Mining magnate Gina Rinehart has said the National Portrait Gallery asked her to sit for a portrait at least six years ago and has denied initially approaching the gallery to offer a portrait.
A Senate estimates hearing on Friday heard that a portrait of Rinehart was gifted to the gallery in 2019, long before the controversy arose about another portrait of the billionaire hanging around the corner in Canberra, in the National Gallery of Australia.
The Senate also heard on Friday that the portrait in the NGA, painted by Archibald prize-winning First Nations artist Vincent Namatjira, has been the subject of more than 40 written complaints and eight requests to have the painting removed. NGA director Nick Mitzevich refused to reveal the identities of any of the complainants.
On Sunday, Rinehart’s company, Hancock Prospecting, issued a statement – its first since the portrait controversy began – denying Rinehart had initially approached the National Portrait Gallery offering a portrait of herself for its collection. Instead, it was the gallery that first approached her, the statement claimed.
“The National Portrait Gallery approached Mrs Rinehart asking if she would sit for a portrait, in or around 2017, perhaps 2018,” the statement said.
“The National Gallery then advised that they wanted this to be done by one of their chosen artists. Mrs Rinehart preferred that a West Australian artist provide the portrait, this being at no cost to the [portrait gallery] and therefore no cost to the taxpayer.”
As reported in the Guardian on Friday, these discussions took place several years before the current controversy erupted.
“It has been falsely stated or implied in the media, potentially from the way this was discussed in Senate estimates, that the portrait was recently provided to the [portrait gallery],” the Hancock Prospecting statement said, alluding to the inferences made in some media reports that the Rinehart-approved portrait was provided to the National Portrait Gallery in response to the NGA’s portrait.
“This is not correct. The portrait was gifted to the [portrait gallery] by Mrs Alix Korte in 2019.”
Korte is a Perth-based realist artist and the wife of Hancock Prospecting’s chief executive, Garry Korte.
The Hancock Prospecting statement said that Rinehart paid no money to Korte for a series of portraits the artist did prior to 2019. While the billionaire does not know which portrait the artist eventually donated to the National Portrait Gallery, she does recall that all the Korte portraits “were very carefully done and captured in detail her appearance at that time”.
On Friday, the director of the gallery, Bree Pickering, told Senate estimates a portrait of Rinehart had been gifted to the board, but did not say when.
“The gift came from her,” Pickering told the hearing, referring to Rinehart.
“However, as we’ve processed the deed of gift related to that, there were some conditions that came along with that gift that meant those conditions are currently under negotiation.”
Pickering added: “We don’t often accept gifts with conditions … we will work with an artist, often, to understand how they would like their artwork displayed. But the sitter does not normally have any say over how the work is hung.”
On Sunday, the gallery confirmed the initial approach had been made by the gallery to Rinehart, but stood by its assertion that the donation of the portrait had come from Rinehart, not the artist.
Neither Rinehart’s spokespeople nor the National Portrait Gallery have responded to the Guardian’s questions over why it has taken five years to negotiate the terms under which the Korte portrait can be admitted into the gallery’s collection.
“The transfer of legal title of an outright gift into the National Portrait Gallery of Australia Collection is conditional on the acceptance of the terms of a Deed of Gift,” a statement from the gallery said on Sunday.
“The negotiations of the terms of the donation are ongoing with Hancock Prospecting who own the deed of gift and the copyright license of the work. As the negotiations are ongoing, we cannot disclose them at this time.”