Sotheby’s Australia continues to work at pushing the market for Jeffrey Smart paintings, according to the Australian Financial Review:

Morning Practice, Baia – described by Smart as “one of my best paintings ever” – has been with the same family collection since its sale in London in 1970 and is now in the United States. Sotheby’s Australia chairman Geoffrey Smith says it was an “unknown iconic image” until Australian audiences had the chance to see it in the 2012 retrospective Master of Stillness: Jeffrey Smart paintings 1940-2011 at the Samstag Museum of Art in Adelaide and Tarrawarra Museum of Art in Victoria.

The work also ran on the cover of the exhibition’s catalogue, where it was described by curator Barry Pearce as a “disarmingly simple work [that] holds a central position within the entire span of Smart’s painting career”. […]

Morning Practice, Baia is being offered with an estimate of $550,000 to $750,000. In 2012 a small study for the painting was sold by Deutscher and Hackett for $90,000 including buyer’s premium.

Jeffrey Smart’s ‘best ever’ painting to be auctioned for first time  (afr.com)