Smith & Singer, ‘Important Australian & International Art’, 28 April 2026

Smith & Singer’s ‘Important Australian & International Art’ auction is well primed with four artworks holding estimates above the illustrious $1m mark and a total sale value sitting around the $18m mark. A noteworthy unifying theme for all of the major sales this season, is the focus and forward placement of female artists with significant works by Grace Cossington-Smith and Ethel Carrick Fox amongst others present in this sale.

The sale offers two woodblocks by Cressida Campbell at opposite ends of the price scale. The night’s opening lot, a small woodblock is bound to receive attention. Admirers of Campbell’s work are lucky these days to find a publication for less than four-figures, nevermind an original artwork. Although modest in size, and not exactly the most aesthetic of flora varieties, at this price-point the work is set to fly.

‘Parsley Bay, Sydney’ (1992), however, is a different matter entirely. The woodblocks themselves are often more highly prized by collectors of Campbell’s work as opposed to the more traditional printed works on paper. The work had been acquired in May 2024 through Bonhams for a hammer price of $160,000 having previously been sold twice by the respected Rex Irwin.

In this author’s opinion Clarice Beckett has to be one of, if not, the most highly sought after artist on the market. From obscurity and disrepair, with the assistance of Rosalind Hollinrake, the artist’s reputation has been solidified in a way that has seen her star greatly surpass her former tutor Max Meldrum. Beckett is represented strongly across this autumn auction calendar, with another example at Deutscher and Hackett and another six at Menzies, but Smith & Singer can likely claim to hold the strongest example.

This work is in direct competition with Deutscher and Hackett’s ‘The Bathing Boxes, Watkins Bay’ (1928), set for auction the following evening with the same estimate. While Smith & Singer may hold the artist’s auction record, Deutscher and Hackett have more consistently achieved exceptional results for Beckett’s work. It will be fascinating to see where discerning collectors will ultimately place their bids.

Two spectacular works by the pre-eminent Australian synthetist Grace Cossington-Smith grace the catalogue for this sale. ‘The Sideboard’ (1959) stands almost certain to enter the top 10 results recorded for the artist. 2025 was an august year for the artist with her prominence in the ‘Dangerously Modern’ touring exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, as well as a new auction record, and two other additions to her top 5 results. With no other examples for bidders to hold out for, these two can be expected to cause quite the stir.

Brett Whiteley’s ‘Woman on the Beach Reading an Art Catalogue’ (1980) receives top-billing for the auction. The $3-$4m large surrealist nude from the collection of the late Loti and Victor Smorgon is the championed lot for the catalogue cover. The couple were true patrons of the arts and their philanthropic nature saw more than 150 artworks and approximately $40m worth of cash and artworks donated to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia and National Gallery of Victoria respectively after their deaths. Even if sold at the low-end estimate, this work will match the 3rd highest price ever recorded for the artist at auction.

Sir Sidney Nolan has four works in the sale, but ‘Ned Kelly and Horse’ (1955) will surely claim the most attention. For patrons of Nolan, this is certainly as desirable as they come. An attractive mid-sized work from the enviable year of the artist’s career that was 1955. The end of the Second World War welcomed Nolan’s now renowned Ned Kelly series. These early works completed around 1946/7 are the holy grail of Nolan’s oeuvre, and thanks to the beneficence of long time arts patron John Reed, this extensive series can be enjoyed by the nation at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra.

Although there are select examples from this period in private hands, the 1955 revisitation to the subject prove to be the next best thing. Works produced in this year are cherished in the collections of institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Art Gallery of New South Wales; and the NGV. The year and related works in question assure that ‘Ned Kelly and Horse’ boasts the most prestigious provenance. One of those examples, ‘Early Morning Township’ (1955) was sold for a hammer price of $2,200,000 at Deutscher and Hackett in August 2023. I anticipate this example to closely follow suit. 

It would be remiss not to mention Russell Drysdale’s 1957 ‘Drovers on the Barkly’s’. The work looks set to join a line of Drysdale paintings to have achieved a seven-figure hammer price at auction.  The two Indigenous figures in the composition draws comparison to other works from this period such as ‘Group of Aboriginal People’ (1953) and ‘Station Blacks, Cape York’ (1953) on display in the Art Gallery of New South Wales and National Gallery of Victoria respectively. These seasoned cattlemen are highlighted against the stark Outback landscape they inhabit. The tall, lean figures combat the horizontal aspect of the seemingly never-ending horizon. The work is bolstered having been exhibited at the artist’s mid-career retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The contemporary market is represented by artists such as the formerly mentioned Cressida Campbell alongside Rick Amor, Del Kathryn Barton, Michael Zavros, John Kelly, and Criss Canning. Still lifes and mammals appear to be the overarching theme in this category, with Barton’s individualistic style providing the only exception. 

Smith & Singer appear to hold somewhat of a monopoly on Canning’s market. Not only do the artist’s works appear in their seasonal auctions, but S&S have held four solo exhibitions for the artist, skirting the border of the primary and secondary market. Nobody is perfect though, as S&S only have 9 of the top 10 auction records for artworks by Canning! Lot 86 appears with a $90,000-$120,000 pre-sale estimate. This is a staggering price point for a still life painting by a living artist, especially when we take into consideration that a client could instead walk away from a gallery with a Margaret Olley and change ¹. 

