FOR THIRTY FIVE YEARS SALEROOM METED OUT MORE PUN-ISHMENT THAN THE NEW YORK TIMES
Headless body in top less bar was how a NY tabloid summed up a murder on its front page. The subs did not always welcome my intervention but for 35 years of the Saleroom I inserted suggested heading and looked over their should to see that they had and a row would follow if they had not used or bettered them. Even a wince from a reader was better than a story ignored. But it was better than "Spoon sells for $200" or "New record for such and such an artist" which might otherwise appear.
The artist Tudor St George Tucker produced many seductive Impressionist works but is little known because a lot of his work appears to have gone missing. He inspired 2 "smartish" headers.
The painting above is by Tudor St George Tucker and it was bought by a Sydney dealer called Trevor Bussell and sold - it is thought - to Kerry Stokes. Bussell is believed now running a convenience story in Washington DC. I plan to collate these here in coming issues as an informal story of the saleroom in Australia.
Australian stunt woman takes a big tumble
12 Nov 1992
ONE of Australia's first stunt women has fallen from grace. Tudor St George Tucker's portrait of Elizabeth Jane Veitch has reappeared on the market at a tiny fraction of its boom-time asking price. In 1906, Ms Veitch acted as stunt woman for Kate Kelly in the world's first five-reel movie, The Kelly Gang. Christie's has the portrait listed for sale in its auction in Melbourne on November 24 at an estimated $50,000 to $70,000. The rosy cheeks - I suggested - might be due to gravel rash from an accident in filming.
Search for Tucker ends in Empty trash cans 6 April 1978
The search by runner Tony Cowden ends at a house in Britain’s Weston Super Mare where the descendants of Tudor St George Tucker, a major but overlooked Australian Impressionists, weeks before
put out for the collectors of the (already stale tucker filled?) garbage a cache of colourful paintings they thought were worthless.
An action by Bill Blundell against I Steer for return of money for a compass said to have belonged to Captain Cook was settled out of court with Blundell a
Sydney painter of sketches suggestive of the work of the great Impressionists receiving his $4000 money back.
Tame reception for Wild Dog Creek 6 Nov 1981
Fern tree gullies – and the Australian art market as a whole – hit a dark patch at Leonard Joel’s four-day art sale in Melbourne this week when the highlight of the sale sold for only $100,000. When it became known about three months ago that Scene on Wild Dog Creek, Apollo Bay Victoria by the colonial artist Eugene von Guerard had reappeared from obscurity, Melbourne dealers and collectors vied with one another in boasting how much they would pay for it. Joel’s estimate was a price between $120,000 and $160,000.
Sickbeds epidemic reaches fever pitch 15 Nov 1985
There is an epidemic in sick beds at the moment judging from a recent sale in Melbourne when a painting catalogued as The Last Hours and as the work of Australian school sold for $25,000 compared to estimates of $2000 to $4000. The painting was from a popular in its day genre of Victorian painting of the dying propped up in bed or of ladies holding letters and weeping obout the news from the Front.
Cotes of many colours sets puzzle 13 April 1977
A portrait in the National Gallery of Victoria by the 18th century painter Francis Cotes had been omitted from a catalogue of the artist’s complete works published in London because the colours were wrong. The gallery’s own great expert Ursula Hoff had claimed it to be undoubtedly by Cotes. But it was not the first Old or Modern Master painting that did not live up to its attribution, These included a “Van Eyck” and a “Van Gogh”.
Two dental collectors provide something to chew over 23 Sept 1976
The art collections of several dentists coincidentally had been offered on the market and contained some precious fillings.
Stacks of Monet for Heytesbury 22 Feb 1993
Holmes a Court’s Heytesbury Holdings has big expectations from its sale of a Monet Painting of a Haystack
