AUSTRALIA.- Leading Australian fine art auction house Goodmans has joined the Bonhams Group of Companies. Goodmans is already one of the largest auctioneers in Australia, but the new relationship with Bonhams – the world’s fastest-growing auction house – catapults the Australian business onto the international fine art auction stage.

Further enhancing Bonhams’ global profile, the new company will be known as Bonhams & Goodman. The move comes less than a year after Bonhams acquired Butterfields, the principle fine art auction house on the West Coast of America.

In Sydney, Tim Goodman, Managing Director of Goodmans, said: “Bonhams & Goodman will focus on providing a truly international auction and valuation service. Our brief is to compete with the multinationals in this market. We have built our spectacular growth on price, service and results, and we intend to grab further market share from our competitors as Bonhams has done in its markets in the UK and North America.”

In San Francisco, Malcolm Barber, Chief Executive Officer of Bonhams & Butterfields, said he was delighted to welcome Goodmans to the Bonhams group. “I have known Tim Goodman for many years and recognise his company as a powerful player in Australia’s vibrant art and antiques auction market. Together, Bonhams & Goodman will be a formidable commercial force, ideally placed to provide even better and more comprehensive service for every one of our clients, and also to compete for business at the very highest level,” he said.

Bonhams & Goodman also announced that it will open Representative Offices in Brisbane, the capital of Queensland and in Perth, the capital of Western Australia. Lance Rae, the former Manager of the Valuations Department at Bonhams & Langlois in the Channel Islands, has been appointed to head up the office in Queensland, where he and his family emigrated late last year. Tony Baker, who has represented Bonhams in Perth since the merger with Phillips, has been appointed to run the new Western Australian Office. This carefully planned expansion will provide Bonhams & Goodman with an important opportunity to grow into markets currently ignored by competitors.

Bonhams & Goodman also announced the appointment of key specialist consultants respectively in Photography and Russian and Continental Works of Art and Pictures, becoming the first Australian auction house to employ resident experts dedicated to these specialist areas. Sandra Byron, Senior Specialist in Photography, was Curator of Photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales for 13 years before leaving to establish a gallery in Woollahra. Alice Ilich, Senior Specialist, Russian & Continental Works of Art and Pictures, is a world authority having been formerly Head of the Russian Departments at both Sotheby’s and Christie’s during a career spanning over 30 years. Alice, who recently moved to Australia is the fifth specialist previously employed by Sotheby’s and Christie’s in either New York or London to have joined Bonhams & Goodmans.

Goodmans Auctioneers was founded by Tim Goodman in Sydney in 1977. Since then, annual turnover has grown to AU$12 million. Most recently, Goodmans sold “the Captain Cook Resolution Table” – a library table made circa 1810 and inlaid with English oak from Cook’s last ship, HMS Resolution – for AU$492,000 (£193,366) the second highest price for any object in Australia, excluding paintings and cars.

Goodmans’ head office and prime auction rooms are located in a large and delightfully ‘atmospheric’ former telephone exchange building built in the early 20th Century on the shore of Sydney Harbour with metre thick walls to “withstand any naval bombardment”. It is situated at Double Bay in the heart of Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, the city’s highest demographic residential district. Sales of Fine Jewellery, Pictures, Decorative Arts, Collectibles and Exceptional Motor Cars are conducted there on a regular basis.