Colin and Elizabeth Laverty in Newcastle in 2008. Picture: Robert McKell Source: The Australian
ONE of the nation's most valuable private collections of Australian contemporary art will go under the hammer next year.
Three hundred lots from the collection of Sydney's Colin and Elizabeth Laverty, with an estimated worth of between $4 million and $6m, will be previewed in New York and London before being auctioned by Bonham's at Sydney's Museum of Contemporary Art on March 24. It will be the largest single-owner auction of indigenous and non-indigenous contemporary Australian art.
The sale will comprise about 25 per cent of the famous Laverty Collection and will include works by William Robinson, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Peter Booth, Ken Whisson, Rosalie Gascoigne and Rover Thomas, among others.
It is understood Colin Laverty, a world-leading medical practitioner who began collecting art 40 years ago, has been unwell. But Elizabeth Laverty says her 75-year-old husband's health is not a consideration in the decision to sell.
"Colin's been ill, but that's not the reason (for the auction)," she says. "He actually bought a Michael Taylor (work) while in hospital. So he's still buying."
She says the reason behind the sale - other than "putting grandchildren through school" - is to allow stored works to see the light of day.
"Much of the art is in storage, and it's a shame to have it locked away," she says. "It's time for us to let it go."
Several Whisson paintings from the collection are being featured at a retrospective of the artist's work at the MCA, while the couple has lent a selection of Papunya boards to the Musee du quai Branly in Paris as part of Tjukurrtjanu: Origins of Western Desert Art, the National Gallery of Victoria's touring exhibition.
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