Tim Goodman has thrown in the towel at Sotheby's Australia after only one year's ownership of the franchise, acquired in a deal which shook the industry and was widely acclaimed as the art deal of the last decade.
Two events stood out for me in reviewing the art market in 2010. The first in late April when the Australian Financial Review reported a Federal government enquiry – the Cooper Review - was about to recommend artworks be banned from self-managed super funds.
At auction close, Menzies were celebrating the rally of their top end. Three of the four star lots delivered concrete results, sparking glimmers of hope for a renewed market in 2011.
Bonhams Australia is opening its new permanent offices in Australia in early 2011, at 76 Paddington Street, Woollahra, only a stone's throw from Lucio's, the restaurant where many of the big picture deals of the 1980s art boom were negotiated over long Friday lunches.
Menzies is banking on four lots achieving at least $4 million in sales next week. It’s a weighty responsibility in an auction carrying a low estimate total or $7.6 million.
The stock in trade of Hogarth Galleries was sold off yesterday by Leonard Joel, who managed to clear just about everything except the proverbial kitchen sink. The contents of the kitchen, along with a few other hardware stock items, were about the only lots that failed to excite interest from the hundred-strong crowd. Determined contestation propelled results well above estimates in most cases, securing very strong clearances of significantly more than 100% by value and 91% by volume.
On a muggy afternoon, but in air-conditioned comfort, it was standing room only at Leonard Joel’s final Sunday art sale for 2010. Auctioneer John Albrecht and the Art department staff looked relaxed and they had good reason; they have refreshed and reinvigorated LJ’s auction presentations and were about to offer an eclectic and broad range of stock bearing reasonable estimates.
The chairman of Sotheby's Australia, Tim Goodman, has said its parent company, First East Auction Holdings Limited, would overcome rugged trading conditions this year and post a similar result to last year.
Leading art auctioneer Rod Menzies denies the scurrilous allegations made against him by Robert Le Tet and Rick Anderson in The Age newspaper on the 2nd December.
It was a disappointing night for the Sotheby’s franchise and its new Aboriginal art specialist D’lan Davidson. Just 51 people attended its 30th November auction at which only 62 of 219 lots (or 28%) found a buyer on the night. By the time they published their official results the clearance rate had risen to 32 per cent by lot and 37 percent by value.
This weekend’s Sunday Art auction at Leonard Joel, may lay claim to the title of the “most affordable sale of the year”. Boasting 257 lots, the overwhelming majority are priced under $2,000 and only a 10 lots occupy the $10-30k bracket[1] in sale carrying a low estimate total of $510,000. This may prove to be a wise and prudent strategy; a recognition of the “Christmas effect” with it’s fund depleting capabilities and ability to distract and fragment art market focus.
HIGH-PROFILE art auctioneer Rodney Menzies is at the centre of a sensational court dispute over ownership of a Brett Whiteley painting - and, at the same time, he is being accused of misleading reporting of art sales through his auction house
The federal government's Indigenous Australian Art Commercial Code of Conduct will suffer another setback at its AGM in Melbourne today.
One of its founding board members, gallery owner Beverly Knight, will tender her resignation in absentia.
Two former staff from the Aboriginal Art department at Sotheby's Australia, Francesca Cavazzini and Greer Adams, have been employed by Bonhams as Specialists in Charge of the Aboriginal Art Department. The new department will be advised in all aspects of its operation by Tim Klingender (former Director of Aboriginal Art at Sotheby's Australia), in his role as Senior Consultant.
The auction rooms have suddenly become depleted of rubbernecks. But that has not changed the pace. Members of a hardcore group of collectors are seizing the occasional rare opportunities now being presented at auction in a tight Australian art market replete with more realistic vendor expectations.
Art lovers and investors dug deep in Auckland last night to set record prices at an auction of early and rare paintings. The main piece was New Zealand artist Charles Frederick Goldie's oil on canvas of a sleeping Maori chief, offered by opera diva Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.
A collection of iconic images from the late Kiwi photojournalist and artist Brian Brake are to go under the hammer. The images are some of his most famous and have been in storage for more than two decades.
Rock bottom estimates and noteworthy provenance proved to be the lure for enticing bids at Mossgreen’s Part One Australian art sale last night, which achieved 63% by volume. Almost any lot carrying a regular market estimate floundered and the few lots that managed to attract bidders, resulted in them being reeled in at low estimate level. If only the animated bidding behaviour greeting the Avery collection had translated into the rest of the sale, then the 40% sale by volume result for the multi-vendor component would have just seemed like a bad dream.
