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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Media articles
Media articles about the art market, Banziger Hulme Fine Art and other art-related topics.
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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