This Month
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
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
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
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
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
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
September 2023
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
- Exclusive
- Saleroom
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
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
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
$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
Impressionist Russell’s Souvenir tops $11m-plus sale
A work by the Australian painter who taught Impressionism to Matisse tops Deutscher and Hackett’s August sale, which could prove the biggest of the year so far.
- Elizabeth Fortescue
July 2023
Eager buyers snap up Perceval’s Williamstown tugboats
The two paintings by the artist closely bound up with the Boyd artistic dynasty smashed estimates even though they were done after the 1950s.
- Elizabeth Fortescue
June 2023
The fascinating link between this Australian artist and a US heiress
An upcoming auction of a landscape work by Fred Williams uncovers an unexpected tie to the heir of the Life Savers confectionary fortune.
- Elizabeth Fortescue
May 2023
Abandoned Brett Whiteley sells for $1.1m in Dallas
After efforts to find who anonymously loaned the painting to a prominent museum in 1968, the painting was listed with a laughable estimate of $US10,000 to $15,000.
- Elizabeth Fortescue
Drysdale dances to heights but art market turns cautious
A Russell Drysdale proved the first work to pass the $2 million mark at auction this year, but for the second night in a row the overall result was underwhelming.
- Elizabeth Fortescue
How Smith & Singer’s big Sydney sale failed to fire
The sale was meant to be one of the biggest of the year, but several of the most highly priced works failed to sell.
- Elizabeth Fortescue