The failure of a couple of high profile lots is an obvious statistical element to clearances of 76% by lot and 59% by value, but end-of-year auctions are notoriously unpredictable for works tilted at the top of a tired market, and sale successes need to be measured more broadly
Portraits have replaced landscapes as market leaders as the colonial art market continued its comeback in Sydney on November 14.
A signature Ian Fairweather biblical painting donated to the Art Gallery of NSW by Patrick White will be sold at auction on Wednesday. The gallery has opted to sell the sombre Gethsemane work which hung above Patrick White's writing desk until 1974 to fund its acquisition of a brighter biblical Fairweather from the same era, The Last Supper.
West Australia has its own much loved stable of West Australian bred artists, whom are highly sought after by the locals, and the lucky others, whose artworks regularly flow through the revolving doors of the local auction houses and the McKenzie’s Spring Auction, on the 23 November, is no exception.
Donald Friend’s relationship with Bali is well known to most Australians.
Mossgreen’s Fine Australian Art sale next week is sure to satisfy collectors favouring traditional and classic genres, particularly landscapes (along with their variations, namely cityscapes and seascapes) and the occasional nude.
Sotheby’s new Aboriginal art specialist D’Lan Davidson has put together a solid ‘tribal’ offering for his first end of year sale. There are, however, no unusual surprises to arouse buyers in an auction that relies heavily on two major artifact and bark painting collections, broadened in scope by 22 Hermannsburg watercolours and 41 acrylic paintings on canvas that were created post 1980.
With its latest sale, Sotheby's is seeking to switch the electricity back on in the Australian saleroom, writes our special correspondent. And with 25 plus miniature lightning conductors it might just do the job.
By all accounts 2010 has been a tough year for the auction industry: the threat of the Cooper Review recommendations to ban art from super funds, more government regulation and administrative impost, the business stalemate of a protracted election and continued collector skittishness due to ongoing global money market frailties. Topped with the high cost of catalogue production, it’s no wonder sales by all the major players have become leaner. Through all of this, however, Deutscher & Hackett’s turnover total could well be their best since the company’s formation.
Opera diva Kiri Te Kanawa is selling off one of the finest examples of the work of renowned artist Charles Frederick Goldie.
Warrego Jim, the bushman with the Mona Lisa smile, is a lost masterpiece of Australian art likely to start a million-dollar bidding war at auction in Melbourne in December.
Peter Gant has endured the kind of year he would much rather forget. First, there was the matter of three forged drawings - a dispute that pitted Mr Gant, an art dealer, against two of Australia's most prominent artists, Charles Blackman and Robert Dickerson
This year's Frieze Art Fair went head-to-head for the first time with London 's contemporary auctions. The fair, which ran from October 13th to the 17th, has restructured the seasonality of the art market to the extent that “Frieze Week” has become art-world shorthand for mid-October.
The Art Gallery of NSW could widen its appeal to many new collectors as a result of a new bequest, writes our special correspondent.
Antique dealers and collectors visiting the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) from today - and into the far future - will encounter a display of English and Continental porcelain and Italian majolica they never in their wildest dreams might have expected to be permanently exhibited there.
The Art Gallery of NSW will this week announce the acquisition of a major collection of Old Master paintings and Italian porcelain and majolica the existence of which appears to have been totally unknown to the present generation of Australian auctioneers, dealers and fellow collectors.
At seven o'clock on the opening day of London's premier contemporary art fair, Frieze, there was a scrum for champagne. People were celebrating. After a gloomy couple of years in the art market, the dealers were smiling and relaxed at their stalls.
Having recovered from the tremors of the Cooper Review recommendation to ban art as an asset class in their Self Managed Super Funds, trustees will now have to overcome the rolling aftershocks, including potential loss of value across holdings, and financial imposts associated with impending government regulation.
It didn’t bode well at D+H when half of the critical, stage-setting first 20 lots were passed in, the phones barely rang and the seated audience appeared intent on marking their catalogues rather than waving their paddles.
A new generation of artists sees nothing sinful about business, writes Samantha Selinger-Morris.