Much like the arrangement with Canning, S&S also represent John Kelly ensuring they also receive the artist’s best work on the secondary market. ‘Cow Up a Tree @ South Reen (Autumn)’ (2021) is reminiscent of Kelly’s iconic sculpture of the same iconography in Melbourne’s Docklands. The inspiration for Kelly’s bovine imagery came from fellow artist William Dobell, but perhaps not as one might expect an artist to influence another. During WWII Dobell was tasked with creating papier mâché cows which were used to disguise RAAF airfields. This combined with images of cows stuck up trees after Gippsland flooding became the synthesis of Kelly’s signature style. The painting is notably very closely related to ‘Cow Up a Tree’ (2020) previously sold by S&S in November 2023 for $200,000 on the hammer. 

I would suggest that we could be looking at a new auction record for the Hermannsburg master, Albert Namatjira. ‘Afternoon Finke River, Glen Helen’ (1957) is an outstanding example of Namatjira’s practice and perhaps one of the finest still in private hands. The subject is the Central Australian river, the Finke. Due to the arid nature of the land that Namatjira inhabited, the presence of a body of water in a work often sets them apart from the majority of the artist’s oeuvre. Smith & Singer have handled a companion piece to this picture twice in the past five years, setting a new auction record on the first occasion. ‘Waters of the Finke’ (1958) was executed the year after the example set to go under the hammer, and it illustrates how Namatjira has slightly altered the composition. In my opinion, the original 1957 iteration is the stronger of the pair, with the composition feeling more balanced and the large mountain range in the right background anchoring the piece. The current auction record was set in November 2022 with a $200,000 hammer price. I do not anticipate this to remain the case after Tuesday night.

Another notable work from the sale is the airbrushed suburban imagery of ‘Theatrical Façade’ (1996), by Howard Arkley. This is just the third apparent work by the artist to have appeared at auction with a low estimate in excess of $1m and can expect to be hotly contested. The painting features the imagery that the artist is celebrated for and what he represented at the Venice Biennale in 1999. According to John Gregory’s catalogue raisonné for Arkley, the painting is a variant of an example that was originally exhibited at the artist’s ‘Home Show’ at the Biennale and is now held at Parliament House, Canberra.

Highlights from the Australian impressionists included in the sale are two harbour scenes by Arthur Streeton, a small depiction of the artist’s camp at Sirius Cove by Tom Roberts, a languorous nude by E. Phillips Fox, and a Parisian scene by Ethel Carrick Fox. 

The striking blue of Streeton’s harbour scenes are instantly captivating. Completed in the same year as the artist’s ‘Golden Fleece Country’ series, the lush Sydney bays contrast against the mountainous topography of Victoria’s Western District. Works from this period completed in this panoramic ratio are held in high regard with three closely related works held in the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Australia; namely ‘Gum tree, windy ridge, Palm Beach’ (c.1926), ‘The Harbour from Wyoming’ (1926), and ‘The Harbour from Point Piper’ (1926).

On the secondary market, the most comparable example sold by Smith & Singer was ‘Cremorne’ (1926) which hammered for a pleasing $450,000.

Tom Roberts’ ‘Curlew Camp, Sirius Cove, Mosman Bay’ (1898) is a charming companion piece to ‘The Camp, Sirius Cove’ (1899) completed the following year and now on display at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The work depicts the former artist’s camp that Roberts, the aforementioned Streeton, and other contemporaries used to execute their plein-air studies of the picturesque surroundings. The impressionists of the time would paint from the camp in the years following the momentous ‘9 by 5’ exhibition of 1889. While the composition and scale of the works are near-identical, the same cannot be said for the season. The later example portrays one of those luscious days that Sydney is famed for with the blue of the calm sea reflected in the cyan skies with only a few wispy clouds present. However, the artist’s earlier rendition is accentuated by grey skies, a deep-green sea, and a more moody atmosphere.

‘The Bather’ (1912) was completed towards the end of E. Phillips Fox’s short lifetime. This delicate work illustrates a golden-haired woman shielding her eyes from the afternoon sun as she gazes towards the artist. Once again, the pedigree on display in this auction is enviable as this painting is also closely related to a work in a prestigious collection. ‘The Bathers’ (1912), held in the National Gallery of Victoria is a larger painting by Phillips Fox that appears to have expanded the composition and picture plane to reveal two female bathers in the background. The works were completed in the same year and the picture in the NGV appears to have been the artist developing on the structure of the work at S&S. However, the work itself is too beautifully crafted to be simply described as a study for the example at the NGV.

Ethel Carrick Fox’s ‘Place de la Concorde’ (c.1918/19) is one of the artist’s most significant paintings to appear at auction in the last number of years. The artist most frequently worked on smaller scale canvases and this certainly has to be one of the largest examples the artist ever completed.

Leonard Joel very recently sold ‘Place de la Concorde, Paris’ (c.1918/19), a far smaller work of the same subject for $80,000 on the hammer. While this more modestly sized work has more charm, it will be impossible for collectors to look past the scale of this current example and the rarity that this entails.

To view the catalogue in full click here.

1. Margaret Olley, ‘Wallflowers and citrus fruit’ (1984), Oil on board, 76cm by 102cm, $95,000 at Philip Bacon Galleries
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