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Arthur Streeton

This Month

Carol Jerrems’ Vale Street, 1975, the image for which the late Australian photographer is best known, blew through its estimate to set a record for an Australian photograph.

A record-setting photo and a $2.5m number plate

The biggest auction of the year so far delivered $10 million in sales and a record price for an iconic image, while a small plate brings a big price.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

March

Sirius Cove, 1895, by Arthur Streeton carries an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000 in Smith & Singer’s auction of Important Australian Art to be held in Sydney on April 8.

130 years on, Australian art history comes out of the woodwork

An Arthur Streeton painting of a hallowed art location and a canvas that rocketed Brett Whiteley towards his eventual fame will be auctioned in April.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

February

Michael and I are Just Slipping Down to the Pub for a Minute, 1992, by Lin Onus. This painting in gouache on board, from a Sydney private collection, will be offered through Smith & Singer on April 8, 2025, at an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000.

Barry Humphries’ estate tops $9m as NY Indigenous sale returns

The first works to feature in big local auctions are emerging on the back of a blockbuster sale of Barry Humphries’ personal collection in London.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

September 2024

Bonhams sold Arthur Streeton’s Mosman Bay, c1907,for $500,000, the top of its estimate range.

‘Mosman Bay’ stars on a sobering night at Bonhams art auction

Arthur Streeton’s beach scene brought almost half the total take as many works went unsold in Sydney; Leonard Joel gathers 133 lots for this year’s Women Artists’ sale.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Flow, 2002, by Bronwyn Oliver, fetched $525,000 (including buyer’s premium) at Deutscher + Hackett’s Melbourne auction on August 28.

Female sculptors deliver at mid-year art sales

Bronywn Oliver and Gloria Thancoupie caught collectors’ eyes, while a piece of Mosman history with a colourful past is back on the market.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
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August 2024

This copy of the NASA photograph, Earthrise Apollo 17 1972, fetched $42,160 including buyer’s premium against a pre-sale estimate of just $300 to $500 in Gibson’s Auctions’ August 20 online auction.

Photos go stratospheric with prices 100 times expectations

Photographs of space travel and heavy industry burst free of their lacklustre expectations in an extraordinary auction this week.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

April 2024

Arthur Streeton’s Sunlight at the Camp is estimated to sell for between $1 million and $1.5 million.

Streeton stuns at $10m art auction

Arthur Streeton’s historic scene took top honours, but works by Bronwyn Oliver and Nicholas Harding were the big surprises.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Cressida Campbell’s Burley Griffin House, Avalon, 1999, is a unique colour woodblock print on paper. It is estimated to fetch between $140,000 and $180,000 in Smith & Singer’s 17 April Important Australian Art auction in Sydney.

Streeton, Campbell works promise hefty returns in $12m art sale

An Arthur Streeton painting bought for £7 has hopes of $1.5 million at the year’s first big sale.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

December 2023

John Peter Russell’s Souvenir de Belle-Île, (Marianna Russell with Goats, Goulphar, Belle-Île), 1897, was the year’s top lot.

Art sales top $140m but it’s a buyers’ market now

Australian art auction houses largely defied inflation, interest rates and conflict, but the pandemic-era surge has run its course.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

November 2023

The Yarra near Heidelberg, 1891, by Arthur Streeton, hung for many decades in a NSW country homestead. The family, members of the famous Murdoch clan, are now selling. In oil on canvas, this work measures 31 x 46 cm and is estimated to fetch $150,000 to $250,000 through Davidson Auctions in Sydney on November 25.

Like ‘light fittings’: Murdoch family to sell underappreciated art

Three beguiling paintings that for generations hung in obscurity at a Murdoch family grazing property are expected to fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

August 2023

An emphatic new auction record for Australian sculpture was set by Joel Elenberg’s Mask 1, 1978, which fetched $1,156,250 (including premium) at Smith & Singer’s August 23, 2023, sale in Sydney. The presale estimate was $350,000 to $450,000. Mask 1 stands 55cm high including the base, and is made of black Belgian marble.