Global auction house Sotheby's notched up its best ever sales tally for an Asian auction series in Hong Kong on Friday, hammering off HK$3.08 billion ($400 million) worth of Asian art, jewelry, wine and watches. The strong results for the biannual auctions, widely seen as a barometer for the Chinese and Asian art markets, underscored surging demand from affluent mainland Chinese buyers for top tier Chinese imperial treasures and ceramics, though results were mixed and relatively flat for objects of lesser quality.
Film, fabric and paintings of the worst kind: Richard Dorment takes a look at this year’s Turner Prize shortlist
As the adage goes, ‘statistics can be made to prove anything – even the truth’. In the case of Christie’s Modern and Contemporary Australian Art sale held in London on 23 September 2010, the statistics speak for themselves: an overall clearance of 100% by value and 83% by lot for a total of AUD $888,072 (incl. BP). In general, most of the modern works realised above pre-sale expectations, and while this was predictable due to highly reasonable estimates, the success of the sale was also borne out in a cache of new stats for individual artists.
The current market may be soft, but there is no point in being faint-hearted. Buoyed by a staggering 92% by volume and 117% by value result for its William and Lucy Mora Collection, Deutscher and Hackett now appear to have thrown caution to the wind.
While our politicians and media may talk of a strong Australian economy, it is not the experience of those involved with discretionary markets, particularly the art market which seems to be occupying a parallel and opposing universe.
Vasili Kaliman and Michael Reid are currently in discussions regarding the opening of a new gallery focusing on the secondary art market. Proposed for launch around March 2011, the dealership will be poised, Phoenix-like, to coincide with the art market’s rebirth.
The pursuit of cultural authenticity in Aboriginal art will make it harder for young artists to enjoy the success of the old masters. New research into the sustainability of Aboriginal art claims the market for new works is already falling away, even for sought-after artists, because some indigenous works are still being treated as ethnographic objects.
A Pablo Picasso print has sold for 1.3 million pounds ($2.0 million), a record for a single print sold at auction, Sotheby's said Friday
This is a watershed year for Sidney Nolan's huge series of bushranger paintings. When Sidney Nolan's First-Class Marksman fetched the first-rate auction price of $5.4 million in March, it gave owners of other Nolan Ned Kellys reason to consider their works anew.
Three small paintings, hardly larger than an A4 sized sheet, are among the most valuable watercolours in the world – and one of them is at home in Australia, on display for the public no less. J.M.W. Turner’s views of Mount Rigi and a recent visit to Switzerland’s Queen of the Mountains inspired David Hulme to have a closer look.
Menzies Art Brands has denied it is flouting the terms under which the ACCC dropped inquiries into its disclosure practices.
Rare early scenes of South Australia’s Barossa Valley painted by a visiting clergyman are to be offered by Bonhams in London on Wednesday at its Travel and Exploration sale.
A Spring clean has been taking place at Menzies Art Brands. First the catalogue, emblazoned with its abbreviated moniker ‘Menzies’, reveals a more concise format; a curated selection of 99 works, underlining their position at the prestige end of the market, while Lawson Menzies focuses on servicing the remaining middle and lower rungs. Secondly, like the recent rains, Menzies has broken its own Victorian drought by returning to Melbourne to hold at least one auction per year
The 1931-32 Trans Asia Expedition known as 'Le Croisière Jaune' was touted as the first continuous overland journey between the Mediterranean and the East China Sea since the days of Marco Polo. The Silk Road journey was the third trans-continental effort funded by automobile magnate Andre Citroen, and Alexandre Iacovleff was the expedition's artist and ethnographer; producing an album of fifty paintings and drawings.
Mr James Badgery's commitment to the auction industry into which he was born, has taken yet another turn. His laconic auctioneering style is guaranteed a further captive run backed by another auctioneer born with a silver auction spoon in his mouth, Mr James Bruce of Adelaide.
Peter Garrett has lost his Arts Ministry in what may well be another consequence of the Save Super Art campaign against the Cooper Report recommendations to ban artworks from self-managed super funds.
A new contemporary art gallery opened in Zurich at end of August focusing on international contemporary photography. Australian photographer Bill Henson is strongly represented in this new push by gallerist Christophe Guye. Guye’s previous venture was Scalo-Guye Gallery in West Hollywood, Los Angeles, which closed in 2008
With disruption in the art market this year due to the Cooper Review’s proposal to ban investment art in Self Managed Super Funds, and the Resale Royalties scheme kicking off, many in the arts community are questioning the viablity of the industry in these unsettling times.
