February
Blue Poles: how Australia came to own the Jackson Pollock masterpiece
This edited extract reveals how Australia acquired one of the 20th century’s most prized paintings – and why then PM Gough Whitlam was so invested in the purchase.
December 2024
The Year of Brilliant Jerks: Rear Window’s year in review
Trump, Ellison, White, Adgemis, Gupta and that Rinehart portrait. For Rear Window, the end of shame and pretense added up to a ripping year of stories.
November 2024
National Gallery handed $15m in biggest-ever donation
Kerry Stokes’ $15 million donation is about one-quarter of what the Canberra institution needs to raise for a new sculpture garden.
Where did all the Jeffrey Smart paintings go?
Over the past decade, on average, 15 of the artist’s oils have sold each year, but only three have sold in 2024.
October 2024
Where to see Kerry Stokes’ Magritte, and 99 more surreal masterpieces
Australia finally has its first retrospective dedicated to René Magritte, a surrealist artist who has permeated pop culture like few others.
Ahead of major NGA show, Carrick Fox’s work set to soar
“Balmoral Beach, Sydney Harbour” by Ethel Carrick Fox was bought for less than $10,000 in 1991. It could sell for at least 10 times that amount this weekend.
Gina Rinehart’s portrait keeps getting younger
The country’s richest person looks to be on a mission to re-cast her image since the Namatjira controversy earlier this year.
How a recluse became the world’s most popular contemporary artist
Yayoi Kusama always wanted to be famous. Now the hugely in-demand but cloistered artist best known for dots and pumpkins has a major retrospective coming to Melbourne.
September 2024
‘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.
August 2024
The surprising home of Indigenous art in Europe
Indigenous art curator Tina Baum is riding a wave of popularity and curiosity in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture
July 2024
Vale Terry Ingram, and a life observing in the Saleroom
Saleroom’s founding columnist spent 44 years reporting stories the industry wanted to keep quiet, including the art sale story of the century on Blue Poles.
The horror of war in a century-old letter
A letter from the WWI front line and a book of poetry by a famous Sydney eccentric will be auctioned in a sale of arts, war and social history.
June 2024
What triggered the PM to say he opposes ‘cancel culture’ in the arts
The prime minister has used the opening of a major exhibition in Canberra to defend the problematic legacy of French post-impressionist Paul Gauguin.
May 2024
‘Gina effect’: Gallery got 25pc bump after Rinehart portrait gripe
The fuss about an image of Gina Rinehart being included in a National Gallery exhibition did not register in the artist’s home community of Indulkana, the Senate has been told
The other Gina Rinehart portrait
The mining billionaire’s fondness for the opposition leader has been immortalised in art.
Gina Rinehart lobbies NGA to remove Indigenous portrait
The country’s richest resident has made her displeasure privately known about a portrait at the national institution.
April 2024
NGA seeks $60 million for sculpture park revamp
Major philanthropic support will fund a project to revitalise the gardens linking the National Gallery of Australia and Lake Burley Griffin.
November 2023
Antipodeans old and new carry hopes at end-of-year sales
Smith & Singer is hoping to end the year with a bang to trump Deutscher and Hackett as the top-selling auction house of the year.
October 2023
Former NAB director’s art collection goes under hammer
Artwork in the estate of a Melbourne business blue-blood who shrugged off a fraud scandal in the 1990s will go under the hammer in Melbourne on October 29.
September 2023
Menzies’ $3m-$5m Indigenous collection to sell, but not at Menzies
The late, controversial Rod Menzies’ collection will be sold by Cooee Art, while records tumbled for several under-appreciated women artists at Leonard Joel.