‘Didn’t feel right to cash in’: The family giving away a huge art collection

When the Nickl family decided it was time to finally sort out their late grandparents’ Blue Mountains home, little did they realise what a treasure trove lay in wait, including a $600,000 Australian masterpiece that had quietly hung on the walls for as long as anyone in the family could remember.

Members of the Nickl family with the 1944 painting Bush walkers. The family has donated the painting to the National Gallery of Australia.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“My grandfather Joseph Nickl was a very humble man. He didn’t really care for material things, or about money, but he really loved art,” grandson Tracy Nickl told PS this week.

Freda Robertshaw’s Bush walkers 1944 now hangs in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.Credit: Alex Ellinghausen

“He would always buy pieces directly from the artist. Over the years he got to know a few of them, but none of us realised the true significance of what he had actually been collecting, and it turned out he had a very good eye.”

One of those pieces is the extremely rare oil painting, Bush walkers, painted in 1944 by the late Australian artist Freda Robertshaw. It was a finalist in that year’s Sir John Sulman Prize and hung in the Art Gallery of NSW.

Art lovers: Josie and Joseph Nickl.

Tracy Nickl runs the popular Gumnut Patisserie in Bowral, where the local newspaper the Southern Highlands Express first uncovered the Robertshaw story. Among Nickl’s regular customers is Australian artist Ben Quilty, who has become a friend over the years.

“I showed the paintings to Ben to see what he made of the works. When he saw Freda’s painting he knew it was a special one. He called a dealer friend who offered us $600,000 on the spot ... we were gobsmacked,” Nickl said.

“But money never really meant much to my grandparents. As a family, it didn’t feel right to cash it in. That wasn’t the right way to recognise their legacy, it felt wrong. Our family decided the best thing to do, to really honour them, would be to donate the painting to a gallery where it could be on display for all people to see.”

In all there were more than 100 artworks in the Nickl collection, some from other well-known artists including Norman Lindsay. Over the past 18 months the Nickls have been working to “repatriate” pieces with the families of the artists who created them, while each of Joseph and Josie Nickl’s descendants have selected one piece to keep.

On Wednesday the Nickl family gathered at the NGA to officially hand over the painting.

The families have found paintings from other artists, including Norman Lindsay.Credit: Craig Golding

“Our grandparents would be super stoked,” a proud Tracy said as he watched the unveiling of the painting.

The National Gallery has three works by Robertshaw, but Bush walkers is its first, major figurative painting to be acquired for the national collection.

The acquisition is seen as a major step in the gallery’s commitment to acquiring the work of women artists, especially those that have historically been overlooked such as Robertshaw.

And now, courtesy of a small plaque adjacent to the painting, the Nickl family’s extraordinary generosity won’t be forgotten.

Creative incubator: the Paddington Markets have been held on the grounds of the Paddington Uniting Church every Saturday for 50 years.Credit: Fiona Morris

Zimmermann market leaders

From tenacious, hard-working daughters of a migrant panel beater in Cronulla where mum did the books, to billion-dollar fashion powerhouses, Sydney’s Nicky and Simone Zimmermann clearly deserve all their success.

And no one was applauding louder this week than Reverend Danielle Hemsworth-Smith from the Paddington Uniting Church, which hosts the weekly Saturday markets where the Zimmermanns first made their mark in 1990.

But the sisters are not the only success story from the Paddington Markets, which marks its 50th anniversary this year. Others include Dinosaur Designs which is famous for its handmade resin homewares and jewellery. Co-founder Louise Olsen recalls crossing paths with the Zimmermanns and said the markets were “a great hothouse to test products”.

Fashion empire builders Simone and Nicky Zimmermann.

Other Australian fashion luminaries that started out shopping their creations at the markets include Studibaker Hawk, Von Troska, Black Vanity, Lisa Ho and Johnny Schembri.

“We are really focussed on the markets continuing as an incubator of creativity,” Hemsworth-Smith said, adding the next Zimmermann could be setting up their stall this Saturday.

Nicky Zimmermann started making her own clothes around the age of 13, going on to study at East Sydney Tech (now the Fashion Design Studio at Ultimo TAFE). She then started making and selling clothes at the markets.

