Australia - Art Market Monitor

Marion Maneker0June 05, 2012

Australian Retirement Rules Soften Aboriginal Art Market

Australia’s new rules for art used as a retirement asset is causing ripple effects through the already weak Aboriginal art market. The retirement schemes are said to account for a large portion of Aboriginal art purchases over recent years. Now with strict rules against having the art on display and onerous storage costs, many are divesting including Melbourne dealers Bill Nuttall and Annette Reeves who will make $289,000 after selling three quarters of their 120-piece investment collection. Buyers will pay a total of $352,000:

Bonhams Aboriginal art specialist Greer Adams admitted “the higher end of the market is still a little tough at the moment”.

Ms Adams said most works went to private buyers but there was some bidding from institutions. More than six artist records were set, including a spectacular sale for a work shown in the 2007 Telstra Art Awards, Gurtha at Biranybirany by Rerrkirrwaa Munuygurr, which sold for $9000 (including the premium) off an estimate of $1500 to $2500. The stand-out result from the second part of the sale was Paddy Bedford’s Thoonbi, for $180,000 including the premium.

Indigenous Art Auction Falls Short (The Australian)

General

Marion Maneker0April 25, 2012

I Have Seen the Future & It Is Australia

The Telegaph’s Richard Dorment is high on Australian art, artists the country’s art infrastructure:

I’ve just come back from a tour of Australia’s museum and art galleries, and as well as seeing talented artists whose work I hadn’t known before, I found an energy and optimism among the curators, collectors and dealers there that reminded me of London in the good old days.

With huge mineral resources, a strong dollar and economic ties to Asia, Australia has survived the economic downturn a lot better than we have. In fact, the place is booming. Since art always follows money, just you watch: contemporary art in Australia is going to be the next big thing.

One of the visible signs of the renaissance taking place down under is the new Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney. In some ways Sydney’s MCA is Australia’s equivalent to Tate Modern, though London didn’t have a museum of modern art until 2000, whereas the MCA has been on its site in the historic centre of Sydney on the harbour on a stretch of water across from the Opera House since 1989.

Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney: can you guess where the next big thing will be? (Telegraph)

Auction Results

Marion Maneker0November 08, 2011

Australian Art Dealer’s Stock Sees Record Sales

The Australian is keeping tabs on the sale at Mosgreen’s that has set a record for Australian painter Fred Williams:

A FINE Fred Williams landscape was sold for $1.25 million and 10 registered bidders resulted in an intricate Robert Klippel metal sculpture fetching $73,200, five times its estimate, at an auction in Sydney last night.

Both works were among the 590 items from the estate of Ann Lewis auctioned by Mossgreen at the Art Gallery of NSW last night, where attractive prices and a 1500-strong crowd saw bidding open at 6pm and set to continue until well after midnight.

Fred Williams landscape sells for $1.25m from the estate of Ann Lewis (The Australian)

Collectors

Marion Maneker0June 28, 2011

Aussie High Net Worth Individuals Not Spending on Art … Yet

The Wall Street Journal’s Scene Asia blog got excited about today’s auction of Aboriginal Art at Bonhams (turns out the optimism was premature–only four lots reached meaningful prices) because Australia’s High Net Worth population is sitting on a strong currency:

“Bonhams has taken the decision to really go for it and to move into the Australian market very, very actively,” said Mark Fraser, Bonhams chairman in Australia. “It’s a great time to be selling.”

The auction house says it has received approaches in recent weeks by at least three owners of museum-quality Australian paintings in London and New York who are considering selling because of the appreciation of the Aussie dollar. [Read more...]

Auction Results

Marion Maneker0May 18, 2011

Sotheby's Australia = $5.95m

Australia’s auction season opened with Sotheby’s sale in Melbourne.

The 97-lot sale in Melbourne was standing-room only for the first hour and 71 per cent of works sold at a total of $4.95 million, $5.95m including premium — a result that pleased Sotheby’s new chairman, Geoffrey Smith.

“It was a good sale,” he said.

Most buyers appeared to be private collectors. High-profile art dealer Denis Savill attended, but for the first time in many years did not make a bid.

“It’s my protest against the resale royalty,” Mr Savill said.

Sotheby’s Art Buyers Chase the Rare and New (The Australian)

Collectors

Marion Maneker0May 18, 2011

Art, Business & Life

Australia’s John Kaldor has donated a substantial collection to the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Australia. Collecting was more than a pastime for Kaldor, it was an integral part of his life and business:

Right from the start, working and collecting were entwined. He was not a banker dabbling on the side. Kaldor commissioned fabric designs and bought revolutionary international art with the same eye. “I don’t think I am that talented as a businessman,” he says in the considered Hungarian accent a few years at Riverview failed to beat out of him. “I think my strength was in design and also in colour.” [...]

“As I was building my business, I didn’t buy real estate besides my home or invest in shares,” he says. “I put everything into art or art projects. I never collected because I thought it was a good investment. So in effect the collection is a big part of my assets.”

