Tag Archives | art and sport

Building a better art prize

A ‘behind the scenes’ account of the planning of the $100,000 Basil Sellers art Prize. Building a better art prize Tonight (25 July 2014) the winner of the fourth A$100,000 Basil Sellers Art Prize will be announced at the Ian Potter Museum of Art in Melbourne, chosen from shortlist of 16 artists and decided by a panel of six […]

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The Basil Sellers Art Prize

In 2006 Basil Sellers AM, an art collector and sport lover, realised that his two passions weren’t connecting. There were no art works in his collection featuring sport and he’d come across few such works in galleries and museums. Basil contacted me at the Ian Potter Museum of Art, which had just staged ‘Game on!’, […]

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The games people play, 2008

There’s a marvellous photograph of a corner of Sidney Nolan’s studio taken in 1949. On a small work table are the usual trappings of the bohemian laboratory: tobacco tin, overflowing ashtray, dog-eared books, and candlesticks picturesquely caked in melted wax. The only unfamiliar element in this ad hoc still life is a photograph pinned to […]

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Heroes, 2010

Each year, Paul Daffey and John Harms publish the best of the year’s contributions to their ‘Footy almanac’ website in a hefty paperback documenting the football season just passed. They invite an artist to produce an image of the season’s iconic player for the cover. In 2010, John Harms asked me to write on Geoff […]

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Art and football, 2008

The arts editor of The Age called me a few days before the 2008 Grand Final wondering if I could string together something about art and sport. Just happened to have something lying around! Earlier in the year I’d been working through André Gide’s diaries; here was a chance to use his oddly gleeful discovery […]

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