An eye hook used to be understood as a simple fastener. Now it means your story is sexy enough to guarantee PR. And so it does: the tentative venture back into the market for Australian art by Christie’s London is suddenly a story about the salvation of historical Blamire Young works via their iPhone app.
Dr. Ian Bernadt is a voracious collector of Aboriginal art, whose love and dedication to his vocation is matched only by his unbridled excitement for his passion. With a lack of room to display the more than 500 works he has collected over the past 20 years, the vast majority have lain impenetrably stacked along walls, throughout rooms at his home and surgeries, still wrapped in the bubble pack they were delivered in.
The AASD calculated D and H auction clearances of 66% by value and 64% by volume illustrate the tenor of the sale, which had it highs and lows, and only a few surprises. The sale total of $6.21 million brings the year to date total for Deutscher and Hackett to $13.95 million, compared with $12.78 million year to date for Sotheby's, both well behind the Menzies 2010 total of $23.29 million.
After two Mossgreen Indigenous art offerings over the final weekend in August, it was clear that tribal artifacts and contemporary Indigenous paintings, like oil and water, just don’t mix.
The sale of Important Australian art held by Sotheby's in its rooms in Sydney's Double Bay on August 31 was an uphill battle. Ironically it made some of the gradient with the help a painting titled The Steps (Lot 5) showing 32 of the same, which sold for $405,000.($486,000 IBP).
Commercial art gallery Michael Reid at Elizabeth Bay has established a trans-Tasman art alliance with Webb's, New Zealand's premier auction house, after talks over the last two months.
Australian indigenous art veteran Adrian Newstead last night launched a new web site covering the careers of more than 100 of the most important artists of the Indigenous art movement
After 38 years, the venerable Sydney entity will close its doors today. Hogath Galleries played a formative role in developing the Aboriginal art market and bringing the work of remote art centres and emerging artists to the attention of the public.
It seems downsizing has appeal for art auctioneers as well as ageing home owners, with each major auctioneer offering what amounts to a “budget” outlet.
Although not one of its catalogued semi-annual sales, GFL’s Art Auction in Perth on 30 August features many 20th century artists who have documented the topography of the West Australian landscape.
From the moment he walked in to his first Aboriginal art exhibition more than 20- years ago ear, nose and throat specialist Dr. Ian Bernadt became a voracious collector. On viewing the first oval Utopia paintings in Robert Holmes a Court’s 1989 collection he told Perth dealer Sharon Monty to ‘Get me an Emily!’.
A sublime Fred Williams Lysterfield painting with a price tag of $1.2–1.6 million promises fanfare in Deutscher and Hackett’s spring auction on 1 September, while diehard Collingwood fans should be pleased with pre-sale expectations for John Brack’s Three of the Players, 1953 (Lot 16), which has been out of circulation since the early ‘50s and holds second spot on the ladder at $800,000–1.2 million.
Some of the pictures are beige - or even more unforgivably brown - in the coming Sotheby's Australia art auction. The venue might also be considered a bit of a come-down. But tight editing of inclusions, fresh to the market stock, and a slew of celebrated collector and exhibition provenances are richly in the auction's favour.
The Melbourne Art Fair has never been known to attract lines of private jets bringing collectors from overseas like the fairs of Basel and Miami. This year, its 12th, was no exception with overseas galleries and buyers poorly represented.
THE Melbourne art dealer Peter Gant has been linked to a second suspect Brett Whiteley painting, which he gave to a well-known restaurateur as security for money owed.
On 30 June the Cooper Review into Superannuation came up with more than 150 recommendations to protect our national retirement savings. One of these proposals, however, concerning only 0.1% of assets held in self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) provoked a public outcry and led to its rejection by all political parties within a month.
THE government has backed down on art investment by self-funded funds. Labour has succumbed to a vocal campaign from artists and gallery owners to ensure Australians can continue loading up their super funds with art and collectibles.
Government reform has helped diminish Aboriginal art's investment appeal. It began with a bang just over a decade ago in the lush years of fast-paced economic growth, faltered in the global financial crisis, and was quietly, sadly laid in its grave over the past two weeks, its funeral marked by a set of bleak auction results
The Labour Party announced today that it would not ban the purchase of artworks, antiques and collectables by Self Managed Superannuation Funds (SMSFs), as proposed by the Cooper Report into the Superannuation industry.
What a shocker. No less than 53 lots passed in the first 100 on offer. A room full of people but bereft of vitality. Drained of animation, as lot after lot failed to inspire bidding.
