Seven fresh records, including one that has propelled modernist painter Margaret Preston into the half-million-dollar club, have made the first of the Cbus art collection auctions a resounding success.
Preston’s Coastal Gums, 1929, a brilliant spray of red blossoms from the native Corymbia ficifolia tree, sold for $500,000 (hammer), more than double its high estimate, and more than five times its hammer price when it last came up at auction 22 years ago.
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Gabriella Coslovich is an arts journalist with more than 20 years’ experience, including 15 at The Age, where she was a senior arts writer. Her book, Whiteley on Trial, on Australia’s most audacious of alleged art fraud, won a Walkley in 2018.
