Hoong Loh collection a Lawson Menzies auction highlight

The Hoong Loh collection will be part of Lawson Menzies Sydney quarterly fine art auction from 6.30pm Thursday June 19 at Menzies Gallery, 12 Todman Avenue, Kensington.

Migrating from Malaysia in 1982 to study at Monash University, Hoong was initially drawn to paintings of the Max Meldrum and George Bell schools.  

Hoong secured employment in the public service and by the late 1980s set about acquiring abstract expressionist works by Judy Cassab and John Coburn.

In the 1990s he concentrated on figurative, narrative paintings by enduring artists like Rick Amor, Euan Macleod and Stephen Bush and then developed a taste for several media and genres including contemporary photography, sculpture and Australian indigenous paintings.

Hoong credits Melbourne gallerists Bill Nuttall, Irene Sutton, Jan Minchin and Fran Clark with being instrumental in nurturing his collecting aspirations and admits that his favourite works in the collection are a pair of large untitled Bill Henson photographs from the late 1990s.

Many of Australia’s leading modern and contemporary artists are represented in the collection including Jeffrey Smart, Sidney Nolan, Margaret Olley, Ray Crooke, Norman Lindsay, Grace Cossington Smith, Tim Maguire, John Coburn, Elisabeth Cummings, Dorothy Braund and Rick Amor.

Other auction highlights include Brett Whiteley (1939-1992) works from the estate of Christopher Kuhn, former husband of the artist’s late daughter Arkie who died of cancer in 2001.