAF in August 2016.
“When I discovered them I thought: ‘Wow!’” Caroline explains. “These are amazing and they just connected with me. The women share the love of stories and each design is a particular story; mountains and her home, or water, or the fields, or what she owns, a painting of her land. So many different meanings, each one is unique and special. The colours are so beautiful.”
Caroline says she is still finding her way, as she has never done anything like this before. “I really want to make it work for them as it’s making such an impact already. It’s just incredible to be able to help empower these women and create sustainable incomes; the money goes directly to them.”
As it grows her plan is to work with other islands around Papua New Guinea. “It’s the same story in other places: women are marginalised, the men often don’t work and the women’s main form of income is their handicrafts, and to be able to support them is my goal. It has helped the girls go to school and they are able to do things they couldn’t before.”
Her aim is to build a community centre in Papua New Guinea where the women from the different areas can come and weave together “creating a safe place, which is what they want”.
Gene is proud of her daughter-in-law’s project. “People, women, need inspiration and role models,” she says. “I’m not a classical feminist; my father said to me: ‘Girls can do anything, and the next century will be the Asian century.’ How progressive is that? And I’ve always had the idea that I could just do it.”
And there it is, that incredible insight.