On an evening in Sydney with an arctic chill in the air, Sotheby’s sale of Important Australian Art in Sydney on 28 August 2018 did break a number of Australian auction records. But one still has to wonder about the random nature of selling art in the auction room, which can particularly be observed in a tight sale containing just 67 lots. Perhaps before bidding...
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Media articles
Media articles about the art market, Banziger Hulme Fine Art and other art-related topics.
David Hulme on ABC TV NEWS
On the ABC news on 16 June 2018, David Hulme comments on the art of Del Kathryn Barton and a new record price achieved at auction for one of Australia’s most sought after artists. “Art valuer David Hulme said collectors were beginning to see the value in women’s art. He said Barton’s work “appeals to a lot of women art collectors”.” Read the transcript on...
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Art valuer and consultant David Hulme on ABC TV
David Hulme is a respected art valuer and art consultant, and he regularly appears in the media. His comments are sought from the print media and from TV, and he has been interviewed both in the press and the ABC numerous times. Art valuer and consultant David Hulme comments on the ABC News on the James Fairfax art collection auction at Deutscher & Hackett...
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Castlemaine art museum to stay open
writes Mark Kearny in the Bendigo Advertiser on 2 August 2017. An eleventh hour donation from an anonymous white knight has saved the Castlemaine Art Museum from immediate closure, with the $250,000 gift ensuring its doors stay open for at least two more years. About 400 members of the central Victorian gallery met at the Castlemaine town hall tonight to hear board chairwoman Jan Savage...
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Gallery closure labelled a “national tragedy” as art world calls on council to step in
writes Mark Kearny in the Bendigo Advertiser on 27 July 2017. Arts leaders from around Australia have voiced their outrage at the closure of Castlemaine Art Museum, labelling the decision a “national tragedy” and calling on the local council to step in. The board of the 104-year-old institution announced last week a shortfall in funding would shut the gallery’s doors for two years while a sustainable...
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Elton John-owned canvas beats estimate
writes Peter Fish in the “Australian Financial Review” on 15 June 2017. The enormous Emily Kngwarreye canvas bought by singer Elton John 20 years ago for $46,000 sold for $414,800, almost double its estimate at Bonhams sale on Tuesday last week. Measuring 1.34m by 3.70m, it is among a handful of super-size Kngwarreye paintings to come on the auction market since Earth’s Creation, 6.32m by 3.75m, sold for her...
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Elton John auctions his Emily Kame Kngwarreye painting My Country
writes Michaela Boland in The Australian on 12 June 2017. Elton John’s Emily Kame Kngwarreye landscape sold at auction for almost half a million dollars last week, ten times what the piano man bought it for two decades ago and double what Bonhams auction house expected as the bluechip art market continues its bull run. John and his husband David Furnish have been rationalising their...
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Australian art market gets fired up as auction records fall
writes Peter Fish in the “Australian Financial Review” on 10 May 2017. The mood in the art market is reviving after almost a decade of flatlining annual sales. Evidence of increased dealer activity on behalf of private clients is mounting amid improving sentiment and the evidence of several successful sales this year – culminating in last week’s Sotheby’s Australia sale, where numerous works realised way above...
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Local art market surges ahead at breakneck pace
writes Michaela Boland in “The Australian” on 4 May 2017. The Australian art market continued its stellar run last night when Sotheby’s Australia auctioned 108 artworks for $14.3 million, the company’s best result since the market peaked a year before the global financial crisis hit. Four artist records were set but the highlight of a night when only a couple of big artworks failed to find...
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Hammer comes down on busy year in art auction
writes Michaela Boland in The Australian on 9 December 2016. As the nation’s art auction houses draw the shutters on a busy year, sales figures reveal a dynamic buyers’ market in an industry that’s working harder for the money. With just a few small sales outstanding this year, total artwork transactions at auction were $102 million, about 8 per cent down on last year. Despite...