According to those in the room, it felt like the good old days. A buzz of excitement greeted auctioneer Anita Archer as she mounted the podium. Before her a ‘standing room only’ crowd packed D + H to the rafters with a totally Melbourne-centric crowd. They had turned out en mass to support their own: the urbane William Mora, and his estranged artist wife Lucy who were sadly dividing their ‘private collection’.
Agnew's, one of London ’s leading international art dealers, has confirmed that its new premises at 35 Albemarle Street will open in early September. Founded in 1817, the UK ’s oldest family-owned art dealership has created a gallery which clearly states that modern and contemporary art will play a very significant role in its future, but at the same time acknowledges their long-established position as dealers in Old Master paintings and drawings and British paintings and watercolours.
AUSTRALIA'S new resale royalty scheme will make it easier for fakes to circulate undetected in the art market by driving sales underground, says auctioneer Damian Hackett, who almost sold the painting Orange Lavender Bay attributed to the late Brett Whiteley but believed to be a fake, at auction in April.
A PROMINENT Melbourne art dealer has been linked to a second art work believed to be fake but attributed to the late Brett Whiteley.
THREE artworks involved in a controversial trial went up in smoke yesterday following an order for their destruction. Renowned Australian artists Charles Blackman and Robert Dickerson, with their family and friends, gathered at the Dickerson Gallery in Sydney to burn the artworks in a ceremonial bonfire.
Malakula is a picturesque palm-fringed island in the Vanuatu group southeast of Papua New Guinea, but it seems it’s a name to conjure with in the tribal art world. A rare Malakula female body mask or nevimbumbao – an ogress - (lot 2) is among the pricier offerings at Sotheby’s Aboriginal and Oceanic art sale in Melbourne on July 26 and 27.
Former real estate agent Sid Broadway established Adam Galleries in Canterbury in 1956 – the same year as the Melbourne Olympics – when he realised the potential of selling fine furniture to many of Melbourne’s establishment. Now, after 54 years of trading, of which 50 years were in central Melbourne, the current owner Noël Stott has decided to retire.
It what is understood to be his auction swansong, outgoing Sotheby’s specialist Tim Klingender has managed under difficult circumstances, to put together a large mixed offering with a considerable number of high quality pieces.
Offered in an Old Master sale held by Bonhams in London on Wednesday July 7, the most valuable work in the Owston collection of antiques and art went unsold.
The final report of the Cooper Review into Superannuation, delivered to Government yesterday has now called for legislation to ban self-managed super funds from investing in art and requested a shorter time period for super fund art collections to be divested than it previously recommended in April.
Born in Melbourne in 1953, the urbane William (Willi) Mora grew up surrounded by art and artists. His father Georges and mother Mirka emigrated from France to Australia in 1951 and Willi and his brothers Philippe and Tiriel grew up in café society surrounded by many of Australia’s most important modernist painters and literary figures. Georges Mora, having opened Tolarno Galleries in 1967, and Rudi Komon in Sydney, were Australia’s pre-eminent émigré art dealers.
The director of one of the nation's largest art galleries says the federal government's resale royalty scheme is full of complications.
The second Menzies Art Brands Fine Art auction for 2010 took place on 24 June in Sydney to a mixed market response. After the switch in the top position in the Government earlier in the week, one wonders if this had any impact on buyers.
The chill that permeated the Melbourne air on Sunday afternoon happily did not translate into the atmosphere of Leonard Joel’s rooms as they set about auctioning 285 works of art. In contrast the room had a warm and comfortable air which corresponded with the respectable and fairly solid hammer result of a $490,000 and sales rates of 65% both by value and volume.
Driven by a very personal determination by the auctioneer to establish a profile in Australia, the dispersal by Bonhams Australia of part one of the Owston collection on June 25 and 26 at Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal grossed $10.8 million hammer, $12.9 million with buyers premium, which was almost double its lower estimates.
Sandra Johnston, the wife of the chairman of Firepower, Tim Johnston, says she owns 36 items in the Warren and Cheryl Anderson Owston antique collection, scheduled for auction starting tomorrow.
The promise of a treasure hunt always surrounds an auction at Leonard Joel and in this weekend’s Sunday Art Auction of 285 lots with a low estimate total of $700,000, there should be a few finds to satisfy intrepid collectors.
Colourful Perth property developer Warren Anderson has accused auction house Bonhams of being "unprofessional and incompetent" three days before it is due to put his vast collection of art, furniture and stuffed animals under the hammer.