He bought energetically for 20 years through a dozen dealers in Europe and New York. “I sold when I got divorced. I sold a couple of pieces to help my children get their homes. But I never traded in art. I didn’t buy to trade and I never traded. There was a lot in storage. There were a number of works that were too big to get into my house.”

A Life’s Works (Sydney Morning Herald)

General

Marion Maneker1February 08, 2011

Goodman's Exit from Sotheby's Aus Explained

The Australian Financial Review finally gives a reasonable explanation for the sudden exit of Tim Goodman from Sotheby’s Australia only a year after he abruptly switched his First East auction holding company from Bonhams Australia to Sotheby’s Australia by acquiring the license to use Sotheby’s name as the firm exited the Australian market:

Goodman told AFR last week that the mix of high debt, greater than anticipated costs, a bad year for the art auction market, and far tougher banking conditions had underpinned his decision to bring forward his three- to four-year exit strategy in favor of Geoffrey Smith — and get out of Sotheby’s now. “In view of the current market and the performance of the top end, First East’s debt levels were too high,” Goodman said. “And this gave me some discomfort. And the reason for this is the Sotheby’s acquisition was done mostly with debt rather than equity.”

Goodman also says that the strains with Bonhams (still a 9.2 per cent shareholder in the Goodman-controlled First East) complicated the situation.

“I didn’t recapitalise because there were obstacles in the First East shareholders agreement, particularly in relation to Bonhams stake,” he says.

In other words, Goodman got jammed up in the bottom of the auction market cycle with a cranky minority shareholder and–we’re guessing here–some equally fed up equity partners who all helped him decide it was a good time to retire.

(With thanks to TK for the tip)

Museums

Marion Maneker0January 17, 2011

Questioning Art in Hobart

The Sydney Morning Herald takes a tour of David Walsh’s MONA–Museum of Old and New Art–that is being built in Tasmania:

The last thing he wants to do, though, is to tell people what to think, or make them feel inferior or intimidated. Indeed, he is not averse to sending up the pretensions of the art world, and visitors will be encouraged to have an opinion. People don’t have to like his art; he’s not even sure he likes all of it.

”We don’t know what ‘good’ is,” he says. ”We’re never going to know what ‘good’ is because there is no such thing as ‘good’. There’s taste and there’s style and there’s charisma and pizzazz and charm and chutzpah. We’ve got a million words for describing the same thing and nobody really knows what it is.”

He says while many museums hide behind a cloak of authority and demand quasi-religious faith from their audiences, he wants to do the opposite.

Tasmanian Gamble Turns Art World On Its Head (Sydney Morning Herald)

General

Marion Maneker0January 03, 2011

Goodman Pushed Aside at Sotheby's Australia

The anodyne statements coming from Sotheby’s Australia to explain the sudden retirement of Tim Goodman–the man who only last year arranged the surprise switch from Bonham’s to Sotheby’s for his Second East Auction Holdings–can’t really explain the abrupt removal of Goodman and the ascent of his erstwhile deputy Geoffrey Smith. The dry narration in The Australian would lead the casual reader to understand that a very bad year for Sotheby’s Australia amid an overall not-great year for the Australian art market meant Goodman had run out of time with his partners:

Mr Smith said the resale royalty and the threatened changes to self-managed superannuation funds had deterred buyers.

Sotheby’s strategy was to sell fewer lots, but works of “exceptional quality” that had not been on the market previously or for many years, he said.

Mr Smith, who manages the estates of Australian artists James Gleeson and Albert Tucker, said he would also aim to develop the private treaty aspect of the business.

Among the new directors is Mr Smith’s partner, Gary Singer, a former deputy lord mayor of Melbourne and currently Sotheby’s chief executive.

Smith and Singer together own 40% of the auction house.

Local Managers Buy Sotheby’s Branch (The Australian)

Auction Results

Marion Maneker0October 01, 2010

Australian Art Stays Up

The Sydney Morning Herald has some details on Sotheby’s late August sale:

Sotheby’s Australia is also travelling well. Its August 31 sale of Important Australian Art in Sydney exceeded $4.72 million, selling 64 per cent by lot and 77 per cent by value. Top result was for Brett Whiteley’s Shao (Rain Slanted by Wind), which fetched $696,000, within the estimates of $600,000 to $800,000. Other strong results included Jeffrey Smart’s The Steps (sold for $486,000, upper estimate $350,000), Charles Blackman’s The White Tablecloth ($648,000, upper estimate $750,000) and Sidney Nolan’s Ned Kelly 1957 ($72,000, upper estimate $30,000). The lesser-known Nora Heysen’s Self Portrait 1932 was a pleasant surprise, achieving $168,000. This is more than quadruple her previous record of $35,750 set by Sotheby’s in 2005.

Rarity Has Its Own Rewards (Sydney Morning Herald)