By Andrew Hornery, Perry Duffin and Sarah Keoghan
Police are searching for Sydney tech entrepreneur Andrew Findlay who was aboard a fishing boat involved in a suspected accident on Sydney Harbour near Watsons Bay that claimed the life of leading art dealer Tim Klingender.
Friends confirmed Findlay, 50, was the other person on the boat, having joined Klingender on the fishing expedition early on Thursday morning.
Findlay, a father of three small children, is a keen angler. He is part of a wide circle of friends, many of them former schoolmates from his days at St Joseph’s College Hunters Hill, where he graduated in 1990. Findlay’s partner Lakshmi Pillai declined to comment.
On Friday Findlay’s friends gathered at The Gap to support Pillai as police abseiled down the cliff as they continued their search, and more fragments of the boat were discovered. However, the search was called off about 5pm, to resume at first light on Saturday.
“It’s just horrendous for everyone,” one of Findlay’s friends said.
Andrew Findlay is missing after a suspected boating accident on Sydney Harbour.
News of Klingender’s death sent the Australian art world reeling.
“He leaves behind a huge vacuum for Indigenous art in this country and around the world ... he truly was the architect of the market we have today,” long-time friend and associate, Melbourne gallerist D’Lan Davidson said, one of the world’s leading dealers in Indigenous art.
Marine police were called about 10.20am on Thursday after receiving reports of boating debris floating in the water.
The body was recovered after a small vessel was found overturned near rocks off Watsons Bay.
Leading art dealer Tim Klingender.Credit: John Woudstra
Three Marine Rescue NSW boats joined police about 8am on Friday to continue the search for Findlay. A volunteer crew from Botany Port Hacking has also joined the search.
Marine police recover a body off Watsons Bay in Sydney’s east.Credit: OnScene Bondi
Marine Rescue NSW Inspector Steve Raymond said crews were conducting a parallel line search from The Gap south to Wedding Cake Island off Coogee.
“Sea conditions around the search area are fair; there is a bit of a swell but visibility is fairly good for the Marine Rescue NSW search crews,” Raymond said.
Shocked friends said Klingender, a father of two teenage children and a keen angler, had gone out for a fishing expedition early on Thursday morning. His wife Skye McCardle was travelling in Nepal this week but was due to return to Sydney later on Friday.
The wreck of a boat that is believed to have crashed near rocks at Watsons Bay.Credit: Nine News
“No one cared more about the strength and direction of Indigenous art ... his knowledge and passion was extraordinary,” gallerist Scott Livesey said.
Klingender was considered one of the world’s leading dealers of Australian Indigenous art, having trained at the University of Melbourne where he graduated with a BA in fine art. He counted wealthy private collectors and Hollywood celebrities, including comedian Steve Martin, among his clients.
He was employed for 20 years by Sotheby’s, where he was an international director between 1998 and 2009.
After establishing a contemporary art department for Sotheby’s, Australia, in 1994, he founded Sotheby’s Aboriginal art department in 1996, touring highlights of these sales internationally each year to cities including New York, London and Paris before their auction in Australia.
Wik & Kugu Arts, an arts centre in the remote community of Aurukun on the Cape York Peninsula, shared a tribute to Tim Klingender on their Instagram page.Credit: Instagram: @wikandkuguarts
He was widely regarded and respected for establishing an ethical international market in the field of Australian Indigenous art.
In 2009, he established Tim Klingender Fine Art and, from 2011 to 2013, continued his interest in fine art auctioneering in his role as senior consultant to Bonhams auction house.
Most recently, he was contracted as senior consultant, Australian art to Sotheby’s internationally, overseeing Aboriginal art auctions in London between 2015 and 2018.
Since 2019 he has presented these auctions in New York, and, in 2022, the sales were moved to May, alongside the marquee month sales that include Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art, setting new world records for Australian Indigenous artefacts, bark paintings, sculpture and for a living Australian Indigenous artist, with Michael Nelson Tjakamarra’s Five Dreamings selling for $687,875.
In May, he represented First Nations artists at Sotheby’s New York auction, where pieces such as Jean-Michel Basquiat’s El Gran Espectaculo (The Nile) sold for $101 million.
An unidentified European collector paid a record $US762,000 for Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula’s Water and Bush Tucker Story.
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