IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

The exhibition will be on view in Sydney today, Wednesday 16 November, 10 am to 5 pm, at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

Among the highlights of the sale is Brett Whiteley's magnificent Vision of Bali 1976-1978 (lot 12, estimate $800,000-1,200,000, pictured above).  

Brett Whiteley is widely and appropriately celebrated as one of Australia’s great cultural identities: both a charismatic artist pop star and a phenomenally gifted draughtsman and painter.  Versatile and expansive, his oeuvre encompasses a wide range of media and subjects – in 1978, the year in which the present Vision of Bali (1976-1978) was completed, Whiteley became the first and only artist ever to win all three of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ prestigious painting prizes; the Archibald (portraiture), the Wynne (landscape) and the Sulman (subject/genre).

While Whiteley’s practice is panoramic and plural – landscapes, interiors and still life, figure paintings, nudes and animals – there are nevertheless a number of persistent, recurrent motifs and symbols.  Some of the most familiar and admired are the supremely seductive and beguiling images of Whiteley’s world viewed from the window – including Bali, Fiji, London, New York, Paris, Tuscany, and of course the most renowned, Sydney – a bird’s eye view of the scene that lay before him in which he could express his creative genius.  

Vision of Bali is the artist’s most splendid visual culmination of a place that resonated with meaning and purpose, a place to which he returned in moments of great happiness, as well as despair.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 16 November 2022.

AndrewMcIlroy.com  |  Andrew McIlroy

Criss Canning’s great grandmother’s delicately embroidered table cloth sweeps across the plane of one of her cherished paintings, bringing together a closely-held assortment of Japanese and Western glazed vases and earthenware and thoughtfully placed flowers. 

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

The exhibition will be on view in Sydney from Monday 14 November until Wednesday 16 November, 10 am to 5 pm, at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

This sale presents a collection of extraordinary moments in Australian art history.  Surveying major stylistic developments, this auction offers rare and prestigious examples of Naturalism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Modernism, and Abstraction, along with ground-breaking paintings, sculptures and works on paper by the most influential artistic innovators of historical, modern and contemporary Australian Art.

Among the highlights of the sale are Charles Blackman’s seminal Girl Talk (1960), Joel Elenberg’s expressive Woman I (1975) and Albert Tucker’s compelling Armoured Explorer 1996 that fuses the profile of the Antipodean head with the Ned Kelly armour to create an image of extraordinary power and gravitas.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 16 November 2022.

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

The exhibition will be on view in Sydney from Friday 11 November until Wednesday 16 November, 10 am to 5 pm, at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

This sale presents a collection of extraordinary moments in Australian art history.  Surveying major stylistic developments, this auction offers rare and prestigious examples of Naturalism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Modernism, and Abstraction, along with ground-breaking paintings, sculptures and works on paper by the most influential artistic innovators of historical, modern and contemporary Australian Art.

Among the highlights of the sale are Arthur Boyd's evocative The Old Farm (1958) (lot 13, estimate $150,000-250,000, pictured above left) and spectacular recently repatriated Bride and Bridegroom by a Stream (1960) (lot 11, estimate †$350,000-550,000, pictured above right), as well as Joel Elenberg's magnificent Head VI (1976) (lot 6, estimate $60,000-80,000, pictured above centre) all representing rare and important compositions within the history and development of Modern Australian Art.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 16 November 2022.

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

The exhibition will be on view in Sydney from Wednesday 9 November until Wednesday 16 November, 10 am to 5 pm, at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

This sale presents a collection of extraordinary moments in Australian art history.  Surveying major stylistic developments, this auction offers rare and prestigious examples of Naturalism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Modernism, and Abstraction, along with ground-breaking paintings, sculptures and works on paper by the most influential artistic innovators of historical, modern and contemporary Australian Art.

Among the highlights of the sale are exceptional examples of Australian Impressionism, including Rupert Bunny’s delightful On the Cliff (1910) and Arthur Streeton’s magnificent Romance in Blue and Gold (1932).

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 16 November 2022.

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

The exhibition will be on view in Melbourne from Wednesday 2 November until Sunday 6 November, 10 am to 5 pm, at 14-16 Collins Street.

Among the highlights of the sale is Lin Onus' magnificent and confronting Ten Little Niggers (1992) (estimate $400,000–600,000, pictured above), an image that powerfully blends Indigenous and Western references with startling originality.

The figure of a nude woman lying on an inflatable Li-lo floating on a leafy billabong is one of only three major paintings of the female nude by Lin Onus, and is the earliest of these.  Ten Little Niggers (1992) with its confrontational title was painted two years before the ambiguously titled The Joy of Fishing – In Waiting (1994, Private Collection) followed by the portrait-like Robyn (1995, Private Collection).  In this remarkable composition Lin Onus has faithfully rendered in detail the cover of Christie’s world-wide best-seller to crystallise the allusions within his painting as a metaphor for the historic racist stereotyping that has insidiously permeated Western culture.

