Bulgari's Art Award.....

It will rate as one of the best bashes of the year- the dinner at the Art Gallery of NSW to celebrate the Bulgari Art Award which goes to Michael Zavros, a Brisbane-based graduate from the Queensland College of Art with a Bachelor of Visual Arts. Zavros has exhibited widely within Australia and his work is held in numerous private and public collections including: The National Gallery of Australia, Queensland Art Gallery, University of Queensland Art Museum and Tasmanian Museum and Gallery. His prize is a worth $80,000 and includes a residency in Italy.

Philip Bacon & Ros Packer

always elegant : Alexandra Joel & Philip Mason

With a magnificent long table in the main gallery and catering by Matt Moran's Aria , guests first had drinks and took in an exhibition of some of Australia's most renowned artists including Rupert Bunny, George W.Lambert, Russell Drysdale, Tom Roberts and Arthur Streeton amongst others. This is an exhibition now open to the public and includes numerous works that haven't been on display for many years. Do not miss it !
And full marks to the sponsors of the show, the wonderful Bulgari brand that was born in Rome in 1884 with family members still managing the elegant label that is now diversifying into hotels and resorts.

Stephen Ormandy & Louise Olsen

Michael Zavros with Melanie & Eddie Listorti

Table art...

George Lambert's portrait of Thea Proctor 1916

 And some art :

Two winning Archibald portraits of Margaret Olley : Ben Quilty in 2011 & William Dobell's -1948

James Angus : 'Bugatti type 35' 2006

Margaret Olley Exhibition Opens

An exhibition of the late Margaret Olley's paintings that have never been publicly displayed before opened on Thursday evening at Sothebys in Woollahra. Prices on the 27 works range from $60,000 upwards although most have already been sold. The one at the top which looks suspiciously like Margaret's living room is available for $440,000.

Amongst the guests were long time friends of Olley's including retiring NSW Art Gallery director Edmund Capon, Barry Humphries, movie director Bruce Beresford and artist Ben Quilty who became a good friend of Margaret;s after he won the Archibald Portrait prize for his painting of Olley last year.
2nd-17th March 118-122 Queen St Woollahra.

left : Margaret with Ben Quilty                                                        ********************

Best Look at The Oscars : Forget Angelina Jolie's leg, Rick Rubin pictured with Amanda Santos had the look with his famous whiskers combed to excess when he attended the Academy Awards and the Vanity Fair after party last Monday.

Rubin is the co-president of Columbia Records and possibly one of the greatest record producers in the world with a fortune estimated at $300M.
                                                     

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Madame Tussaud's has just unveiled one of it's waxworks that will appear in it's new Sydney exhibition that will open in Darling Harbour in May.

Nicely timed for today's Mardi Gras it's Felicia Jollygoodfellow from The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, in red, yellow and white feathers. Hopefully they will also include Guy Pearce who played Felicia in the film-he's much better looking.

Vale Margaret Olley

Margaret Olley, Portrait in the mirror, 1948

It's been just four months since Australia's much loved artist Margaret Olley attended the controversial Archibald Prize when the portrait of her by artist Ben Quilty won Australia's richest art prize for portraiture.

Dobell's portrait of Olley

But it was also the second time a portrait of Margaret had won the Archibald-the first was in 1948 when William Dobell took the gong and launched he and Olley on the road to art celebrity.

Margaret with Ben Quilty in April

Today Margaret passed away at the age of 88 in her Paddington terrace. She'll be sorely missed. No event at the NSW Art Gallery was complete without Margaret shuffling through the crowd with her walking frame-bell ringing incessantly if anyone dared to momentarily impede her trajectory.

Olley was an icon who held over 90 shows during her life. Her paintings brought the largest price for an Australian living artist and she leaves a legacy of work behind, painting right up until the end. She also left a mass of works to the NSW Art Gallery, nearly seven million dollars worth and donated her own collection of masters including 3 Cezannes and a Picasso. When she purchased the Cezanne at auction in London she thought it looked rather lonely so snapped up 2 more saying "three makes a better statement".

Olley never married and once said in an interview that she liked to be "a one-woman band, too independent to be subservient to anyone". She loved helping new young talent and to that end has left a trust fund of a million dollars to assist budding young painters.

