Geoffrey Smith, Sotheby’s Australia’s Chairman, sees the move from the landmark building in High Street, which the company occupied for over twenty years, as a natural progression. “For many years I have felt that High Street, Armadale, was no longer the centre of the art world in Victoria. In the seventies and eighties, there were lots of galleries and art dealers – it was a diverse and dynamic area – but that’s certainly not the case anymore.”
For Smith, and for Director Gary Singer, the former Deputy Lord Mayor of Melbourne, the move to the CBD is a coming-home of sorts. “Through my involvement with the NGV at Federation Square, I know that the city is where all the action is. When you think about the art centre of Melbourne, you think of the CBD.” When the renovations are complete and the company moves into its new premises at the corner of Exhibition Street and Flinders Lane, as Smith puts it: “we’ll be straddling the luxury brands of Collins Street, and the arts precinct in Fed Square.”
The geographic shift echoes a fundamental change in Sotheby’s Australia’s business model, something that has been apparent in the company’s most recent catalogues. The focus is on collating small sales of between sixty and eighty lots comprising the highest-quality work available in the country. “For what we’re doing, you don’t need a street presence,” Smith opines. “It’s no longer about the volume of traffic coming through the door, or the volume of art. We’re aiming for quality above quantity. And it’s working. The average auction price for a painting sold at Sotheby’s is $82 000 – well above the average painting sold at auction in Australia.”
The most recent exhibition of Graham Joel’s collection at Sotheby’s also signals a new direction for the company, and a personal mission for Smith. He wishes to provide a forum in which important private collections of Australian art are displayed and studied. “These collections reflect the taste of the era in which they were assembled, and by people who were true connoisseurs - they weren’t just buying paintings that looked good.”
When Smith explains the reason for staging these non-selling exhibitions, it’s clear that his long career in the public art sector has left its mark. “It’s about inspiring people – to show that these collections exist and this is what they look like.”
