Dr. Ian Bernadt is a voracious collector of Aboriginal art, whose love and dedication to his vocation is matched only by his unbridled excitement for his passion. With a lack of room to display the more than 500 works he has collected over the past 20 years, the vast majority have lain impenetrably stacked along walls, throughout rooms at his home and surgeries, still wrapped in the bubble pack they were delivered in.

The AASD calculated D and H auction clearances of 66% by value and 64% by volume illustrate the tenor of the sale, which had it highs and lows, and only a few surprises. The sale total of $6.21 million brings the year to date total for Deutscher and Hackett to $13.95 million, compared with $12.78 million year to date for Sotheby's, both well behind the Menzies 2010 total of $23.29 million.

After two Mossgreen Indigenous art offerings over the final weekend in August, it was clear that tribal artifacts and contemporary Indigenous paintings, like oil and water, just don’t mix.

The sale of Important Australian art held by Sotheby's in its rooms in Sydney's Double Bay on August 31 was an uphill battle. Ironically it made some of the gradient with the help a painting titled The Steps (Lot 5) showing 32 of the same, which sold for $405,000.($486,000 IBP).

Commercial art gallery Michael Reid at Elizabeth Bay has established a trans-Tasman art alliance with Webb's, New Zealand's premier auction house, after talks over the last two months.