Important Australian Art

AUCTION IN SYDNEY
13 May 2014  |  6.30 pm
Treasury Room, InterContinental Sydney

Exceptional results for colonial, modern and contemporary Australian Art were achieved at Sotheby’s Australia’s major sale held on Tuesday 13 May 2014 in Sydney.  Comprising 101 lots, a total of $5,569,910 including buyer’s premium was sold, or 113.5% by value or 71.3% by volume, with new auction records for 7 artists achieved.

The highly anticipated sale of Tom Roberts’ Miss Minna Simpson (1886), an uncommissioned portrait of the niece of the artist’s then girlfriend and later wife, attracted strong bidding from both room and phone bidders and achieved an artist auction record of $976,000 (estimate $300,000-400,000, lot 30, pictured).  Initially displayed at the inaugural exhibition of the Australian Artists’ Association in Melbourne in September 1886, the painting most recently featured in the major Tom Roberts retrospective exhibition that toured Australia in 1996-1997 and remained one of a few major examples by Roberts remaining in private ownership.