Smith & Singer In the News

ABC Radio Australia  | Stephanie Corsetti

With the Castlemaine Art Museum in central Victoria due to close on August 11, hundreds of locals at a meeting are told an eleventh-hour lifeline means the landmark will remain open.

The Age  |  Carolyn Webb

Syndicated: Brisbane Times, Canberra Times, The Sydney Morning Herald, WA Today

Shock and anger at the closure of the 104-year-old Castlemaine Art Museum turned to joy on Wednesday night.

White knight private donors have pledged $300,000 to save the key Castlemaine tourist attraction, which was slated for closure after the board said it had insufficient funds to continue operating.

The Australian

Andrew Marks remembers the occasion but not the art. It was 1965, and he was with family in the upmarket Melbourne suburb of Toorak for the 100th birthday party of his great-grandmother, Esther Abrahams.

Acquired directly from the artist’s solo exhibition in Adelaide in 1953, The Pink 1953 was recently included in the comprehensive Charles Blackman: Schoolgirls exhibition at Heide Museum of Modern Art where, with the assistance of Sotheby’s Australia, it was fully catalogued and reproduced for the first time.  During the process another painting of a schoolgirl at Kooyong Stadium was revealed on the reverse and is reproduced for the first time by Sotheby’s Australia.

One of the most subtle and beautiful touches in The Pink – and its companion composition There Was (sold Sotheby’s Australia for $840,000 May 2012) – is the careful placement of the delicate flower in the schoolgirls’ hand.  In an overall monotone composition, this burst of pink enhances the dreamlike quality of the work.  It underscores the painting’s tone of emotional fragility, its sense of imminent collapse – or flight.

Like much of Blackman’s work, the Schoolgirl series has its origin in a synthesis of real-world experience and literary inspiration.  In the early 1950s, Charles and Barbara Blackman were living in Hawthorn, and Charles would see flocks of independent schoolgirls in uniform in the streets of the neighbourhood and when walking to his casual gardening jobs.  The imagery of everyday experience was focused, highlighted and shadowed in the artist’s imagination by the story of the Gun Alley Murder of 1921, in which a 12 year old girl was raped and strangled in a city laneway this dark occurrence echoed another, recent murder closer to home, the bashing of his wife’s university friend Betty Shanks. 

‘The Pink is one of the most significant images from the artist’s schoolgirl series ever offered for auction.  Blackman’s Schoolgirl paintings are sensitive, powerful explorations of childhood.  In urgent, streaky brushstrokes, in baby pinks and blues or in steely, near-monochrome grey-greens and pale ochres, Blackman’s schoolgirls dance and float and cast their long shadows across claustrophobic inner city lanes and agoraphobic emptiness.  We were thrilled to discover another painting on the verso of The Pink, a previously unknown work by the artist.  We are honoured to be entrusted with such an important work by one of Australia’s greatest living artists' said Geoffrey Smith, Chairman of Sotheby's Australia.

Works from Charles Blackman’s Schoolgirl series are held in Australia’s major public collections, including the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Heide Museum of Modern Art, Melbourne; Museum & Art Gallery of the Northern Territory, Darwin; National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; Parliament House Collection, Canberra; and TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria.

pictured above:
Verso: Charles Blackman, The Pink 1953.
© Charles Blackman. Licenced by VISCOPY Ltd, Australia

Pictured main:
Charles Blackman, The Pink 1953
© Charles Blackman. Licenced by VISCOPY Ltd, Australia

Australian Financial Review | Peter Fish

A large Arthur Boyd oil which has twice attracted public admiration and two Brett Whiteley views of Sydney's Lavender Bay, where the artist lived from the 1970s, are among the highlights of a sale next month.

The Australian Financial Review | Peter Fish

A Demetre Chiparus bronze and ivory sculpture of a scantily clad woman 67cm high, Antinea, scored equal top price at a Sotheby's sale of Australian and European art and design in Sydney last week.

Australian Financial Review | Peter Fish

Paintings by John Perceval and Rupert Bunny and a Chiparus bronze and ivory figure stand out at Sotheby's Australia's upcoming sale of Asian, Australian and European arts and design.

Australian Financial Review |  James Cockington

There were some who predicted that the wristwatch would go the way of typewriters and videotapes. Not so. At Sotheby's Australia's May 23 Important Jewels auction a Rolex watch sold for $219,600 including buyer's premium, way above estimates of $80,000 to $120,000. This is claimed as a new record price for any watch sold at auction in Australia.

Time and Tide | Felix Scholz

On Monday we told you about a Rolex ‘Paul Newman’ Daytona that was being auctioned by Sotheby’s Australia the following night. Well, on Wednesday we discovered that the watch hammered in at $219,600 (including buyer’s premium), making it the most expensive wristwatch ever auctioned in Australia.

Time and Tide  |  Felix Scholtz

The ‘Paul Newman’ Daytona is one of THE legendary watches. At its most basic level it’s an exotic dialled variant of the (already iconic) Rolex Daytona. Unpopular when it was originally released, things kicked off for the watch when pictures of Paul Newman wearing a ref. 6239 emerged and the once-obscure chronograph became one of the hottest tickets in town. And, like the story of all mythical creatures, that of the Paul Newman is a nugget of truth surrounded by a whole lot of  rumour, speculation and downright BS. The reason is simple – Paul Newmans are worth big dollars. For example, a particularly primo gold ref. 6263 sold just the other weekend, setting a new record with its whopping $3.7m USD hammer price.