Menzies Fine Art Sale – At Sixes and Sevens and then Finally Eights – 8 Million
A major withdrawal and a few high priced failures, along with the hammering down under estimate of over-exposed top lots generated a clearance of 77% and 69% by value. A few fresh affordable works and a Russian sleeper helped the sale tally a very healthy $8,057,598, including buyer’s premium. Hulme was successful securing the cover […]
Wesfarmers trim art collection
Wesfarmers trim art collection
$5 million for unknown artist?
The experts are aghast over the purported price for this art sale, writes Andrew Taylor If you ask the experts, Andrew Philip Duncan can’t know much about art. But Mr Duncan, a Gold Coast property entrepreneur, reckons he knows what he likes – and he swears that he has just spent $5.2 million on a […]
Copycat artist ruffles feathers with blatant rip-off
Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but is this taking it too far? The photograph on the top right, titled Shenae and Jade, is by Sydney’s award-winning artist Petrina Hicks and held in the collection of the Art Gallery of NSW. The other below it is a painting by the prolific Czech artist […]
What’s hot in the European Art World?
It’s summer in Europe and with the warm weather come the big art fairs. There are four big shows across the European continent at the moment. In Paris, there’s La Trienniale, in Belgium, there’s Manifesta, in Germany there’s the edgy new art show Documenta and in Switzerland, Art Basel has just wrapped up. So who’s […]
Clement Meadmore sculpture languishing in Mexico City
If contemporary sculpture is your thing, then you’ll know the late Australian artist Clement Meadmore. He’s generally considered one of this country’s most important modern sculptors. In a typical Meadmore sculpture, a large rectangular volume of steel twists and turns upon itself. The point about his classic works is that they are huge, and so […]
Odd Lots
Katrina Strickland “A record has been set for the work of Ethel Spowers. ….The Gust of Wind sold for £114,050 at Bonhams London … setting a record for the artist – and for any print by an Australian artist at auction, art consultant David Hulme says.”
Buy of the Beholder
Andrew Taylor “Peter Lik may have sold a photograph for $US1 million – the highest price ever achieved by an Australian photographer – yet few people have heard of him. … ‘I don’t fancy the owner’s chances of recouping anywhere near what he paid for this one,’ art consultant David Hulme says. … ‘These prices […]
Ben Quilty’s quest: To Asia and beyond
Katrina Strickland “…At Menzies, dealer David Hulme bid $ 25,000 for Quilty’s 40 x 30 cm Portrait after Self Portrait by Arthur Streeton. It had been estimated to sell for $14,000 to $18,000. Hulme says he bought the painting on behalf of a UK collector who has spent time in Australia; he will pay $30,680 […]
Six bucks for a Namatjira? Look again
By Andrew Taylor There’s no accounting for taste when a masterpiece is ignored in a garage sale. It was the spring-clean that almost cost a Cairns woman a masterpiece. She had put a few household items in a garage sale, including a painting of a desert landscape priced just $6. It was signed Albert Namatjira, […]