Art Collector

By Jenny Potts Barr & Daniela Palitos

It has been a while since the last time we interviewed for LAP. This interview is slightly different as our interviewee wishes to remain anonymous so he will be referred to as Art Collector from here on.

Art Collector and his collection. Paintings –Top row: Jeffrey Smart, Clarice Beckett, Margaret Olley. Bottom row: William Robinson, Gary Shead.

Introducing Art Collector

Art Collector sat with us on several occasions to discuss and tell us all about his involvement with the current art market in Australia. 

He has a love of the countryside and landscapes that goes beyond the art works he collects. He loves Perth but it is in Margaret River that he seeks refuge and where he has been travelling down south to surf since the 1970’s. And in Margaret River is where we met.

For us, having a different perspective of the art world in Western Australia through the eyes of an art collector was one of our main aims in talking with Art Collector.

From childhood memories of watching the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s (ABC) Today Tonight artists interviews and Mr. Squiggle to becoming a life member at the Art Gallery of WA Foundation, Art Collector will guide us through his love of art and his do’s and don’ts of the art market.

He does not use the gallery system, instead preferring to hunt established works down through auction houses and with plenty of research aimed at building a complete collection of his vision of Australian painting over the last century.

You started collecting art 15 years ago. How did your collecting begin?

AC – I subscribe to auction houses, so they send me their catalogues. I also like checking out works online, but when I check the catalogue, it is so different – I’m such a hands-on person. And that is when I really fall in love with an art piece.

I also subscribe to the Australian Art Sales Digest (AASD), they have all auction results since 1969 in Australia. And that is how you learn to value. It is like real estate – recent sales of comparable artworks – like recent sales of comparable properties. Artist, medium, period, theme, size along with provenance, references in books on the artists, and exhibition history are the main factors in valuing as well as recent comparable sales.

Do you have an immediate connection to a particular artwork when you start researching for your next piece or does it grow overtime?

AC – For every artwork I am interested in, I look at it intensely. Every room in my house has a printout of the specific artwork on the wall. I also have it on my screen savers, just to try and see if I get sick of it or love it more. That is why for three and half weeks I was stressing out about this one from Clarice Beckett, because as with all auctions it is how high you are going to go or when is it time to pull out. Many years ago, I bought a work of art, and I went too high – I could never look at it. I went like “Loser!”. I couldn’t have it in my lounge, I couldn’t have it anywhere. In the end I had to sell it. I sold it five years later at a loss. But that was the best lesson I could have learnt.

Talk us through what it is like to walk into your house, past its 1950s facade to then enter through the front door. What would we find?

AC – My hallway contains works from the Heidelberg artists. The Frederick McCubbin oil is from 1908 while the Tom Roberts oil is from 1925. The Charles Conder pencil is from 1906, and the Arthur Streeton watercolour is from when he was a war artist, c.1918. Then we have a Jane Sutherland pastel dated between 1904-1911. Jane Sutherland painted with these artists but is mostly overlooked. Only thirty-four of her works have come to auction in the last 50 years.

Over the past two years I also bought a Joy Hester from the Heide group, and more recently a Clarice Beckett. There is a big gap between the female artists that I have: 1904-1911 with Sutherland, 1930 with Beckett, 1952 with Hester, and finally 1963 with Margaret Olley. I got the Clarice Beckett one because all my artworks from female artists are figurative. So having a landscape from a female artist is like “Wow!”.

I’m also wanting to balance the collection out, making sure I have works from female artists who have a softer way of approaching things. That it is beautiful.

Have you noticed more works from female artists coming up in recent art auctions?

AC – Totally. Even most auction houses now are doing the first ten works of female artists. If you look at the auction houses over the past three years, it has had a huge shift towards recognizing female artists and trying to push them as being major artworks. And that is why the old master’s portraits of female sitters aren’t selling as much because of this shift changing towards seeing women in a totally different light. Bessie Davidson, I didn’t really know who she was, and I have been researching a bit, her works are going for hundreds of thousand dollars.