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Tom Roberts coin donated to Prime Minister’s office goes missing
By Marion Ives, ABC News, 11 April 2016 The disappearance of a valuable artefact that belonged to one of Australia’s most prominent artists, Tom Roberts, is now before the Australian Federal Police. Donated to the Prime Minister’s office for inclusion in a public collection, the coin was allegedly handed to a prime ministerial adviser at the official opening of the National Gallery of Australia’s (NGA)...
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Picture this: a guide to art investment for the uninitiated
By Susan Muldowny, published in “In The Black”, 27 October 2015 Looking for an alternative form of investment? Fine art can bring great rewards, but you need to do your homework and seek advice. When Grace Cossington Smith’s modernist painting The Window sold for double its pre-sale estimate at a Sotheby’s Australia auction in November 2014, the local art world was aghast. Not only did...
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The Art of Valuing Beautiful Things
By Susan Muldowney | Vol: 38 Issue: 2 | Jul 2015 Published in The Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Insurance and Finance The sale of Arthur Streeton painting The Windsor Damsel, Fishing earlier this year raised a few eyebrows in the art world. The rarity of Streeton works, the condition of the painting and the unquestionable esteem of the artist...
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Hits and misses as Minter Ellison sells down art collection
Jane O’Sullivan writes on the Sotheby’s auction of Fine Asian, Australian and European Arts and Design in the Australian Financial Review of 23 July 2015: ….. While the majority of these Minter Ellison works were from the 1990s and early 2000s, there were also 10 Max Dupain photographs. The most interest was shown for his beach scenes. Art consultant David Hulme was outbid on The...
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Record Price for rare Window on weak night at Sotheby’s art auction
Record Price for rare Window on weak night at Sotheby’s art auction By Michaela Boland, The Australian, 26 November 2014 One of the earliest and largest of Grace Cossington Smith’s much-acclaimed late interiors — and possibly the only one still in private hands — ignited a bidding frenzy at Sotheby’s Australia’s Important Australian and International Art auction last night. The Window was listed with expectations...
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Did Edmund Capon find his true calling at Deutscher + Hackett?
The star of the show at Deutscher + Hackett’s auction of Australian and International fine art on 27 August 2014 was without a doubt the cover lot, Jeffrey Smart’s Self Portrait at Papini’s, 1984-85 (lot 11), selling for the artist’s record of $1.05 million hammer, but coming a very close second would have to be Edmund Capon who was hilarious as celebrity auctioneer, ably assisted...
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Bottoms up – Menzies first two day sale gets bums on seats
A large number of nude and semi-nude figures dominated the Menzies offering of Australian and international fine art and sculpture in the evening sale of 151 lots, set off by four remarkably similar Whiteley nudes prominently displaying their bottoms to the viewer. Nude offerings also came from Garry Shead, John Brack, Auguste Rodin, Norman Lindsay (of course), Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd, Guy Boyd, Pablo Picasso,...
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Radio interviews with David Hulme in July 2014
Listen to David Hulme’s comments on the art market from 24th July on Sydney’s Triple M with Joe Hildebrand and Matt Tilley https://audioboo.fm/boos/2348285-one-percenters-24th-july-2014#t=11m34s Listen to David’s comments on the art market from 1st July on Perth’s Mix 94.5 with Lisa and Tim https://audioboo.fm/boos/2297270-lisa-tim-daily-podcast-2nd-of-july ...
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Long holiday pays off for Deutscher +Hackett
The Deutscher + Hackett sale strategy of letting the Easter and Anzac Holiday fall between viewings in Sydney and Melbourne appears to have paid off handsomely: On Wednesday night, the auction room was packed with dealers, consultants and collectors refreshed and ready to spend in their second major sale of the year. The results confirmed the impression: the auction house sold 76% by volume and...
