Sotheby’s to auction Macbank co-founder David Clarke’s $5m collection

SOTHEBY’s will auction more than 40 paintings and sculptures worth more than $5m from the collection of the late David Clarke.

Detail of John Brack’s 1955 painting First daughter.

SOTHEBY’S Australia is preparing to auction more than 40 paintings and sculptures worth up to $5.6 million from the collection of Macquarie Bank co-founder, the late David Clarke.

The artworks date from colonial times to the modern era and will go under the hammer in Sydney on April 28 as the curtain-raiser for the auction house’s first 2015 Australian art sale.

Among the paintings is a little-known John Brack oil, First Daughter, painted in 1955 and not widely seen since. It is the most valuable work in the collection and expected to sell for more than $550,000.

Clarke bought First Daughter in the 1980s and until recently it was hung at the top of the main staircase at the late banker’s home in Darling Point, Sydney.

The modestly-sized portrait is one of a small number of works Clarke acquired before his collecting ramped up in the late 90s when his focus shifted to buying contemporary painting and sculpture.

“When he started buying he had a terrific sense of purpose. If he liked a particular artist and work it had to have particularly good provenance,” said Clarke’s friend and former Macquarie Bank colleague Julian Beaumont.

Clarke died from cancer in 2011 at age 69 and Sotheby’s chairman Geoffrey Smith said the pieces being sold by his estate represent his entire collection at the time of his death.

Other works include paintings by Margaret Olley, Tim Storrier, Arthur Boyd and Peter Booth. The represented sculptors is a who’s who of Australian sculpture, including Clement Meadmore, Ah Xian and Bronwyn Oliver. The presence of John Olsen’s 1973 painting Captain Dobbin in Clarke’s collection will require Sotheby’s to challenge an assertion made last month by Olsen’s art dealer son Tim Olsen.