She made $1000 in her first market run with a series of red, white and black stretch T-shirts and cotton voile shirts with embroidered sleeves and blanket stitching.

Designer Nicky Zimmerman taking her bow at a New York fashion week in 2018.

Soon after sister Simone quit her job and joined the business, telling Harper’s Bazaar Australia in March: “We were ready to make the step to work together. So I took my bonus and my computer system and printer and set up shop with Nicky.”

Clearly, it turned out to be a canny move.

King Kyle’s report card

Next month Kyle Sandilands’ bosses at KIISFM have to report to the media watchdog about the measures it has taken since his inexplicable comments mocking Paralympians, which resulted in him being ordered to undergo “sensitivity training”.

ARN agreed to deliver the training to the program’s hosts, producers, censors and other relevant staff, and to report its progress every six months for two years.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Kyle Sandilands at the radio host’s wedding this year.Credit: Twitter

On Thursday the Australian Communications and Media Authority also admonished him over other comments from a year ago – which PS first highlighted – where he described the monkeypox virus as “the big gay disease” among other questionable commentary. ACMA’s most recent findings are to be implemented into future training and reporting.

PS has repeatedly asked Sandilands’ bosses what his “sensitivity” training has involved, but so far they have declined to share any details.

Twiggy’s outback bash

The dress code is “cocktail”, but given the venue is in the dusty Pilbarra iron-ore fields at the appropriately named Solomon Mine, Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest’s party invitation to mark 20 years of Fortescue Mining has set tongues wagging.

Party time: Nicola and Andrew Forrest in October 2021.Credit: Kate Geraghty

There’s no mention of his former wife Nicola on the invitation, which clearly states Forrest as the sole host. This raises the obvious question if she, now being a larger stakeholder in the empire, will actually be there.

Festivities are due to kick off on August 26, with guests invited to stay the night in the outback location some 60km north of Tom Price in Western Australia. And with the Working Class Man Jimmy Barnes himself belting out his trademark bangers, it’s set to be quite a party.

Kylie fans in a spin

It all started out so promisingly for Kylie Minogue who announced her Las Vegas “residency” at the Venetian casino a fortnight ago. But since tickets went on sale online in the early hours of Wednesday morning, would-be concert-goers across the world have been venting.

Kylie Minogue fans are livid over ticketing for her upcoming Las Vegas residency.

Site crashes, hours-long wait times, an inability to check out and claims of price gouging from $US950 ($1448) to $US1150 ($1752) after the site refreshed: it had all the hallmarks of the recent Taylor Swift Ticketek disaster.

But none of this is surprising. Unlike other big-name residencies (Celine Dion did five nights a week at Caesars Palace for three years), Minogue’s mini residence starting in November is just on weekends in a room that fits around 1000 people and there are about 10 shows scheduled. You do the maths.

Patty cakes

He’s still reportedly earning around $10 million a year playing for the Atlanta Hawks in the NBA, but it appears expat basketball superstar Patty Mills didn’t have to pay a cent for his birthday celebrations in Roseberry last night.

Party like Patty Mills.

PS was alerted to the celebrations courtesy of the tequila and fashion sponsors who were hosting the shindig, complete with a socialite rent-a-crowd list – some who have never even met the birthday boy – on hand to mark the auspicious occasion. The price of fame is indeed high.

Stealth wealth

Leonard Joel Auctions chief bauble boffin Hamish Sharma shared a story this week about a wealthy client who turned her nose up at an expensive diamond jewel because she did not want to be seen wearing something that was so obviously expensive.

Instead, she dropped $300,000 on a diamond bracelet that was more, ahem, restrained.

The Kwiat “Legacy” necklace going to auction at Leonard Joel.

Sharma says the “stealth wealth” trend, the opposite of blinged-up status symbols, is having an impact on jewellery sales in Australia. Not that it seems evident in the lineup of items about to go under the hammer at the auction house’s next Important Jewels sale in Woollahra.

Among the items is a brilliant yellow diamond necklace from the exclusive American jeweller Kwiat that weighs about 81.60 carats and is mounted in platinum and 18ct gold. Even to PS’s untrained eye it looks expensive, and turns out it is, with a price estimate between $240,000 and $300,000.

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