Art Dealer Denis Savill Bows out after 35 Years

New Zealand-born art dealer Denis Savill, 75, doyen of the Sydney and Melbourne saleroom scene, is retiring – with Sotheby’s Australia handling a special sale of some of his 120 works by blue-chip artists such as Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan and Charles Blackman, the Australian Financial Review reports.

“They’re dear to my heart but you can’t take them upstairs with you,” Savill said.

Some of the works culled from his gallery stock and personal collection are expected to command hundreds of thousands of dollars when they are offered in Sydney on 10 May.

Savill Galleries will trade on at least until the end of the year in what he describes as “a long wind-down”.

Savill has been a dominating presence in the auction market, buying extensively for the galleries he operated in Sydney and, until a few years ago, in Melbourne.

His activities were not always obvious – like other prominent art aficionados, he often remained inconspicuous, standing at the rear of the saleroom and bidding over the phone.

Last year, faced with the Australia’s continuing art market malaise, Savill appeared to relaunch himself with a one-man buying spree, culminating in the A$793,000 he paid in August for Brett Whiteley’s The Arrival – a glimpse in the Botanical Gardens. It was recently on loan to an exhibition at Sydney’s Mosman Art Gallery.

Original article by Peter Fish, Australian Financial Review, April 5, 2016.

Photo by Michele Mossop.