Dave’s Faves for Sotheby’s Auction August 2019 – Banziger Hulme
Among the 87 lots offered at Sotheby’s sale of Important Australian Art on 27 August, there are several multiple offerings from a number of Australian masters – including not surprisingly Arthur Boyd, Hans Heysen, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Streeton, Norman Lindsay and William Dobell. More surprising perhaps is the appearance of four works by Cressida Campbell. […]
Breaking Records: Australian Women Artists at Davidson Auctions
Numerous hammer prices at multiples of the estimates, auction records for six female artists, and a number of sleepers made for a very exciting auction for both sellers and buyers at Davidson Auctions’ Fine Art sale on Sunday, 21 July 2019. Robert Davidson, principal of the highly respected and well regarded Sydney boutique auction house, […]
Monumental Art: Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s First at Art Basel
In a first for Art Basel which concluded on 16 June 2019, paying for a stand at the world’s most prestigious art fair, has become somewhat easier (if you are accepted into the fair by the vetting committee in the first place – 290 this year from 34 different countries). Art Basel director Marc Spiegler […]
Ian Fairweather’s Auction Record Shines at Deutscher + Hackett
Rarely has the Cell Block Theatre at the National Art School seen so many art industry personalities, insiders and habitués as at the Deutscher + Hackett’s fine art auction on 10 April 2019. Many would have been there to observe how Charles Blackman’s Alice on the Table (lot 9) fared, after the artist’s Sleeping Alice […]
Dave’s Faves for the Deutscher + Hackett Auction April 2019
The first 8 lots of the Deutscher + Hackett sale on 10 April 2019 in Sydney contain four outstanding works by some of the Australian masters of the abstract from the 1960s to the contemporary (Balson, Miller, Audette and Frank), a beautiful selection for the connoisseur of non-figurative art. This serves as the lead-in to […]
Dave’s Faves for the Sotheby’s Auction April 2019
Sotheby’s autumn auction in Sydney on 9 April presents 81 lots of outstanding Australian art. This includes two oils by Russell Drysdale, a true rarity by this master of the Australian country town and outback landscape. Another eye catcher will be lot 27 John Olsen’s “Seafood Paella” – however, a very big wall (and pocket) […]
Dave’s Faves for the Menzies Auction March 2019
The first Menzies auction of 2019 starts with two collections, one from the estate of Gwendoline Mutton and the other from Sir Walter Baldwin Spencer. The collection presented in the middle of the catalogue is a real stand-out in the sale. Titled the Thomas Tyrwhitt Balcombe Family Collection, lots 56 to 68 are a veritable […]
Dave’s Faves for the Deutscher + Hackett auction Nov 2018
13 ink drawings and watercolours no larger than A4 start off the Deutscher + Hackett sale on 28 November in Melbourne. Their modest size and medium belies their importance: among them are the last pre-settlement portraits of Tasmanian Aboriginal people and extremely early depictions of Western Australia, created between 1801 and 1804 on the Baudin […]
Dave’s Faves for the Menzies Auction November 22nd
In their last auction of the year, Menzies present a diverse offering of 125 lots in their summer sale held in their South Yarra premises in Melbourne. The star painting is without a doubt the cover lot: Jeffrey Smart’s “Outside the Ministry” from 1970, and it’s as impressive a Smart as you are ever going […]
Dave’s Faves for the Sotheby’s Auction November 2018
Sotheby’s Sydney auction on 20 November starts with a veritable fanfare from the collection of John Symonds, of Aussie Home Loans fame. Among the 14 artworks are masterpieces by some of Australia’s greatest modern and contemporary artists: Blackman, Boyd (Arthur and David), Brack, Nolan, Olsen and Smart to name a few. This selection was awarded […]