Sculpture smashes $1m barrier as ‘grotesque and meaningless’ painting brings $950k

Joel Elenberg’s depiction of his wife Anna Schwartz set an auction record for a sculpture in Australia, while Arthur Streeton’s cigar box lid had plenty of admirers.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Arthur Streeton’s Evening Game, 1889, painted when the artist was 22, debuted in the historically important exhibition, the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition, in Melbourne, 1889. The work in oil on cardboard is estimated at $400,000 to $600,000 in the catalogue for Smith & Singer’s August 23, 2023 auction in Sydney.

$600k for a small, ‘grotesque and meaningless’ painting?

Fred Williams might top Smith & Singer’s big mid-year sale of Australian and international art, but the more modest works have the most intriguing stories.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
John Peter Russell’s “Souvenir de Belle-Île”, 1897.

Impressionist Russell’s Souvenir tops $11m-plus sale

A work by the Australian painter who taught Impressionism to Matisse tops Deutscher and Hackett’s August sale, which could prove the biggest of the year so far.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

May 2023

Russell Drysdale’s Children Dancing, 1950, has never been traded at auction before, and comes from a private collection in Melbourne. It carries the highest estimate ($1.3 million to $1.6 million) of all the 91 lots in Deutscher and Hackett’s May 3, 2023 auction of Important Australian and International Fine Art, in Melbourne.

Drysdale dances to heights but art market turns cautious

A Russell Drysdale proved the first work to pass the $2 million mark at auction this year, but for the second night in a row the overall result was underwhelming.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
This exquisite portrait by New Zealand master Charles Frederick Goldie was passed in at $1.35 million at the Smith & Singer’s Important Australian and International Art auction in Sydney on May 2, 2023. The painting’s estimate was $1.4 million to $1.6 million. Its title is Reverie: Ena te Papatahi, a Ngapuhi Chieftainess (Ina Te Papatahi, Ngā Puhi), 1916. The consignor was veteran Sydney art dealer Denis Savill.

How Smith & Singer’s big Sydney sale failed to fire

The sale was meant to be one of the biggest of the year, but several of the most highly priced works failed to sell.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
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April 2023

Psychedelic Head, 1990, by the late Melbourne artist Howard Arkley sold for a mere $7150 in 1992. Its estimate in Smith & Singer’s May 2, 2023 auction is $250,000 to $350,000. The large work, measuring 175cm by 135cm, is from the Selwyn and Renata Litton collection.

Olsen, Arkley and other art stars headline $10m sale

How the market reacts to John Olsen’s death will be tested when he joins a who’s who of modern Australian art - and a few Lucian Freuds - in Smith & Singer’s sale.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

March 2023

“Reverie: Ena te Papatahi, a Ngapuhi Chieftainess (Ina Te Papatahi, Nga Puhi)“, 1916, by famed New Zealand artist Charles Frederick Goldie, is estimated at $1.1 million to $1.5 million by Smith & Singer who will offer it on May 2, 2023.

Golden Goldie: ‘I paid about $900,000. It will make $1.6m’

Art dealer Denis Savill is offloading a rare work by New Zealand’s most highly prized artist, Charles Goldie, but thinks selling in Sydney will be more profitable.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

February 2023

Draper’s Commercial Hotel, Mittagong 1892 by Arthur Streeton AFR

Found Streeton painting of a mate down the pub sells for $34,000

A small Arthur Streeton painting, discovered between the leaves of an old book, will join the 165,000 artworks in the State Library of NSW’s collection.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

December 2022

Ethel Carrick, Sur La Plage, On the Sands, Dinard, 1911, sold for more than double it’s high estimate at $1,996,591 at Smith & Singer.

The 10 top art sales of the year

A record number of women made it into the top ten auction prices this year. That number was two.

  • Gabriella Coslovich

October 2022

Narpula Scobie Napurrula, Women’s dreaming at Alukuru, 1990, part of the Cbus collection of Australian art, from the Friendly Country, Friendly People exhibition, sold as one lot at Deutscher and Hackett last week. 

26 paintings sell to one bidder as Cbus sale winds up

An entire exhibition of desert art works from 1990 was the last tranche from Cbus’s collection.

  • Gabriella Coslovich

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/person/arthur-streeton-23m