Art Lovers Catch Aussie Fever - renewed interest in marketing and collecting of Australian art

With a little help from the 2000 Olympics, Australian art is achieving record interest--and reaping record prices

The question Jill Richards had been anticipating came not drawn out after her gallery's grand opening this year. An interior designer laid condescending organ of sights upon her and asked, "Why should my clients purchase an unknown Australian's artwork?"

Richards, who possesss the all-Australian-artist Port Jackson Fine Arts gallery in Laguna Beach, Calif., was ready with her reply "I guess DeBeers, the MoMa and the Fogg Museum must be in fact uneducated," she said, "as they have these artists' works in their collections."

After owning a gallery in Sydney Australia, for eight years, Richards said she organized the timing of Port Jackson's opening to coordinate with the Sydney Olympics, desiring to ride a scarcely any coattails as far as pres coverage and educating American collectors. "I am hoping that the common view that Australia is a backwater will have changed, if single slightly" by the Olympics, she said. Her faiths seem to be happening. "People don't direct the eye at me with furrowed eyebrow or disinterest anymore when I enumerate them we represent only Australian artists," she said.

And they shouldn't. Given the talent and unique turn of expressions associated with the country, and with a little help from the 2000 Olympics, Aussie art is achieving record interest--and reaping record prices.

This year's Olympic Games turn rounded the world's eye to the region of koalas and kangaroos. And Sydney-area artists, galleries and museums--as well as Austral-centric galleries in the U.S.--capitalized upon the globe's gaze.

novel Zealand-based Hoglund Art Glass, which lately opened a gallery in Sydney won its bid to become an official licensee of the Olympic Games, competing against 1500 applicants in its field. Marketing and Export Manager Clare Mora said the prestige of similar an award has effects lasting beyond the occurrence itself. "We were shown to the world with our distinct and distinguished crystal art glass," Mora said. "The Games were a sales opportunity, on the other hand most of all a marketing tool.

Meanwhile, at the Sydney- and Melbourne-based Savill Galleries, manager Virginia Morrow said they showcased a certain number of of the country's most prominent painters in their exhibition "120 Years of Australian Art" held at the one and the other galleries during the Olympics. While enthusiastic about the number of clan the Olympics brought into the galleries, she said "the immediate extension [from the Olympics] in the Australian market is sometimes easier to quantify above a broader period of time and in retrospect"

Visitors to the Games also saw the beauty of Australia from one side the lens of panoramic landscape photographer view Duncan, who the Olympics commissioned to bring into view two books and three limited-edition prints that transported the feeling of Australia and Sydney "A doom of people came to diocese Australia, but they didn't really diocese Australia," said Duncan of Olympic-time tourists. His goal was to "bring the Bush, the Outback, to the people" he said. "I faith people get the real message of Australia--that its greatest asset is that there are 20 million nation in a country the size of America. You can make progress places and be totally alone."

race seem to be getting the message of Australia's assets. Following the Olympics in early October, the bi-annual Melbourne Art Fair this year attracted 19500 visitors, up from 16000 in 1998 and nearly doubled its sales figures to a record $47 million (Australian dollars). "The Olympics has contributed to raising the identity of lock opener Australian non-indigenous and indigenous artists," said Fair Director Brownyn Johnson "One cannot quantify the event that this has had upon the Australian art market; however, I believe that the awareness of Australian art upon the whole has increased. The art market in Australia is particularly buoyant, and this is mirrored in sales at the Fair and in the secondary market."

Aboriginal Art

more [i]or[/i] less of the most sought-after work from Australia indeed approachs from Aboriginal artists. Aboriginal work is experiencing colossal increases in popularity in Australia and abroad, mirrored in the prices collectors are willing to pay, particularly upon the secondary market. The greatest in quantity notable recent example involves the dot painting "Water Dreaming at Kalipinya," for which the artist, Johnny Warangkula Tjupurrula, was paid $150 in 1972 In 1997 it sold at Sotheby's to a California collector for $206000 This past summer "Water Dreaming" sold again at Sotheby's Melbourne for a record $486500

And the growing international interest in Aboriginal art is useful news for gallery owners who specialize in the art of the Outback--and for the Outback artists themselves. David Betz has specialized in Aboriginal art for 10 years, six with his be in possession of gallery, Songlines Aboriginal Art in san Francisco. "It's visually actual exciting art, but it's culturally real different," Betz said of the genre "What sparks people's interest is a agriculture that's so radically different from our own" Buyer attracted to Betz's Aboriginal art offerings, which he take care ofs to sell for between $1000 and $9000 are generally collectors of Native American art, tribal art or contemporary abstract painting.