It was a tough opening to the Australian art auction season with Menzies holding the first major sale of the year as fears over the coronavirus sent the stock market plummeting.
“We are a bit of a victim of circumstance,” Menzies’ chief executive officer Justin Turner told Saleroom after a difficult night which saw a third of works from the company’s auction of Australian and International Fine Art and Sculpture passed in. Total sales struggled to reach $3,429,550 (hammer prices), well below the auction’s lower estimate of $4.5 million (hammer). Canny buyers had opportunities aplenty as works by big name artists sold for around or below their lower estimates.
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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.
