The death of Terry Ingram (1942–2024), art journalist and author, should not go without acknowledging his profound impact on our knowledge and subsequent growth of the Australian art market, with an enormous impact, while paradoxically is personally little known.
Terry, for more than 43 years, was not only the longest-serving journalist in this world Australian Financial Reviewbut he also wrote Sales hall column, making him one of the most widely read and influential commentators on Australian art. No one, and I mean no one, had written about Australian art so persistently in a national publication from the late 1960s until his full-time retirement in 2012. Following in Terry’s footsteps as an analyst of the art market for of Australian weekly newspaper for a decade, I can uniquely say that it is not that difficult to score a line in a major newspaper now a days. Easy, once, twice or every day for six months or more. However, it takes real discipline and determination to write a full page or even a column every week for decades. That, ladies and gentlemen, is quite an achievement.
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Before the mass global access of the Internet, the “finger-painting” edition of Australian Financial Review it was and remains the preeminent Australian business newspaper of record. Every Thursday, Sales hall column informed and terrified generations of business-savvy readers, bringing them into the Australian art market. This market, we must remember, has neither the vastness of our resources, nor our agricultural industry, nor any relative value to our economy. Terry brought Australian art and its market, a disproportionately small one, to the attention of some very influential people. The Australian art world owes Terry a great debt of gratitude for this boost.
In his time, Terry turned over some very mossy art market stones and allowed the sunlight to disinfect the transparency. Terry enjoyed the darkness. With Terry, the colorful race identities that inhabit and continue to inhabit the unregulated art market met a fearless, quiet, persistent, investigative Columbo-esque detective. Fresh on his motorcycle, in Marlon Brando-esque black leather, vest and hat, Terry regularly stopped art dealers at the door and obscure, big-spending collectors. No one was quite sure whether Terry had just been or was going to The Albury, but after being questioned, no one was left in any doubt as to Terry’s intentions to “finish the case”. The core of Terry’s questioning technique was the strategic use of silence. He asked questions and then didn’t speak after the first answer. Many, if not all, when questioned, fill this silence of the interviewer with more words, more information, more mistakes. Terry listened and remembered. Terry could have been a police detective.
Terry was observant rather than inquisitive in his writings. Dodgy art world practices, art frauds and forgeries, drunken art dealers bidding in public were Terry’s stock in trade. He was less adept at charting art market trends or understanding cultural change. “Why” was not his specialty. His post-art auction analysis consisted mostly of long laundry lists of who bought what for how much. That was okay. This was wonderful. Because in a world before mass phone bidding and the Internet, when buyers mostly had to physically show up to bid on the room, piecing together who was buying what, often for whom, made for fascinating guesswork and helped preserve everything important. the data of a work of art returning to the world, the provenance.
Over the decades, Terry burned many bridges. He used a flamethrower. It was not a public relations department contracted by an auctioneer or art dealer. He didn’t retract press releases or knowingly take out their sought-after art sales narrative. History came first and privacy could be a way out. In the end, this closing of sources made Terry very reliant on very few people for information. This imbalance of cross-sourcing meant that Terry was, in the final stanza of his career, often factually wrong. On balance, he was more right than wrong over the decades, but the arrows of error Terry fired at in his writing wounded the innocent. Terry was like all good journalists polarizing. However, his critics had a point.
With over 7000 articles published in Australian Financial Review, Terry broke the “what and how” into many stories. Everything from 1973 The National Gallery of Australia bought a $1.3 million Jackson Pollock Blue polish painting to highlight the auction houses that buy their paintings at public auctions and claim record prices. It happens more than you would believe. He was an Englishman from the West Midlands, if my memory serves me right. I knew that over the decades he returned to England to see his mother once a year. Other than that, I have no idea about his life outside of work. However, I know that he has had a significant impact on the cultural life of this nation, and for that, on behalf of everyone, I thank you.