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Dorrit Black’s Prices Erupt
A spectacular eruption of her prices was witnessed at Bonhams The Grosvenor School and Avant-garde British Printmaking sale in London on 15th April. Dorrit Black in fact did witness the eruption of Mount Etna in Sicily in 1928 and created this linocut print of her experience (lot 107). Bonhams perhaps saved the best until last with Australian Grosvenor School expats Ethel Spowers and Dorrit Black...
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5AA’s Jeremy Cordeaux interviews David Hulme on buying art online
Radio 5AA, Adelaide, 21 April 2014: Jeremy Cordeaux interviews David Hulme on buying art online; in particular on his advice when considering purchasing art from Chartfords. Listen to the full interview here: David_Hulme_5AA ...
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Art scammers get crafty online, customers warned
By Andrew Taylor, The Sun-Herald, 20 April 2014 “Consumers are at risk of being ripped off by a website selling artworks and prints at more than 10 times their market value, a leading art expert has warned. David Hulme said art collectors should avoid making purchases from Chartfords, an online gallery that operates in Britain with a head office in Canada. “I’m concerned, not just...
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Oxford Falls Grammar School Student Wins Fine Art Award
2013 HSC graduate, Luke Henderson, has been awarded the Banziger Hulme Fine Art Award at the Manly Art Gallery’s Express Yourself exhibition. … David Hulme of Banziger Hulme Fine Art Consultants said he was particularly impressed by the printmaking skills of Luke Henderson and presented Luke with a limited edition signed print. “When I look at an exhibition of HSC students I go O.K. which...
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Closing time for Breuer gallery
By Andrew Taylor, Sydney Morning Herald, 17 March 2014 Sydney will lose yet another commercial art gallery, with the announcement that the well-regarded Eva Breuer gallery will close in May. … Art consultant David Hulme says the gallery’s closure is not a sign the art market is in trouble. However, like other areas of retail, buyers are turning to the internet to view and buy...
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Art sales paint positive picture
Written by Steve Dow and published in The Age, 17 December 2013 “Art sales at auction in Australia defied dire predictions this year, despite small-time investors backing away from buying low and middle-priced art for their own superannuation funds. Total art sales at auction will reach $104 million this year, up from $95 million in 2012, according to the Australian Art Sales Digest – but...
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Emily adds Colour to Deutscher+Hackett Sale
What is chosen for a cover lot of an auction catalogue can make for interesting insights. Not necessarily is it the most expensive offering of the night, but perhaps a painting that is beautiful, decorative and able to set off a whole catalogue of works. So, not surprisingly, Brett Whiteley makes it on to the front of fine art auction catalogues probably more than most...
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Whiteley’s Armchair Rocks
It has been a long time since the boom year of 2007 when the print media were excited enough to splash an Australian art auction story on the front page and the bull market was waiting with baited breath for the next great and good auction record to be broken. This week, Melbourne’s ‘The Age’ was happy to oblige prior to the auction on 31...
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Art market more gloom than boom
The Sun-Herald, 8 September 2013, by Andrew Taylor “Blame it on the resale royalties scheme, changes to superannuation, the end of the mining boom or pre-election jitters – but most people believe the Australian art market is in the doldrums. However, auction results for this year suggest the market is healthier than the doomsayers claim. … … Art consultant David Hulme said there had been...
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Nude finds the room bare of buyers
The Australian, 28/08/2013, by Michaela Boland “Pre-election jitters got the better of art buyers at Sotheby’s Australia’s Important Australian Art auction …. David Hulme said he thought Sotheby’s had limited its options by offering so few artworks. A larger collection would have attracted more buyers who might then have found themselves interested in others as well. …”...
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Indigenous Australian art market suffering substantial decline
Katie Hamann reported this story on Friday, 9 August 2013, 18:46:00 on Radio ABC News, PM. Click to listen to the interview. PETER LLOYD: For the better part of a decade, Indigenous Australian art was at the top of many collectors ‘must have’ list. After hitting a high of $26 million in 2007, turnover has plummeted to around $8 million annually. Indigenous art dealers and...
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