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Chinese magpies, a Whiteley dove and a tale of two sales

Would be buyers flew in from China to see the stars of Bonhams’ Asian art auction, while Smith & Singer will be hoping Brett Whiteley’s dove has a better night.

  • 19 mins ago
  • Elizabeth Fortescue

This Month

Fan to put Bradman’s baggy green on the market

The cap worn by The Don during the 1947-48 home Test series against India is expected to fetch up to $400,000 at auction.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
William Delafield Cook’s Hillside 1, 2004-2011, carries a pre-sale estimate of $450,000 to $650,000 in Deutscher + Hackett’s November 26 auction in Melbourne. The work is 3.8 metres wide.

Job done selling luxe apartments, Lendlease offloads vast landscape

With 90 per cent of apartments at One Sydney Harbour sold, Lendlease is selling the 3.8m wide bush scene by William Delafield Cook that adorned the display suite.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

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.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

October

Quay restaurant’s iconic 4m-long sculpture is for sale

A record auction price for an Australian sculpture is expected when the Fink family sell the Bronwyn Oliver work that greeted Quay patrons for years.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
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Balmoral Beach, Sydney Harbour, by Ethel Carrick Fox, (undated), carries a pre-sale estimate of $80,000 to $100,000 in Gibson’s auction in Melbourne on October 27, 2024. The work last sold in 1991 for less than $10,000.

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.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Woŋgu Munuŋgurr’s Djapu Miny’tji, 1942, natural pigments on bark, 189.2 x 105.3 cm.

In New York, a ravishing show of Aboriginal art

The tension between sacred mysteries that must be shielded from outsiders and those that can be revealed animates one of several exhibitions.

  • Arthur Lubow
Le Baiser de l’Hotel de Ville, 1950, by Robert Doisneau, carries a pre-sale estimate of $US 10,000 to 15,000 in Phillips’ Photographs auction in New York on October 9, 2024. It is signed in ink in the margin.

Iconic images of life, death and football fetch top dollar

A series of auctions suggests the market for big-name photographers is alive and well.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
One Melbourne home has just lost a major talking point. This 17th century rendition of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa sold for GBP102,000 (including buyer’s premium) at Bonhams in London on October 2. By the hand of an unknown artist, the work was consigned by a Melbourne resident whose family had owned the work since 1984.

Mona Lisa of Melbourne makes an unexpected splash in London

After being held by a family for 40 years in Hawthorn, a rare 17th-century expert copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa has sold for 10 times its estimate.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Les Nymphéas, by Claude Monet.

Monet, Van Gogh star as international auctions heat up

The 20th/21st Century Evening Sale in Hong Kong set an Asian auction record for two of the world’s most cherished artists, Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

September

Art conservator David Stein at his new Woollahra studio. Stein is selling his Sydney conservation business after many years, partly because the risk of damaging contemporary artworks is too stressful.

‘Ambulance chaser of the art world’ to hang up his retouch brush

After 40 years as one of Australia’s leading art conservators, David Stein is calling time.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

$300 still life flowers into a 70-bagger

A forgotten work by a forgotten Australian artist was one of several to do well as the great financial reappreciation of women artists continued at Leonard Joel.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

‘Mr Paparazzi’ collection brightens up dull market

A famous image of Princess Diana on a yacht, Chinese contemporary paintings, German Expressionism and a silver throne are the highlights of two upcoming sales.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue and James Thomson
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
Art lover at the Michael Reid Gallery display at Sydney Contemporary, 2024.

Art lovers turn out in force to snap up works at Sydney Contemporary

Many gallery owners at the art fair, with one eye on the limp art market so far this year, say they have done much better than expected.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
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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

August

Private investigator’s weapons fetch a fortune

Warren Mallard penchant’s for “edged” weapons has paid off, while James Wolfensohn’s modern Australian classics get a mixed reception.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Gloria Fletcher Thancoupie’s Pot, 1986, estimated at between $4000 and $6000 in Bonhams’ sale of The Morgan Collection on August 27 in Sydney. The stoneware bowl features a ring stand of natural woollen fibre.

A big winner from a 1990s bank sale offloads art collection

After Graeme Morgan made $100 million selling Sealcorp to St George Bank he threw himself into art collecting. Now much of his collection is up for sale.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
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
Vanity, c.1912 by Emanuel Phillips Fox is the cover lot in Deutscher + Hackett’s August 28 auction in Melbourne. Its estimate is $350,000 to $550,000. The work is being sold from the permanent collection of the McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery in Langwarrin, Victoria.

Offloading Murdoch art treasures can be a tricky exercise

Does selling art donated by a wealthy benefactor like Dame Elisabeth Murdoch discourage future donations? This gallery is about to find out.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

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