Auction House Christie's Closes in Australia Christie's in Sydney and Melbourne will be closing up shop after it's last auction on April 10. The international auction house has had an Australian arm since 1969, and has returned a profit for the past 11 years, but that isn't enough to keep Christies Australia open.
The two other major art auction houses in Australia (Deutscher-Menzies and Sotheby's) will probably see this as great news.
Christie's Aussie offices passed in
"Its local chairman, Roger McIlroy, will be leaving after 30 years with the company. Most employees - about 30 people in all - will lose their jobs.
Mr McIlroy said the company had some notable successes, including the highest price paid at auction for an Australian painting, Frederick McCubbin's Bush Idyll, which fetched $2.3million in 1998, and $1,982,500 for Brett Whiteley's The Jacaranda Tree (On Sydney harbor) in 1999.
Christie's was responsible for selling many important corporate collections, including the Dallhold (Alan Bond), the Mertz, BHP-Billiton and the Coles-Myer." The Australian
>> Art Auction News  ¶ 1:47 AM