Forgery in the art word is rife, but it seems to be one of the easiest crimes to get away with, writes Gabriella Coslovich.
An Arthur Boyd painting that has not been on public display for almost 50 years has been donated to the Tate Britain gallery in London. The 1960 oil painting, Bride Drinking from a Creek, was shown briefly in London but has since been in the private collection of English collector Ann Forsdyke, who worked for the Australian artist's friend Sidney Nolan in the 1960s.
McKenzie Art Auctioneers will stage their second antiques, collectables and art auction for the year on Wednesday, 23 June, 2010. The art component in this auction is 120 lots, estimated at between $439,400 and $654,250.
What do you call a chap who owns at least 28 antique dining tables, four of them around 4 metres long? Greedy? Not if you’re an antique dealer , you call him Sir. At least, that’s the sort of respect – perhaps even awe – the West Australian high-flier Warren Anderson must have inspired in the trade in London’s Mayfair or the Sydney and Melbourne antiques precincts during his big-spending heyday.
Some of the big names for sale at Art Basel are the German masters of the early 20th century, such as Egon Schiele, Ernst-Ludwig Kirchner and Gustav Klimt - and they are famously presented by London-based Australian art dealer Richard Nagy. He has been able to exhibit in Basel since 2005, although he says: 'It is fairly brutal, and there are no guarantees that you can exhibit in the future.'
The 129 lots in the second Menzies fine art auction for 2010 in Sydney on 24 June, includes some important Australian and international paintings that have never or rarely been traded on the secondary market
The galleries holding up the Anzac flag are only two, and both of them are first-timers among the 303 international galleries represented and this year's Art Basel, chosen from over 1,100 applications. Yet both rookies - Anna Schwartz Gallery of Melbourne and Sydney, and Michael Lett from Auckland - are already very happy with this most important of Art Basel rituals, the day for invited guests only, aptly named 'First Choice'.
In 1925, the year after American Lillian Hoffman was born, The Society of Woman Geographers was formed to bring together ‘women explorers at heart’ whose work involved ‘extensive travel in the investigations of little-known or unique places, peoples or things in the world’. Ms Hoffman was not a member, but her adventurous travels evinced a similar ethos, and this was carried through to her collection, which reflects a passionate embrace of the material culture of places and peoples beyond the expected.
Gallery owners, artists and dealers have united to campaign against proposed changes to Australia's superannuation system that would prohibit self-managed super funds investing in art.
THE family of artist Robert Dickerson has cranked up its campaign against fraud in the art world following its Supreme Court win last week in which judge Colin Vickery ordered the destruction of counterfeit sketches purported to be by Dickerson and his fellow "Antipodean" artist Charles Blackman.
An artist-owned Aboriginal art gallery says the Federal Government must make major modifications to its resale royalty scheme for visual artists.
JUST over 10 years ago, Emily Rohr was approached at her Broome gallery by a young indigenous artist named Daniel Walbidi. He told her there were old people in his community who "needed to paint".
Australian art gallery owners and dealers are in revolt over the federal government's artist resale royalty scheme, which comes into effect on Wednesday. Though many concede the intention was honourable, the effect, they fear, will be dreadful. Prices will rise, administration costs will multiply, and only those artists who are already well off will see any significant benefit, the critics say.
At Davidsons Auctions on Saturday, Lot 80, a work by Russian artist Vasily Ivanovich Shukhaev (1887-1973) made $80,000 hammer, ($92,000 IBP), the highest price in the sale, of Australian & International Art.
THE mystery surrounding a dubious Brett Whiteley nude that was withdrawn from sale by an auction house this week has deepened. The late artist's nephew, Daniel Carlisle, is furious that his name was attached to the drawing's provenance, or history of sale, and says he has never seen the work.
As reported in the Australian Financial Review a week ago - "dealers, gallery owners and accountants have banded together to launch a 'Save Super Art' campaign" - which aims to rule out the recommendation of the Cooper review to ban artworks from self-managed superannuation funds.
Sali Herman provided the highlight of the Mossgreen sale on Monday night, with the cover lot 'Argyle Place' achieving a new auction record for the artist of $137,425 IBP against his previous highest price of $96,000 IBP.
With the Resale Royalty scheme now adding a new layer of costs and complexity to selling works of art, Deutscher & Hackett’s venture with GraysOnline offers vendors a timely new service that promises more pennies in their pockets after sale.