Following Melbourne, the Sydney exhibition will take place from 10-16 November, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 16 November 2022.

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

The exhibition will be on view in Melbourne from Wednesday 2 November until Sunday 6 November, 10 am to 5 pm, at 14-16 Collins Street.

Among the highlights of the sale is Arthur Boyd’s exceptional Bride and Bridegroom by a Stream (1960) from the artist’s most acclaimed and revered ‘Bride’ series.  Until recently the composition remained unknown to art historians and has been repatriated to Australia from the collection of the distinguished publisher Frederick Praeger, Colorado.  The subject represents one of the most romantic, tender and ethereal in the series.  Here the bride and bridegroom are coupled in the Australian bush, their faces and bodies almost merging into one, as the bride’s diaphanous gown shimmers and glistens as it catches the last rays of light.  Caught somewhere between myth and imagination, dreamtime and real-time, the whole seduction-rejection story is played out against a landscape background of undulating and thinly wooded hills that owe something to Boyd’s slightly earlier Berwick and Murrumbeena compositions.

Bride and Bridegroom by a Stream represents an exciting and important rediscovery from Arthur Boyd’s most critically acclaimed series within the history and development of Australian art.

Following Melbourne, the Sydney exhibition will take place from 10-16 November, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 16 November 2022.

The digital catalogue for the upcoming Important Australian Art auction at Smith & Singer is now available to view online.

Among the highlights of the sale is Arthur Streeton’s magnificent Romance in Blue and Gold (1932) (lot 32, estimate $300,000-500,000, pictured above).  

It is not difficult to understand why Arthur Streeton is one of the most highly regarded, appreciated and beloved of all Australian artists, and that his images of the ocean, in particular, have captured our hearts and minds.

In early 1932 Streeton visited Port Campbell and completed six major canvasses that responded to one of the most dramatic sections of Victoria’s entire coastline.  In such compositions created between the First and Second World Wars, Streeton expressed his concerns and ideals to present an Australian landscape that remained genuine, pure and clear; a landscape the reflected stability, resilience and fortitude; recaptured something uniquely Australian that had been feared as potentially lost; and looked to the future with promise and hope.  Romance in Blue and Gold has long been regarded as one of the artist’s finest and evocative subjects from this crucial period.

The exhibition will take place in Melbourne from Wednesday 2 November – Sunday 6 November, 10 am to 5 pm at 14-16 Collins Street, and in Sydney from Thursday 10 November – Wednesday 16 November, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 16 November 2022.

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART

The digital catalogue for the upcoming Important Australian Art auction at Smith & Singer is now available to view online.

Among the highlights of the sale is Brett Whiteley’s magnificent Vision of Bali 1976-1978 (lot 12, estimate $800,000-1,200,000, pictured above).  

Brett Whiteley is widely and appropriately celebrated as one of Australia’s great cultural identities: both a charismatic artist pop star and a phenomenally gifted draughtsman and painter.  Versatile and expansive, his oeuvre encompasses a wide range of media and subjects – in 1978, the year in which Vision of Bali was completed, Whiteley became the first and only artist ever to win all three of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ prestigious painting prizes; the Archibald (portraiture), the Wynne (landscape) and the Sulman (subject/genre).

Vision of Bali pulsates with an exuberance and radiance that, like Van Gogh, presents a landscape that seems alive, vital and quivering.  Onto the beautifully primed and painted surface the artist articulates the outlines of the shapes of an exotic scene that is both physical and metaphysical, real and imagined.  Saturated and bathed in a golden light, the canvas catapults the viewer to a heightened state of reality.  It is a subject known and experienced by Whiteley.  It is Whiteley making Van Gogh his own.

The exhibition will take place in Melbourne from Wednesday 2 November – Sunday 6 November, 10 am to 5 pm at 14-16 Collins Street, and in Sydney from Thursday 10 November – Wednesday 16 November, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 16 November 2022.

IMPORTANT JEWELS, WATCHES & MEDALS

Consign now to our next auction of Important Jewels, Watches & Medals that will take place in Sydney in December 2022.

This auction will build on the resounding success of our August Important Jewels & Watches sale, which realised a total of $1,343,127, our highest since 2019, and demonstrated that demand remains strong for diamonds, coloured gemstones and jewels and watches by the world’s leading jewellery brands and watchmakers.  A number of important pieces have already been consigned, including this spectacular diamond and gem-set 'Allegra' necklace, Bulgari, circa 2010 (estimate $40,000–50,000, pictured above).

Smith & Singer offer unique and unparalleled access to local and international collectors.  Contact our specialists now for a confidential appraisal.