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Brett Whiteley

This Month

Flow, 2002, by Bronwyn Oliver, fetched $525,000 (including buyer’s premium) at Deutscher + Hackett’s Melbourne auction on August 28.

Female sculptors deliver at mid-year art sales

Bronywn Oliver and Gloria Thancoupie caught collectors’ eyes, while a piece of Mosman history with a colourful past is back on the market.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

August

This copy of the NASA photograph, Earthrise Apollo 17 1972, fetched $42,160 including buyer’s premium against a pre-sale estimate of just $300 to $500 in Gibson’s Auctions’ August 20 online auction.

Photos go stratospheric with prices 100 times expectations

Photographs of space travel and heavy industry burst free of their lacklustre expectations in an extraordinary auction this week.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Vanity, c.1912 by Emanuel Phillips Fox is the cover lot in Deutscher + Hackett’s August 28 auction in Melbourne. Its estimate is $350,000 to $550,000. The work is being sold from the permanent collection of the McClelland Sculpture Park and Gallery in Langwarrin, Victoria.

Offloading Murdoch art treasures can be a tricky exercise

Does selling art donated by a wealthy benefactor like Dame Elisabeth Murdoch discourage future donations? This gallery is about to find out.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Arthur Boyd’s Colonial Poet Under Orange Tree, 1979, measuring more than 1.5 metres high, is estimated at $250,000 to $350,000 in Smith & Singer’s August 21, 2024 auction in Sydney. The work is being sold from the estate of the late Sir James Wolfensohn.

James Wolfensohn’s Australian classics lead $14m art sale

The canvases by Arthur Boyd and Fred Williams adorned the Australian former president of the World Bank’s Manhattan apartment and lead Smith & Singer’s big mid-year sale.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

June

Among three major Brett Whiteley artworks owned by the late Melbourne businessman Ron Walker is Her, 1967. In oil and mixed media on plywood, and measuring 183 x 237.5 cm, the work is estimated at between $1.8 million and $2.4 million in Smith + Singer’s July 24 sale catalogue.

Fine art collection of late Ron Walker to fetch up to $8m

He helped build modern Melbourne but the works that hung in his Toorak mansion, and are now for sale, had a very Sydney flavour.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
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Selling a painting like it’s a mansion a plus for elite bidders

Del Kathryn Barton’s anatomy-bending work will be the tenth to be offered at private auction by Smith & Singer, a concept that borrows from high-end property sales.

May

John Peter Russell’s Cruach en Mahr, Matin, Belle-Île-en-Mer, c.1905 carries a pre-sale estimate of $1.5 million to $2.5 million in Deutscher and Hackett’s 24 April sale of Important Australian and International Fine Art in Melbourne.

Australia’s best art auction result in 17 years

Bullish bidders dropped $17 million on Impressionists, Whiteleys and others at the strongest result for a mixed vendor sale since the heady pre-GFC days of 2007.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

April

Arthur Streeton’s Sunlight at the Camp is estimated to sell for between $1 million and $1.5 million.

Streeton stuns at $10m art auction

Arthur Streeton’s historic scene took top honours, but works by Bronwyn Oliver and Nicholas Harding were the big surprises.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

Ad man Peter Clemenger sets Whiteley’s Wren free - for $2m plus

Brett Whiteley’s The Wren is the top lot at Deutscher and Hackett’s first big sale of the year, which has a total estimate of $10 million to $14 million.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Cressida Campbell’s Burley Griffin House, Avalon, 1999, is a unique colour woodblock print on paper. It is estimated to fetch between $140,000 and $180,000 in Smith & Singer’s 17 April Important Australian Art auction in Sydney.

Streeton, Campbell works promise hefty returns in $12m art sale

An Arthur Streeton painting bought for £7 has hopes of $1.5 million at the year’s first big sale.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

March

These ‘bad boy’ art works are not for the faint-hearted

Pieces from Sydney enfants terribles, Brett Whiteley and Adam Cullen, will be auctioned in Melbourne at the end of March.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

February

Deborah Halpern’s ceramic and glass tile sculpture, Little Prince, c. 2010-2011, was one of the star lots in Deutscher + Hackett’s Tuesday night online auction, Works from a Private Collection, Melbourne. Carrying a pre-sale estimate of $3000 to $5000, it sold for $21,250 (including buyer’s premium).

The eyes have it: Little Prince makes big splash

Deborah Halpern’s boldly coloured bust smashed through its estimate as early season auctions get underway.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

December 2023

John Peter Russell’s Souvenir de Belle-Île, (Marianna Russell with Goats, Goulphar, Belle-Île), 1897, was the year’s top lot.

Art sales top $140m but it’s a buyers’ market now

Australian art auction houses largely defied inflation, interest rates and conflict, but the pandemic-era surge has run its course.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

November 2023

Feeding Lavender Bay Doves, 1979, by Brett Whiteley, is estimated to fetch $650,000 to $850,000 in Menzies’ Sydney auction on November 29, 2023. Whiteley usually delivered his paintings to his then dealer, Robin Gibson, strapped to the roof of his Mini Moke. In oil on canvas on board, the picture is 92 x 60.5 cm.

Work that survived ride on roof of Mini Moke could sell for $800,000

Artist Brett Whiteley delivered his paintings personally, says the man who first sold the painting 43 years ago.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

October 2023

Art blue bloods under the hammer in ANZ revamp

The ANZ Art Collection is selling 37 works by the likes of Boyd, Drysdale and Rees to make way for contemporary artists.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
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September 2023

Brett Whiteley’s Yellow, 1975, will be available for the first time in almost 50 years when Smith & Singer offer it by private auction in Sydney on October 10.

Whiteley’s Yellow a one-man show with $3.5m hopes

A Brett Whiteley painting bought in Sydney in 1975 and being offered for the first time since is the latest work to headline its own dedicated sale.

  • Andrew Burke
Big Blue Lavendar Bay is carried into

Mystery of what happened to Andrew Pridham’s $2.5m ‘Whiteley’ solved

The investment banker and Sydney Swans chairman speaks for the first time about being duped in Australia’s biggest alleged art fraud.

  • Gabriella Coslovich
Lyonel Feininger’s drawings in Fred Werner’s sketchbook dated 1889.

Sketchbook found behind a bookshelf expected to clean up

Works by Lyonel Feininger have sold for up to $36.2 million, so a book with his works discovered in a Sydney retirement village is set to attract plenty of interest.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

August 2023

John Peter Russell’s “Souvenir de Belle-Île”, 1897.

Belle-Île indeed: Record smashed in biggest sale in a decade

The $4 million paid for John Peter Russell’s Impressionist classic pushed Deutscher and Hackett’s sale beyond $15 million.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue
Arthur Streeton’s Evening Game, 1889, painted when the artist was 22, debuted in the historically important exhibition, the 9 by 5 Impression Exhibition, in Melbourne, 1889. The work in oil on cardboard is estimated at $400,000 to $600,000 in the catalogue for Smith & Singer’s August 23, 2023 auction in Sydney.

$600k for a small, ‘grotesque and meaningless’ painting?

Fred Williams might top Smith & Singer’s big mid-year sale of Australian and international art, but the more modest works have the most intriguing stories.

  • Elizabeth Fortescue

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