The Day We All Went Home: A Fundraising Auction

We are thrilled to present our upcoming fundraising auction ‘The Day We All Went Home’, in partnership with Arts Project Australia, a creative social enterprise that supports artists with intellectual disabilities, promotes their work and advocates for their inclusion in contemporary art practice.

This exclusive online auction will take place at 3pm on Sunday 28 June 2020, with all fees waived – there will be no buyer’s premium or online bidding fees – with every cent going to Arts Project Australia and the artists they represent. Our aim is to raise a minimum of $50,000 and Leonard Joel has pledged to purchase $5,000 worth of works to this end.

On Saturday 16 March, the Arts Project Australia studio closed due to Covid-19, and 150 artists were asked to stay home, leaving many pieces of art behind. This auction presents a unique opportunity to purchase from a suite of contemporary artworks created before the day we all went home.

“Deep into the COVID-19 crisis, I was aware that Arts Project Australia had to shut down and that times would be challenging,” says John Albrecht, Leonard Joel‘s Managing Director. “I suggested, at no cost to Arts Project Australia, that Leonard Joel could provide an opportunity to curate a significant online art auction that spoke to all their artists, promoted their wonderful work and, just as importantly, generated income for them.”

The collection brings together 96 lots of 100 works by 54 artists from Arts Project Australia’s studio and three collaborating Melbourne–based artists, inclusive of painting, drawing, photography, digital art, ceramics, textiles and soft sculpture. Highlights include Lisa Reid’s 2018 ceramic The Old Fashioned Cash Register with the Old Paper (lot 46) and a one–off suite of works on paper and ceramic sculptures by internationally acclaimed artists Julian Martin and Alan Constable (lot 48).