Art'n About

Joanna Braithwaite's 'Royal Mount' from the Sulman exhibition

Now in its 90th year, the Archibald Prize is one of Australia’s oldest and most prestigious art awards. JF Archibald’s primary aims were to foster portraiture, support artists and perpetuate the memory of great Australians.

There was little controversy this year. No-one is suing anyone as has happened several times in the past - once over a claim a charcoal drawing was not a painting. Although the Archibalds thrive on controversy and out of hundreds of entries only 40 get hung as a twelve trustees of the NSW Art Gallery-led by the president Steven Lowy (his family own the world-wide chain of Westfield shopping centres) finally decide on a winner after much debate.



Margaret Olley &  Ben Quilty



This year's winner of the $50,000 prize was Ben Quilty with his portrait of Australia's doyen of art, 88 year old Margaret Olley acclaimed as our greatest living artist who was also the subject of the 1948 winning work by William Dobell.

Richard Goodwin won the Wynne Prize for his sculpture of a vertical motorcycle titled ' Co-isolated slav.'and the Sulman Prize was won by Peter Smeeth for his painting 'The artist's fate'.

Hugo Weaving admires a painting of his pal Richard Roxburgh

All the works  go on public exhibition from tomorrow until June 26 at the Art Gallery of NSW and will then tour regional NSW and Victoria.



Rodney Pople with his family portrait



round the world sailor Jessica Watson by Tom McBeth

Judy & Ken Done with his self portrait

Nicholas Harding's portrait of actor Hugo Weaving



Gallery director Edmund Capon, new NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell , Steven Lowy



Song Ling's self portrait

Art Attacks !

right : Rodney Pople & Annita Keating

It is the sort of publicity to die for !. Complaints that the art works are 'blasphemous' and 'pornographic'.

Rodney Pople, a graduate from the prestige Slade Art School in London found around 20 placard waving religious folk outside an art gallery at the beginning of his new solo exhibition this week at the Australian Gallery in Paddington. Pople's impressive list of collectors of his works include US film director Spike Jonze, millionaire banker and MP Malcolm Turnbull and Perth billionaire media mogul Kerry Stokes.

The demonstrators-in between bouts of prayers, were complaining that Pople's exhibition, Bellini 21c, includes a work called Altarpiece in which the figures in the famous Bellini altarpiece in Venice are obscured by an image of a woman being penetrated from behind and having oral sex.

Their prayers paid off. As guests arrived for the opening party the heavens opened and rain lashed down. Amongst those guests was a former pupil of Pople's and the former first lady Annita Keating who was once married to former Prime Minister Paul Keating. Annita is having her own exhibition early next year. She wasn't shocked by Pople's works and says she concentrates on painting flowers. So there won't be a demo at her show.

Apparently Inspector Knacker of Rose Bay police is investigating the complaints about the art works.
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He's been called one of 2 of the most important living Australian artists-Charles Blackburn (left)-the other is Margaret Olley-and his past paintings exchange hands for well over a million dollars but the artist at 82 is said to be struggling financially.

Blackman's latest exhibition at the Art House was a sellout which should solve that crisis. Blackman has had 4 wives and they all received generous settlements including the last - Victoria who is a devotee of the Raelians which has been described as "the largest UFO religion in the world".

Raelians don't believe in smoking, drinking and sex. Blackman believes in all 3 so something had to go. It was Victoria.
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At the other end of the art market, the very controversial painter Charles Billich seems to have become very chummy with King Taufa'ahau Tupou V. the King of Tonga who has been keeping a $2000 a night suite at a Kings Cross hotel and entertaining locals with Charles and wife Christa joining in.

Apparently Charles has begun work on a portrait of the King and will be presenting it to him in 8 weeks at a gala dinner in the King's honour (we'll be there!).

Tupov V takes after his predecessors in looks and enormous bulk. His grandmother Queen SalotiTupou III was in the Royal procession of coaches after the coronation of HRH Queen Elizabeth II.

Watching was Noel Coward along with actor David Niven. When Niven asked who the large lady in the carriage was, Coward replied "the Queen of Tonga".
"And who is the little man beside her " asked Niven of the small attendant seated next to the Tongan Queen.
"Her lunch" replied Coward.