Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art is to host Bonhams auction of the Laverty Collection of Contemporary Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australian Art on 24 March 2013. Previews in London in February, and New York in March.
Ken Whisson (born 1927) Flag to Replace the Red and Blue Ensigns (Flag of My Disposition No.14), 1980 inscribed ‘FLAG TO / REPLACE THE RED / AND BLUE ENSIGNS / 9-10-80 / AND 22-10-80’ verso oil on linen 100 x 120cm (39 3/8 x 47 1/4in).
The auction is estimated to be worth between AUD$3.88 million to AUD$5.57 million, making it Australia’s most valuable sale of a single collection of Indigenous and non-indigenous contemporary Australian art.
Over forty years of intimate engagement with the Australian art world, the Lavertys have built an outstanding collection, ranging from the dynamism, spontaneity and stunning originality of Australia’s best Indigenous artists, to the cool conceptualism, stimulating abstracts, and slow-burning surrealism of Australia’s leading contemporary artists.
Highlights touring London and New York include major works by William Robinson, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Rosalie Gascoigne, Eubena Nampitjin, Boxer Milner Tjampitjin, Peter Booth, John Mawurndjul, Ildiko Kovacs, Ken Whisson, Tommy Watson, Paddy Bedford, Aida Tomescu, Louise Hearman, Robert Klippel, Prince of Wales, Mick Namarari Tjapaltjarri, and Sunfly Tjampitjin.
The Laverty Collection features museum-quality works that have been sought by and lent to major galleries around the world, including the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and, most recently, Paris’s Musée du quai Branly as part of the National Gallery of Victoria’s touring exhibition Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art.
Previews:
February 14 to 19, Bonhams London;
March 2 to 6, Bonhams New York;
March 15 to 17, fortyfive downstairs, Melbourne;
March 22 to 24, Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.