Also, the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) have the “Know my name” initiative, which is great, but some female artists are not included. This is leading the change to possibly helping auction houses and their clientele to look at buying more female art. In turn, that will make emerging female artists more respected than they would have had ten years ago.

Who influenced you as an art collector?

AC – That is an interesting one – no one. If you come to my house, I’ll have in every second room Kodak things around. Kodak cameras is where my collecting began. I still enjoy having these and I can still move them around. That is how people become collectors.

Any collector becomes a bit obsessive.  I can understand that. In the Michael Reid book on How to Buy and Sell Art that I bought five years ago says that many people buy a Pro Hart and then try and buy an art piece from each of the major artists. I’m guilty – I have a little Pro Hart and now I’m trying to buy one of every major artist.

There are fantastic artists who never achieved enough recognition. I love Jack Absalom and Frank Pash – I grew up with these guys. They paint wonderful outback scenes, but their work sells comparatively cheaply. Jack Absalom had a tv show where he took you out to the outback country, and Frank Pash was highly regarded in Perth.

No one really inspired me in art collecting. The main factor was my introduction to Menzies, Deutscher & Hackett, Sothebys (now Smith and Singer) and the auction houses over East. Their catalogues alone taught me so much. I have also collected and studied over 100 books on the artists I admire.

How is the relationship between art collectors and curators, art collectors and auctioneers?

AC – I love doing my own curation and my own research. It comes down to if I want a particular artist. Art collectors are often competing against curators from major galleries while the auction houses are after sales regardless.

Why investing in art? Is it a pure financial drive or a combination between investment and beauty?

AC – I buy it because I love it, but it is also an investment. My art collection, it is an investment, and that is where many people say, “I don’t like that!”. The whole idea is that the artwork may be worth more down the track. Like many other investments some will go up, some will go down, but some may go right up.

The beauty of art is that you try and buy the ones you think will go up in value. With Clarice Beckett, only four hundred works have come up in the last 50 years. Sidney Nolan, Charles Blackman, Arthur Boyd have had eight thousand to ten thousand works that came up. It is like Ian Fairweather – three hundred works came up over the last 50 years. I bought my Fairweather five years ago, and it is now worth 50% more.  Fairweather was known to not produce a large amount of work. I think with anything, as in pricing, it is supply versus demand. So, it is in art.

On the other hand, my David Boyd is worth half that I paid for it ten years ago. Like all investments you win some and lose others. I still love my David Boyd and maybe in another ten years it will increase in value.  

Guide us through – how does the auction art market work in Australia?

AC – Well, when you buy an art piece from the East Coast you will pay 25% commission. If the price is a thousand dollars you will pay twelve hundred and fifty. Then, when you want to sell, you might have to pay 10% commission. So really, if you are looking at 25% when you buy it on top of what you purchase, and a potential 10% when you sell it. That is why you need to look at it as a long-term investment.

When we started our research, we saw many art collectors talking about having a “good eye”. Do you have a “good eye”? If yes, has it changed over these 15 years of art collecting?

AC – I thought a lot about that. And then, it totally changed when the Clarice Beckett came along. So, a “good eye” is what would suit your house and your collection. What artists or art style do you like? It comes up from all these different levels. Then your perspectives change – so I guess the “good eye” also changes. Originally, I was buying signed prints because I couldn’t afford the oils. There was a learning process, which was perfect as I learned how things work and how the Australian Art Sales Digest valued things and gave me the opportunity to research specifically on an artist’s style.  

The “good eye” is who you’re chasing. I’m chasing Clarice Beckett and Grace Cossington-Smith, they’re around the same time, they are both modernists, and I wanted a female modernist artist. When the Clarice Beckett came up, so small but so beautiful, with great provenance, and with having a great exhibition history in significant galleries, then my eyes were totally focused on that, and something overtakes the eye, and you go:”- I want it!”.

“I love the secondary market, because it is exciting and gives a truer value of the art piece. It is exciting leading up to the auction.”

