George Bernard Duncan New Zealand, Australia, Europe, 1904-74
Past Sales
Sales by Medium
Where to buy or sell art works by George Duncan
Auction Houses
About George Duncan
Born in New Zealand in 1904 to Australian parents, Duncan studied in Sydney at the Royal Art Society, under Dattilo Rubbo where he won the Royal Art Society’s student exhibition prize in 1926. With his future wife, artist Alison Rehfisch, they held their first exhibition in Sydney in 1933. The same year they travelled to London and Europe where they studied and worked from 1933 to 1939. George Duncan was the Director of the David Jones Art Gallery in Sydney for ten years from 1953 and President of the Australian Watercolour Institute from 1958 to 1964. He died in 1974 and his wife died the following year. A joint retrospective exhibition of their work was held in Sydney and Canberra in 1976.
We have records of art auction sales by George Duncan from 1975 and in total 317 works by the artist have been offered for sale, of which 204 (64%) were sold. The highest price recorded for the artist is $24,000 for Rainy Day sold by Deutscher and Hackett in April 2009. No works have been offered for sale this year, and the last sale we have recorded for the artist was in 2023. Works by George Duncan are held by the Art Gallery of NSW, National Gallery of Australia and a further four major public national galleries (see list below).
George Duncan is listed in the following standard biographical references:
- McCulloch, Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch, Emily McCulloch-Childs. The New McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art. 4th Edition, Aus Art Melbourne & The Miegunyah Press, 2006. Page 390
- Campbell, Jean. Australian Watercolour Painters: 1780 to the Present Day. Craftsman House, Sydney, 1989. Page 305
- Dictionary of Australian Artists Online, an online resource for biographical data about Australian artists, designers, craftspeople and curators.
- The Find New Zealand Artists web site: a database of artist names that directs researchers to the rich resources found in New Zealand's libraries, art society exhibition histories and published sources.
- Australian Prints + Printmaking, a database listing printmaking artists from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region based on the print collection of the National Gallery of Australia.
Artists' Resale Royalty
Could the second and subsequent works by this artist sold after June 9, 2010 for over $1,000 be liable for the Artists' Resale Royalty? More info…
Yes, eligible, subject to the artist satisfying the residency test. The artist is alive or has been deceased for less than 70 years. Contact the Copyright Agency for information on the residency test.
The Australian Art Sales Digest is a database of over 610,000 works by more than 12,000 artists who are listed as having either lived or worked in Australia or New Zealand, and an additional 36,000 foreign and other artists, offered for sale by auction in Australia and New Zealand from the early 1970s to the present day.
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