Ben Quilty sale marks generational shift as old school falls flat
Ben Quilty’s Beast 2, 2005, set a new record for the artist, soaring almost five times above its high estimate to sell for $220,000 at Menzies. Courtesy Menzies
Sydney artist Ben Quilty’s burly paintings of Australian icons are toppling records at auction. The popularity of his work marks a shift in the secondary art market, which has been dominated by modernists, to a generation of younger artists.
Quilty’s Beast 2, 2005, a brilliantly coloured painting of a brawny budgerigar, stole the show at Menzies in Sydney last Wednesday night, March 31, soaring almost five times above its high estimate to sell for $220,000 (at the fall of the hammer, before buyer’s costs).
Gabriella CoslovichSaleroom writerGabriella 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.
