Independent art curator, researcher, writer and accredited valuer
Know what you’re looking at
Our Services
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Writing
Providing insightful interpretative and critical texts to inform and stimulate art appreciation
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Research
Accurate identification, establishing provenance and contextualising artworks within art and social history
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Collection Management
Expert advice to create, catalogue and maintain harmonious art collections, placed to create thought-provoking dialogues
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Valuation
Approved to value for the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program - Australian painting, works on paper, prints and sculpture after 1800. Professional independent appraisals, insurance and fair market valuations for all forms of fine art.
Recent news and articles
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Dear friends and clients, please note that I'll be taking maternity leave from June through to December 2026. Responses to enquiries during this time will be limited - thank you in advance for your patience and understanding. I'm very much looking forward to introducing the baby to art in due course and returning to work at the end of the year. I appreciate your support during this exciting chapter for Tim and I. Pictured: Berthe Morisot, Le Berceau, 1872 at Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Maternity Leave - June - December 2026
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I’m pleased to share that I have received Australian Government approval as a valuer under the Cultural Gifts Program, with a focus on Australian artworks dating from 1800 onward. If you are considering a donation or would like to understand how the program works, I’d be happy to connect.
Australian Government - Office for the Arts - Cultural Gifts Program - Approved Valuers
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"Although painted before Fairweather’s period of great religious subject matter, Roi soleil is nevertheless rich in religious and social references. The boy king of his painting lifts a right hand in a magnanimous gesture of salutation or benediction. His advancement on the buffalo copies the format of a triumphal procession, evoking two interconnected motifs of Western art"
Anatomy of an Artwork, Look Magazine, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Jun-Jul 2026, pp. 66-68
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" Further layering, concealing and modifying the fixed photographic document, Charlie’s loosely painted overlays re-introduce the artist’s hand and continual edits within the works, applying an appraising eye to the image one has presented and continues to present to the world."
After Us, The Flood - David Charlie, Cato Gallery, Sydney, 12-30 May 2026
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"Led by Howard Arkley’s striking and almost abstract Freeway (Exit), 1995, estimated at $800,000 - 1,200,000 , Bonhams’ May mixed-vendor sale of Important Australian Art was a modest offering of defining examples of Australian artists. On the back of buoyant beginnings to the 2026 auction calendar, the night was studded with strong results, helping to achieve an overall result of 73.6% sold by value."
Auction Review - Bonhams, Important Australian Art, Tuesday 5 May 2026 - Exclusive to AASD
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"Breaking with tradition, Menzies’ May sale of 120 lots of Important Australian and International Art was only previewed to audiences in Melbourne, with the company deciding earlier this year to reduce operations in their longstanding Sydney office. Touted as a “decisive step into the digital world”, this change seemed to have had little immediate effect, with the auction producing strong results on the night, totalling over $6m and achieving clearance rates of 89% by volume."
Auction Review - Menzies, Important Australian and International Art, Melbourne, Thursday 7 May 2026 - exclusive to AASD
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"With startling contemporary appeal, Grace Crowley’s sophisticated abstract paintings were ahead of their time" writes Lucie Reeves-Smith for LOOK magazine, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Apr-May 2026
Look Magazine, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Apr-May 2026, pp. 58 - 60
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" The presence of Whiteley’s eternal muse by his side in London, and their marriage in March 1962, became catalysts for the artist’s daring first steps towards figuration and provided the genesis of what would become his celebrated series of ‘the most sacred of secular subjects’ – a suite of nudes known as the ‘Bathroom series.'"
Deutscher and Hackett, Important Australian + International Fine Art, Melbourne, 29 April 2026 - lot 14
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"Like most of Emily Kam Kngwarreye’s paintings, working together as a cohesive interrelated continuum referring to the same lands and stories, Summer flowers I is an exaltation of rhythms of the natural world, and the sustenance they provide for the Anmatyerr people and their neighbours."
Deutscher and Hackett, Important Australian lndigenous Art, Melbourne, 25 March 2025
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Ann Shoebridge, development office and Lucie Reeves-Smith, art consultant, of the Mosman art gallery discuss the role of art in local community and of the council owned and operated art gallery (free admission), and the significance of the 10 km art walking trail that reflects the history of art in Mosman from indigenous times through colonial to contemporary, including the establishment of artist colonies in the 19th century, such as the Heidelberg school plein air impressionists at Curlew Camp, siruis cove.
Art in Community and The Mosman Art Trail - Community Voices, Northern Beaches Radio January 2026
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"Presenting a first for the Australian auction room, Leonard Joel’s single-owner sale of world-class Old Master paintings from the collection of the late Robert Compton Jones, exceeded all expectations on Monday night, with hammer prices totalling over $2.7m across just 27 lots, achieving 166% by value."
Auction Review - Old Master Paintings from the Collection of Robert Compton Jones, Leonard Joel, Sydney, 8 December 2025 - Exclusive to AASD
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"Simms and Kirk’s photographs, created in the present-day fractured political context, reckoning with similar notions of privilege, particularly interrogating the gains and losses of a successful same-sex marriage plebiscite and a shamefully demoralising outcome to the Voice to Parliament referendum. The traces of the artist’s bodies in the landscape enact a poignant and cathartic narrative, illustrating like Boyd had, a search for love and legitimacy."
Michael Simms and Kirk Page, Staged Theoretical, Eloise Cato Gallery, Sydney, 25 November – 20 December 2025
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Without having removed his shoes or the day’s suit of grey serge, a young man sleeps the sleep of the dead, sinking heavily into a bed still made. Bright light reflected from a single chamberstick floods the bedsit, carving rhythmic shadows from the splayed fingers of his dangling hand. This surreal scene is the work of Australian artist William Dobell (1899-1970), painted crisply and with exquisite textural detail on a small wooden board during a period of great economic hardship in 1930s London.
Before My Own Eyes - Substack
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The best paintings stop you in your tracks. An astonishing painting of an industrial accident by the incomparable Robert Campbell Jnr offered at an auction at Bonhams this week intrigued me, and I just *had* to find out more…Sparking thoughts about the news and collective memory.
Before My Own Eyes - Substack
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Discover a unique cultural walk along the Mosman foreshore allowing you to follow in the footsteps of famous artists and explore the stunning harbour landscapes that inspired them. Experience the beauty of Mosman's waterways and hidden coves, and see same scenes captured by painters including Margaret Preston, Arthur Streeton and Ethel Carrick Fox.
Balnaves Foundation and Mosman Art Gallery, launched 30 April 2024
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Lesley Dumbrell. Thrum, Art Gallery of New South Wales - "But now is the time that sexuality should be revalued within abstract painting modes to save it from the art-for-arts’-sake vacuum into which it has been drawn"
Substack - Before My Own Eyes