Book Review: A Financial Reviewers Exploration of the Art World After Death

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

PUBLISHING---How is an artist's reputation made? And how is it maintained after death? Katrina Strickland explores these eternal and infernal questions by concentrating in particular on the way artists' estates are managed in Australia. The main characters in this book are the widows and other relations, or the estate executors, of a sample of 15 postwar Australian artists, most of whom have had work sold at auction for sums involving six and sometimes seven figures. The author is in a good position to research and report on her case studies. In this book she presents a fine balance between the art world's perceived dodgyness and some of its key moments of honour and integrity. [link]