You seem to have a preference to acquire your artworks mainly from auctioneers rather than art galleries.

AC – My goal is to acquire fifty important artists from a century of Australian art. So, most of the artists I seek are dead and can’t be found in galleries that sell art. Of the ten artists still living in my collection, only one was bought through a gallery.  

I love the secondary market, because it is exciting and gives a truer value of the art piece. It is exciting leading up to the auction. How high will I bid? That is the big question each time.

Do you go to art galleries?

AC – I go to events at the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA), Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery (LWAG), and the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) on a regular basis. I follow online many smaller galleries that sell artists’ works to keep abreast of the local scene. I don’t go to their openings as I feel a bit guilty drinking their wine when I know we will not be purchasing any art.

What is your relationship with the artist?

AC – I need to have respect for the artist. Normally, I respect the artist because I go: “- I can’t do that!”, and I understand what they have done. I have seen their progress in their career. We are really talking about the practical side of art collecting with auctioneers. But then you must have a connection with the person who does the work that you get. For example, Margaret Olley painted so many different things, and then Donald Friend in Newcastle in the 1960s told her to start painting a certain subject, and she started to paint still life. My 1963 Olley’s still life is magnificent, and I say, “Thanks Donald Friend for that!”. And then you look at her work, what she has done for her whole life, what a wonderful woman, her passion. Respect.

In a way, I started collecting signatures, especially on signed prints to say that I had a Fred Williams print, or that I have got a Norman Lindsay print. But their signature is only their signature. A print is a glorified photocopy as I have always said, and people hate me saying that. To have an original work of an artist they completed, and then they sign it. That is why I can’t stand buying works that aren’t signed.

I had a Elizabeth Durack. It was owned by the Australian Wool Corporation as it has a shearing scene. It is her work, and had a great provenance, but it is not signed. That drove me mad. I had to sell it! However, last year I bought a Howard Taylor that is not signed. It is such a small work and probably he couldn’t sign it on the front anyway. It is catalogued and provenanced as his work. Otherwise, every other artwork I have in my collection is all signed.

Perhaps this is still me trying to collect signatures like I did when I was a small boy collecting Carlton Football Club player’s autographs.

The other influence was Today Tonight on ABC – a show after the news during the 60s and 70s. They would interview an artist towards the end of the show. I remember Guy Grey-Smith talking about art. I remember Whiteley and Nolan interviews.

Were your parents into it?

AC – Yes, we would watch the news and then Today Tonight which was the Current Affairs show afterwards. Once every two weeks they would have an artist interviewed on the show. And then of course, the artist that wrapped Double Bay in Sydney in 1969, Christo – Wrapped Coast 1968-1969. That also influenced me too, because I realized it wasn’t just painting and sculpture, that you can cover a bay in Sydney and that is art! That opened my mind too, that is really the foundation.

Talking about foundations, you are a part of the Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) Foundation. How does it work?

AC – Well, first I was in with Friends of AGWA, and we were paying a certain amount of money, and being invited to events. Took me a while before I found out there was a Foundation. That is where they ask you to put a thousand dollars per year over five years. Once you have donated five thousand dollars you become a life member. That is changing now, they have been talking about doing yearly donations. Basically, you are invited to Picture Clubs, we go one Monday a month, and the tour guides take us around and talks about whatever is on exhibition at the time and ask us for our insight on the show.

Therefore, you get to look at a painting, a work of art. Sometimes we go to Tom Malone Prize, and we will look at the glass works. Then we will have our input on what we liked or didn’t like about certain works. It is great because it opens your mind to the different perspectives that everyone has on art.

Plus, we go to functions and opening nights. I like the sociability of that, and that is how we got a lot of friends through the Foundation. It is a great way for AGWA to get people to donate money.

How does the relationship between members and the Foundation contribute to the AGWA’s collection?

