What drives Judith Neilson? Inside an astonishing Sydney art empire
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Elizabeth FarrellyColumnist, author, architecture critic and essayist
February 12, 2021 5.00pm
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The Australian art wars are a lop-sided affair. Against: the federal government; the state government; universities; the Murdoch press; the mining, roads and tobacco industries; the think tank IPA; the Packers and arguably all other developers (until they want to buy respectability) aside from Stanley Quek. And the fors: a host of impoverished creatives, a few underfunded institutions and Judith Neilson.
Sydneysiders are fascinated by anyone with money. Almost everything written about Neilson drools over the numbers: the size of her art collection, her property portfolio, her bank balance. At the same time, we’re told, the art world is currently enchanted not by young men, but by older women. All