Whoever said art wasn’t a sound investment hasn’t met Philip Bacon AO, arguably the most influential person in Queensland’s cultural scene.

His eponymous gallery, which began in 1974 “on the smell of an oily rag” in a rented Fortitude Valley building he now owns (along with properties next door), has turned over billions of dollars in art – by luminaries such as Olley, Charles Blackman, Robert Dickerson and Jeffrey Smart.

Dealing art has taken Bacon into some of the world’s most glamorous homes, introduced him to fascinating people – best-selling author Lord Jeffrey Archer is a dear friend, as was the late Barry Humphries – and given him what we shall call a very comfortable life.

It has elevated him to prominent positions, including chair of the National Gallery Foundation Board and deputy chair of Brisbane Festival, as well as enabled extensive philanthropy.

To think, he was once a loans officer in Dalby, 200km west of the big smoke.

Before we meet for lunch on Wednesday, Bacon suggests I pop into the gallery.

The 26 works by Olley (1923-2011) and 16 by Brisbane’s own Vida Lahey (1882-1968) are hung ahead of the opening of the joint exhibition on Saturday afternoon.

Three-quarters have already sold.

Some Bacon could have sold three times over, with inquiries coming in hard and fast from clients across Australia and around the world.

As for Olley’s Sunday Flowers, with its radiant blue background, I wish I’d had $925 in 1977 to snap it up, I tell Bacon.

“You probably wouldn’t have, that was big money back then,” he says.

He’s right and, well, I was in primary school earning 20c a week in pocket money.

At $6400 in today’s terms, that $925 has turned a tidy profit for the painting’s owners, who also have had years of enjoyment from it.

Over the 51 years of Philip Bacon Galleries, its founder, now 78, has seen clientele change – from wealthy country folk in town for the Ekka, to rich doctors and lawyers, and most recently, financial types cashed up from the mining boom and Brisbane’s rise as a corporate capital.

“Generally, people buy one or two pictures and we never see them again,” Bacon says.

“Others keep going and going then suddenly their house is full or their second house is full or they’re getting older so they start selling.”

That’s when Bacon takes the paintings, like Sunday Flowers, on commission until they find a new home.

There are around 400 in his stockrooms.

“It is an art market and things have to keep circulating,” he says.

One constant in Bacon’s career has been the fierce defence of the city he’s called home since he was a boy.

“Quentin and I talk about it all the time, the ignominy of coming from Brisbane,” he says, of former Governor-General Dame Quentin Bryce.

“We swap stories. People have said to me for years, decades, ‘You’ve got a gallery in Brisbane?’” he says, imitating their shock.

“Then Quentin says, ‘What they’ve said to me over the years is, ‘You’re from Brisbane, do you live in Brisbane?’, as if there could be nothing worse.”

Bacon, who moved from Victoria in the late 1950s when his father Jack became manager of Barry & Roberts department store in Queen St, says he has “never apologised for Brisbane”.

“All my life it’s been, ‘Why aren’t you in Sydney or Melbourne or somewhere that counts?’, so I have been determined to create the best gallery I could, with the best artists, the best catalogues, the best openings.

“And of course now people say, ‘Isn’t Brisbane wonderful, isn’t it great!’, but before that they’d say, ‘It must be funny living in Brisbane’.

Bacon: “How long since you’ve been to Brisbane?”

Them: “Oh, we’ve never been – we go to the Gold Coast or Noosa.”

Bacon: “Well, how would you know?”

“The other thing I say, which they get really offended by, and I’ve had to do it less lately, is, ‘Look, it’s fine, the Cobb & Co coach comes through once a week with the mail unless the bridge is out and we mostly have electricity,” he laughs.

Bacon’s quick wit shines over lunch at Bisou Bisou restaurant, including when he asks the waiter if pinot noir is available by the glass.

“I’ll double check, sorry, I’m normally on the breakfast service, so I’m not too educated on the wine list,” she says.

“Well I’ll just have some Kellogg’s Cornflakes with milk, please,” Bacon quips.

She breaks into a grin: “I can definitely do that for you, sir.”

When a bottle of Craggy Range arrives at the table and said glass is poured, Bacon immediately takes a photo to share with friends Terry and Mary Peabody, who own the winery, and their daughter Mary-Jeanne Hutchinson.

Bacon was recently the family’s guest on a cruise in the south of France.

“Is there anyone you don’t know?” I ask.

“Name some names, I’ll tell you,” he replies. “Honestly, I’ve been so lucky, my business is so interesting, people say, ‘I suppose you’re going to retire’.

“Why would I retire? My gallery is my life – in a way that’s a bit pathetic – but I meet so many people, stars like Olley – you get to know them really well and some become friends.”

Bacon began buying art straight out of school (De La Salle, now Southern Cross Catholic College, in Scarborough, Moreton Bay).

“We didn’t have paintings at home much, everybody had watercolours back then, and I used to hang around and go to openings, I just liked the idea of it all, I suppose.”

While studying at the University of Queensland for a law degree he didn’t finish – “I never wanted to be a barrister; I’d have been too embarrassed to stand up in court” – Bacon scored a part-time job at Grand Central Gallery.

He didn’t receive a wage but his equivalent earnings paid off art he’d put on lay-by.

In the late 1960s, Bacon flew to Sydney for what would be a life-changing meeting with Margaret Olley.

“I had started visiting artists and asking if they’d like to show with us, but Olley said no because she already had the Johnstone Gallery in Brisbane, but when it closed in 1972, I called her up.”

Bacon, then 25, had tried his hand at a “real” job to please his father, who used connections to get him a position as a loans officer in Dalby.

“This was the worst time of my life,” he recalls.

“I’d drive out there on a Sunday from Brisbane with the sun in my eyes and think I was going to die on that road – and I always thought this horror went on for years and years … it was less than six months.

“Then my father got cancer and died and I thought, ‘I’m free’. His funeral was on the Friday and on the Monday I gave notice.”

Bacon says by the 1970s Margaret Olley was already “hot stuff” in the art world.

“Everyone wanted her, and she really influenced me.

“When I called and said, ‘I’m going to open my own gallery, will you come with me?’, she said, ‘Yes I’ve always thought you were entrepreneurial, I like you, and I’ll recommend you to my artist friends’.”

Olley would eventually dump interstate galleries and make Bacon her sole dealer. She trusted him so implicitly that upon her death from emphysema in 2011, he was executor of her vast estate.

The Margaret Olley Art Centre in Tweed Regional Gallery – which last year bought her Archibald Prize-winning portrait by Ben Quilty for $600,000 – is part of that legacy.

Bacon maintains a busy life.

He travels interstate most weeks to visit artists and clients and goes to the gym several mornings to stay in shape.

In regular contact with his three siblings, he is close to his nephews and nieces, one of whom calls during our lunch to ask Uncle Philip for advice.

Living in the West End home he custom built in 1985 for his enviable art collection, Bacon is completely content.

“If I wasn’t happy living on my own, I’d do something about it,” he says.

“Relationships are such a lottery; I was never married because I didn’t really like anybody enough, and it’s hard to find a marriage that really works. Besides, the gallery is my life. I couldn’t have wished for anything better.”

Bisou Bisou

458 Brunswick Street

Fortitude Valley

Roasted chicken and frites with sauce bearnaise

Rating 8/10