Headlining the 60 to 80 lot sale, will be Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s Earth’s Creation I, last sold by Lawson~Menzies in 2007. Estimated at $500,000-700,000, the work sold for $1,056,000, (IBP) easily eclipsing the then highest price. Earth’s Creation I, was purchased by the current owner Tim Jennings, owner of Mbantua Gallery in Alice Springs.
The massive work on four panels and measuring 632 x 275 cm still holds the record for the highest price paid for the work of any Australian female artist, eclipsing its nearest rival, Market Under Trees, by Ethel Carrick Fox, created in 1919.
During the decade since it was discovered and last offered for sale, Earth’s Creation I was included in Emily Kngwarreye’s solo exhibition at the National Museum of Osaka, the National Gallery in Tokyo, Japan and at the National Museum of Australia. In 2015, Earth’s Creation I, was chosen by Okwui Enwezor, Director of the 56th Venice Biennale, to be included in the International Art Exhibition - All the World's Futures, at the Giardini della Biennale, one of the main exhibition venues in Venice.
For CooeeArt Marketplace, the November 2017 sale will be the first of several scheduled to be held over the next three years in conjunction with Fine Art Bourse.
Never one to step back from a challenge, Tim Goodman spent several years living overseas while establishing the first version of the Fine Art Bourse in Hong Kong with the backing of Australian and international investors. In August 2015, six weeks before the first auction was planned, he was forced to call in insolvency specialists when he lost the support of major shareholders and other directors.
At the time, he was reported as saying he would settle with creditors and mothball the business with the aim of reviving it later. Goodman says he has revised the business model, taking it slower and establishing in Australia before embarking on a re-launch in the northern hemisphere.
He began his career in the fine art and antiques auction business in 1971 as a cadet auctioneer at F. R. Strange aged 18 followed by work experience aged 21 at Sotheby's in London, and on his return to Australia worked in auction houses and as a dealer before establishing Goodman & Co. in 1992, with rooms in Double Bay.
In 2003 he teamed up with Robert Brooks, the chairman of British auction house Bonhams, and became the founder & chief executive of Bonhams & Goodman, which was trying to establish itself as one of Australia's main players in antiques and fine art. Along the way Goodman acquired control of two of Australia's oldest auction houses, Theodore Bruce Auctions in Adelaide and Leonard Joel Auctions in Melbourne.
However he stunned the auction industry in 2009 when he purchased the licence to operate Sotheby's Australia, marking the end of his association with Bonham's.
His Sotheby's tenure was short lived however, as after only a year he sold the licence to the current Sotheby's management.
Theodore Bruce Auctions was sold back to the Bruce family in 2010, while his interest in Leonard Joel Auctions was purchased by the then Managing Director John Albrecht.