An Australian world record price was made at the Phillips de Pury New York evening art auction in early May when a rare Lockheed Lounge from 1988 by Australian born designer Mark Newson, sold for $US2.1 million, far exceeding its pre-sale estimates of $US1 million to $US1.5 million. There are a number of interesting aspects about this result, in relation to the introduction of the Artists' Resale Royalty from June 9, 2010.
It is refreshing to see a collection of blue chip investment art, although modest, come back onto the market at a Perth auction house. With 156 Lots and a value between $1-1.2 million this auction includes a good selection of important Australian artists.
At Art+Object’s third annual dedicated auction of photography in Auckland, over $230,000 of photographs by New Zealand’s leading practitioners were sold, with many new record prices set.
It is fortuitous that Mossgreen has Robert Bleakley’s Collection to beef up their offering for May 31. The first auction with Alison Renwick at the helm is a sound, but uninspiring selection of some one hundred largely traditional pictures, heavily supported by a further hundred or so Aboriginal and Tribal pieces from Bleakley’s consignment.
The third of the big art nights in New York was also a big night for Australian art: Mark Newson's Prototype Lockheed Lounge from 1988, with an estimate of US$1 million to US$1.5 million, sold for US$ 2.098 million, beating the previous record from April 2009 by US$ 485,000. The work sold after vigorous bidding in the room and on the phones to an unknown phone bidder.
The first such large Andy Warhol self portrait to come on to the market in ten years was consigned by fashion designer Tom Ford. It promptly doubled the high estimate with intensive competition from six bidders, finally selling for US $ 32.562 million.
The contemporary art sales in New York started with a loud vote of confidence in the market. 31 of the 79 lots came from the collection of the late Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park fame. The most spectacular result of the evening was his favourite piece, Jasper Johns' 'Flag', purchased directly from the artist over 30 years ago. It sold for US $ 28.642 million on estimates of 10 to 15 million US dollars. Four bidders vied for the privilege to wave the most expensive flag ever - victorious in just two minutes was a New York art dealer Michael Altman.
Self-managed superannuation funds (SMSFs) may be barred from purchasing artworks entirely if the Federal government accepts a recommendation contained in the final preliminary report of the Cooper review.
Results for Deutscher & Hackett’s Fine Art Auction reveal breadth to the recovering market, and while the sale could not be characterized as buoyant, there were strong results achieved within an overall very good clearance of 71% by lot and 76% by value to gross just over $4 million hammer.
Why is Damien Hirst opening a major show in Mexico City of all places? Well, buena suerte - good luck - is big in this country, and a chance meeting between one-time Mexican gallery owner Hilario Galguera and the world-famous artist at a social event led first to friendship and then to collaboration.
An alternative artist’s fair called NotFair will make its debut in August to compete for the attention of collectors accustomed to the Melbourne Art Fair being the only game in town each two years.
It is the biggest and most important contemporary art fair in its sphere of influence with over 90 international galleries, 900 represented artists and 30,000 visitors (and as such very comparable to the Melbourne Art Fair) – but you may never have heard of it. Zona Mexico Arte Contemporaneo (Zona Maco) in its 7th year showcased the thriving contemporary art and gallery scene not only in Mexico, but also Colombia, Peru and Brazil, with some excellent Spanish and US American art galleries thrown in. David Hulme and Brigitte Banziger spoke with long-established as well as new art galleries during the fair from 14 to 18 April.
On first glance Sotheby’s failure to sell 70% of its 14 top lots may paint a disappointing picture. However, such a blanket reading would be a disservice to the machinations of the evening, and shortsighted.
After 25 years at his two-storey gallery premises on the corner of Paddington Street and Cascade Street, in Sydney’s Paddington, eminent specialist dealer in prints, posters and photographs Josef Lebovic is moving to Kensington. His new gallery, at 103A Anzac Parade, is a Georgian-style former bank dating from 1914 designed by the renowned William Hardy Wilson.
Much like the long awaited autumnal break in the weather, Deutscher & Hackett’s April 28 Sydney sale feels like a breath of fresh air. To be sure, there are no headliner multi-million dollar pictures, but the sale boasts several major works by mid century icons with high calibre provenance that bolster a stimulating and solid mix of traditional, modernist and contemporary work. The contemporary component, in particular, is very strong, and at around 23% by volume sets the sale apart from its competitors in tenor and tone.