AC – The Foundation has effectively donated hundreds of works over the last ten years, which is a big thing. When we donate some money each year, they ask us as members what we would like to put it towards – for example, last year I put my donations towards art and dementia.

So, they do a program where they try to get people with dementia to come to the AGWA and experience art, to help them with dementia. A lot of my contributions have gone towards that program, whereas previously, for example, it has been towards the purchase of Christopher Pease’s artwork ‘Targets’ that is on the top of the Art Gallery, the rooftop which now is open. That adds to the AGWA, and they have rebranded the whole art gallery and it is so much better. It is fantastic.

Do you collect Indigenous artists?

WG- Yes. I have an Albert Namatjira, and I also bought a Lance Chadd. The main thing with Aboriginal art is I have so much trouble valuing it. I was very close to buying a Rover Thomas, and I can value his work a bit now. Emily Kame Kngwarreye is harder. Some can sell it for twenty to forty thousand dollars. A very similar artwork, same medium, same size can also go for a million dollars. I have been reading all the catalogues and the Australian Art Digest info on her and trying to work out what is her best period, possibly the mid-1990s. So, I can’t value her work from an investment point of view.

Also, some Indigenous artists will paint the same picture multiple times.

Now, for example, Tim Storrier will paint the same sort of picture but there will be variations that will look totally different. Clouds are different, the skies are different, the burning of the logs are different. Many aboriginal artists paint very similar. And I will go:”- Oh, hang on: is this an original? Or it is an original that has been painted forty times over the same?”. I’m not trying to be skeptical. (1)

I just don’t have the knowledge. I have learnt on most Australia’s major artists, like the top sixty. I can’t talk to you about the next batch because I haven’t studied them enough. But for the top sixty artists in terms of price achieved in auction, I have an idea of where they are valued, what periods are good periods for that specific artist.

Is there much of Indigenous art in the secondary market?

AC – Very much so. Many auctions are indigenous only. I have been trying to study indigenous artists because of that. The idea of when things go back to the market – when artworks go back to auction – they get a resale royalty. They generally get the vendor or the seller to pay the 5% of resale royalty. I think this is a fantastic requirement. It came out in the last eight to ten years. It means that artists who may have sold their work for ten thousand dollars are now seeing sales at one hundred thousand dollars. Well, at least they are getting 5% when it sells at auction.

Is that a good system?

AC – I think it is a great system. The resale royalty is fantastic because when art is sold again and again, the artist still gets something from it which I think it is great, but it should be even 10%.

So, it should be higher?

AC – I think it should be 10%. Many artists have different periods. When they became famous, and those artworks go for a lot of money, and later works don’t.

As an art collector, can you leave a signature in the way you collect art?

AC – I think it is important to specialize in a specific field. As I have concentrated in Australian art, probably dealing with the top sixty Australian artists that I know about.

I found myself having too many landscapes, and too many nudes. I have recently bought more female artists works as I have been trying to balance out my collection, and in that way also have a softer perspective.

 We know it will be hard to answer this one – do you have a favourite artwork in your collection?

AC- My Ian Fairweather is my favourite along with my Jeffrey Smart, Margaret Olley and Fred Williams. But my top five is often changing from month to month.

You’ve told us that you like to move the collection around on the walls a bit. Why is this?

AC – I often move my art around my home to see them in a different light, and different angles. I get to see something different in that picture that I have had for 15 years that I never noticed before. Gives me so much entertainment. My girlfriend says that I am having a total party by myself when I start to move the works around late at night with the music on.

One last question. Does your collection say much about yourself?

AC – Obviously it must. I love each work. It reflects my joy and love of art over the last 15 years.

Thank you.

Jenny Potts Barr & Daniela Palitos.

Images supplied courtesy of Art Collector. Copyright applies.

• 1. This interview was conducted from 2021-2023 prior to recent news regarding the art market and works by First Nation artists.
• Journalist Greg Bearup (@gbearup) -7th April 2023- article for The Australian after a 4 month investigation into aboriginal artists in APY Art Center and the influence of white studio assistants and managers.