{"id":1127,"date":"2020-06-28T16:01:14","date_gmt":"2020-06-28T06:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/parting-with-your-art-copy\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T12:36:34","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T01:36:34","slug":"an-introduction","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/parting-with-your-art\/an-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"An Introduction"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>An introduction to my pages on Parting with Your&nbsp;Art<br>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1107\" src=\"https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/gael-culburra2.jpg\" alt width=\"1000\" height=\"563\" srcset=\"https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/gael-culburra2.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/gael-culburra2-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/gael-culburra2-768x432.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1000px) 100vw, 1000px\"><\/h5>\n<pre>last update November 2025<\/pre>\n<h4 style=\"text-align: center;\">\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/h4>\n<p><strong>The Table of Contents for Parting With Your Art<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2014 \u2014&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/parting-with-your-art\/\">click here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>I retired as Senior Curator, Photography, National Gallery of Australia, in late 2014. I&nbsp;spent the next few years doing quite a&nbsp;few essays and valuations for Singapore and European museums on 19th and early 20th c&nbsp;Southeast Asia photography.<\/p>\n<p>Few researchers are willing to tackle national surveys&nbsp; at all let alone such a&nbsp;disparate cultural and geographic region&nbsp; as the Asia-Pacific. So I&nbsp;have had the field a&nbsp;bit to myself. The postgrads are I&nbsp;hope lining up to explore specific topics at great&nbsp;depth.<\/p>\n<p>Along the way my partner Paul Costigan became fascinated with Singapore, Indonesian and Japanese vernacular studio portraiture. It seems to me looking at that collection, has a&nbsp;certain dynamic and longevity in Asia compared to EuroAmerica. Happy to be challenged. A&nbsp;part of that collection was offered to the National Museum of Singapore. Finding Australian archives with an interest in the social history of&nbsp; Asian studio portraits, is proving a&nbsp;challenge. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.photo-web.com.au\/japan\/\">Japanese collection<\/a> is over 300&nbsp;works.<\/p>\n<p>During the 2010s, I&nbsp;disbursed the large library and photo collections we have built over decades \u2014 in my case since the early&nbsp;70s.<\/p>\n<p>The experience of being a&nbsp;museum curator, then valuer, seller and donor to museums and libraries has been quite a \u2018journey\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>The first thing I&nbsp;discovered is that there is not a&nbsp;lot of information online&nbsp; for people with collections and who aren\u2019t au fait with the options or processes involved in placing by sale or gift, their treasures in new&nbsp;homes.<\/p>\n<p>I have had a&nbsp;rush of responses so far , particularly from photographers about their own archives. So options for \u2018parting with your art\u2019 (or art library) is of interest.<\/p>\n<p>Why am I&nbsp;doing this? A&nbsp;while back \u2014 after a&nbsp;few of my contemporaries passed away \u2014 I&nbsp;thought Id rather know where my stuff was going and not leave it to others. Like bush fires its best to have a&nbsp;plan as life doesn\u2019t always go quite as expected. But it is also emotional as the books are also about aspirations and seeming to erase my personal history.<\/p>\n<p>I had to face the fact that I&nbsp;am not going to be writing on certain topics and really don\u2019t need elaborate reference works. If I&nbsp;do I\u2019ll go to the library.<\/p>\n<p>It was a&nbsp;challenge to find homes for books and prints and the amount of work is the same for gifts and purchases.<\/p>\n<p>There was grief as a&nbsp;work was removed from a&nbsp;wall and there was the temptation of running down the street after the art truck shouting \u2018stop I\u2019ve changed my&nbsp;mind\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>I have posted some tips and guidelines but I&nbsp;fully appreciate that each experience of parting with your art,&nbsp; library or&nbsp; collections has its own issues. Hopefully my \u2018parting with your art\u2019 posts&nbsp; will help some of you with these challenges.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.photo-web.com.au\/contact\/\">Let me know<\/a> of any stories that I&nbsp;could share with others.<\/p>\n<h5>\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/h5>\n<p><em>the photograph above was taken while I&nbsp;was looking towards the beach on which Max Dupain took the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Sunbaker\">Sunbaker<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<h5>\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/h5>\n<p><strong>For more on Parting With Your Art<\/strong> \u2014 - <a href=\"https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/parting-with-your-art\/\">click here<\/a><\/p>\n<h5>\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/h5>\n<p>here\u2019s a&nbsp;link back to my main blog page \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/\">click here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An introduction to my pages on Parting with Your&nbsp;Art last update November 2025 \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013 The Table of Contents for Parting With Your Art&nbsp;\u2014 \u2014&nbsp;click here I&nbsp;retired as Senior Curator, Photography, National Gallery of Australia, in late 2014. I&nbsp;spent the next few years doing quite a&nbsp;few essays and valuations for Singapore and European museums on \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/parting-with-your-art\/an-introduction\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">An Introduction<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">\u2192<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":1113,"menu_order":1,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1127","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Parting with your art, cultural gifts program, donations, tax deductible gifts, Gael Newton<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Parting with your art, cultural gifts program, donations, tax deductible gifts, Gael Newton\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/parting-with-your-art\/an-introduction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Parting with your art, cultural gifts program, donations, tax deductible gifts, Gael Newton\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Parting with your art, cultural gifts program, donations, tax deductible gifts, Gael Newton\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/parting-with-your-art\/an-introduction\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gael Newton Online\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-03-19T01:36:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/photo-web.com.au\/gn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/gael-culburra2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/parting-with-your-art\\\/an-introduction\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/parting-with-your-art\\\/an-introduction\\\/\",\"name\":\"Parting with your art, cultural gifts program, donations, tax deductible gifts, Gael Newton\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/parting-with-your-art\\\/an-introduction\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/parting-with-your-art\\\/an-introduction\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/06\\\/gael-culburra2.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-06-28T06:01:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-19T01:36:34+00:00\",\"description\":\"Parting with your art, cultural gifts program, donations, tax deductible gifts, Gael Newton\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/parting-with-your-art\\\/an-introduction\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/parting-with-your-art\\\/an-introduction\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-AU\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/parting-with-your-art\\\/an-introduction\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/06\\\/gael-culburra2.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2020\\\/06\\\/gael-culburra2.jpg\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/parting-with-your-art\\\/an-introduction\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Parting with Your Art\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/parting-with-your-art\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"An Introduction\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/photo-web.com.au\\\/gn\\\/\",\"name\":\"Gael Newton Online\",\"description\":\"photography, visual arts &amp; 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