The big UK-based auctioneer Bonhams has shrugged off the abrupt termination of its partnership with Sydney-based auctioneer Tim Goodman at the end of last year, and is opening new premises in Sydney under the name Bonhams Australia. A permanent staff of 15 will be headed up by James Hendy of the former Bonhams & Goodman partnership.
Sotheby’s first auction catalogue under its new owners bears the Geoffrey Smith curatorial touch, favouring a chronological approach and generous double page spreads in its presentation of 118 lots with a solid presale estimate of $8.2 - 11 million.
The Federal Arts Minister Peter Garrett today announced that Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) as the successful tenderer to act as the collecting society to implement and administer the resale royalty scheme for visual artists.
With only 75% of the 140 seats occupied at the start, and 54 lots sold of the first 100, the mood could best be described as tepid. Yet with 14 of 243, or 6%,of the Aboriginal lots selling above their high presale estimates there was reason for D + H to be encouraged. In all 150 items, or 54%, were conspicuously sold by the auctioneer during the evening, though this rose to 59% by lot and 61% by value, following brokered agreements between vendors and buyers on the night. The result was a sales total of $1,577,616, inclusive of buyer’s premium.
Menzies Art Brands last night sold Sidney Nolan’s 1946 work First-Class Marksman (Lot 51) for a record breaking $4.5m. It took just nine bids for the hammer to fall to an undisclosed phone bidder. There was an air of confident selling, in the room with all but one of the preceding 50 lots selling, warming the expectant crowd for a big sale for the headlining Nolan work.
Western Australia’s 2010 art auctions commence with the first round at McKenzie's Auctioneers, Claremont at 11am Sunday 28 March, with 400 lots of fine & decorative arts, jewellery and furniture, including 198 lots of art. The sale has low estimate total of $155,675.
The appointment of the inaugural Code Administration Committee last week signalled the formal commencement of the Indigenous Australian Art Commercial Code of Conduct. Registration is now open for any persons or entities operating in the Indigenous art industry to become a signatory. Note that the term "dealer" is defined in the Code as anyone who buys artwork for the purpose of re-supply by means of sale, consignment or other distribution.
As the first cab off the rank for 2010, all eyes will be on the Deutscher and Hackett Important Aboriginal and Oceanic auction on the 24th March. The sale offers no less than 279 individual lots worth $2.159 million* and is set to be the most valuable barometer of the market for Aboriginal art at the beginning of the current decade.
There has been an appropriate amount of hoopla over the auction listing of Sidney Nolan's First-class Marksman (Lot 51) by Menzies Art Brands for their Sydney sale on March 25. The painting, which has an estimate of $3-5million, has a pedigree that speaks royalty in the Australian art realm.
Two unusual paintings by Polish migrant the late Joseph Ostoja-Kotkowski should grab centre of attention at Philips Auctions first sale of the year from noon Sunday at 47 Glenferrie Road, Malvern.
After a five year association with Sydney-based auctioneer Tim Goodman, the venerable Adelaide firm of Theodore Bruce is going it alone. And it is kicking off its first year of independence with a cut to 15 per cent in the buyer’s premium it charges (compared with the 20 per cent common at big city auctions), plus the sale on March 14 of works from the legendary Strehlow collection - including a number of works by Albert Namatjira and other artists from the historic Hermannsburg Mission in Central Australia, where Carl Strehlow ministered in the 1890s.
E. J. Ainger of Melbourne are hoping to repeat the success of their last house sale with the auction of the effects of Jill Holst, and several other estates on Sunday February 28. On September 6, 2009 Ainger's very successfully sold the Estate of Marjorie May Kingston in South Yarra.
About 60 people braved the continuous torrential rain to attend the Australiana auction held by Davidson Auctions in its rooms at Annandale on February 6, our Sydney correspondent writes. The crowd was only a tad under the numbers that the company usually associated with a print sale, Colin Chestnut of Davidson said.
The Resale Royalty for Visual Artists Act 2009, which was passed by the Federal Senate in late November, received Royal Assent on 9 December 2009. Hence, resale royalties will commence on a day to be fixed by Proclamation but no later than 9 June 2010, as set out in Section 2 of the Act.
Melbourne laywer Gary Singer has been commissioned to lead the hunt for a new CEO of the Goodmans/Sotheby's auction operation. But executive chairman Tim Goodman, his trophy Sotheby's secure, is still calling the shots, writes AASD's special correspondent.