Ongoing Victorian COVID-19 lockdown restrictions have not prevented Melbourne-based Gibson’s Auctions from holding its Winter Auction Series which features the collection of leading Melbourne socialite the late Billie Tyrrell, whose former Naval lieutenant husband Harry founded National Can Industries.

Born in 1924 in Malvern, Billie spent most of her early life at Katanga, an elegant home designed by famous architect Harold Desbrowe-Annear for her prominent lawyer father Wesley Armstrong Ince.

A fifth Victorian COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in 16 months has not dented Melbourne’s Original and Authentic Aboriginal Art Gallery in Bourke Street enthusiasm for auctioning some of the best examples of Australian indigenous art in living memory.

Established in 1996 as a showcase for Aboriginal fine art from the Central Western Desert, Western Australia’s Kimberley region and the Northern Territory’s Arnhem Land, the gallery has asked Christian McCann Auctions to auction the 266 works online from 12pm Sunday July 25.

In the foreground is a clear and unmistakeable Aborigine dressed in white while a stockman can be seen in the distance riding away.

The is the Conrad Martens (1801-1878) watercolour painting titled Kilcoy, Moreton Bay, Australia (lot 370) that once resided in the Alan Bond Collection and was sold in 1992 by Christie’s to the current Queensland owner’s mother who recently died.

It is an impressive part of Philips Auctions timed online Fine and Decorative Arts sale at 47 Glenferrie Road, Malvern which closes from noon Monday July 5.

Kevin Gange is popularly known as the “Taxi King” – largely because his family has been involved in Melbourne’s taxi industry since the 1860s when his great-great-grandfather first started ferrying passengers around city streets in a hansom cab.

He and auctioneer Phil Caldwell initially crossed paths in 1999 when Kevin purchased a hansom cab as a reminder of his family’s early beginnings at the Monte Christie horse-drawn vehicles auction in Junee New South Wales, owned by Reg Ryan.