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ABOUT JANE RAFFAN

Jane Raffan is a respected arts industry professional, with a reputation for integrity and discretion. She is an accredited valuer for the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program, and art market commentator. Jane recently completed post-graduate studies in law, concentrating on ethical dealing in art and cultural heritage.

Jane has over nineteen years experience in the Australian art industry, covering Aboriginal art and Australian art and photography, across which she has curated, published and acted as consultant to independent and public institution projects. Jane graduated from the University of Sydney with a first class honours degree in Fine Arts, which was followed by employment at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Jane formed her personal interest and expertise in Aboriginal art while documenting and researching the collections prior to the appointment of a permanent curator.

Jane has been actively engaged with Indigenous issues in both personal and professional spheres for over twenty-five years; and has worked as a practising specialist in Aboriginal Art for fourteen, most recently in the auction industry as Department Head. In 2005 Jane co-hosted the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ fundraising Aboriginal Art auction to assist Indigenous causes on behalf of the Charles Perkins Children’s Trust, raising close to one million dollars.

Prior to her career in the auction industry, Jane Raffan worked at the Art Gallery of New South Wales for six years in collection management and exhibition logistics, where her achievements included authoring policy and managing the program of loans to government agencies; travel to London, New York and Washington DC to undertake research and execute briefs on behalf of senior management; and arranging a demonstration seminar of digital imaging technology in conjunction with IBM and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, for the local arts museum community.

ACCREDITATIONS

Accredited valuer for the Australian Government's Cultural Gifts Program: approved to value Australian indigenous art after 1970, and bark paintings after 1950; all regions.
Member of the Australian Auctioneers and Valuers Association, Inc., NSW
Member of the Art Consulting Association of Australia

 

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image of Mowanjum wandjina courtesy ABC Radio Kimberley
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PUBLICATIONS, PROJECTS & PRESS – INDIGENOUS FOCUS

Click here for ART MARKET COMMENTARY

MAGAZINES & JOURNALS

'Moral Lip Service: Government's Hard Hit at the Art Market is a Soft form of Redress', Sydney University Alumni Magazine, Autumn 2010.
(click image 1 for pdf)

‘Australian Art Collector, ‘Warakurna Artists’. Issue 50, October–December 2009. Art Centre Profile, p227.
(click image 2 for pdf) For unabridged article click here.

‘Museum Piece to Minimalist Cool. Contemporary Aboriginal Art and Modernist Expression’
World of Antiques & Art, Issue 63, July–December 2002, pp 112-116.
(click image 3 for pdf)


‘Elaine Pelot Kitchener – Black and/or White Photography?’
Active: Reactive–Literary Arts Review, Vol 1. No 2., March 1993, pp 59-62.
(click image 4 for pdf)

Australian Art Collector, ‘Australia’s 50 Most Collectable Artists’

Issue 19, January–March 2002. Commentary on Dorothy Napangardi, p89.
(click image 5 for pdf)


Australian Art Collector, ‘Petyarre at Market’
Issue 16, April–June 2001. Commentary on Kathleen Petyarre, p86.
(click image 6 for pdf)


Australian Art Collector, ‘Australia’s 50 Most Collectable Artists’
Issue 15, January–March 2001. Commentary on Paddy Bedford, p62.
(click image 7 for pdf)

INDEPENDENT PROJECTS

Aboriginal Deaths in Custody – a History, through the Work of Gordon Syron and Elaine Pelot Kitchener.
New South Wales Parliament House, Sydney, 19 September–4 October 1996.
Exhibition Curator.
Reviewed Bruce James, ‘Galleries’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 4 October 1996, p14.
(click image 8 for pdf)

A Decade of Dance: The Birth of Bangarra
Cooee Aboriginal Art Gallery, Paddington, 1990.
Exhibition researcher and cataloguer.

MEDIA COMMENTARY

Can copyright be claimed on Kimberley Aboriginal Wandjina art?
ABC Radio Kimberley, 18 May 2010. Interview with Vanessa Mills regarding the controversy over the Katoomba wandjina sculpture; canvassing the legal landscape and the broad ethical and cultural property debates around the issue.
(click image 9 to listen to the interview)

‘Outback and Upmarket’, John Kavanagh, Business Review Weekly, 27 July 2006, p66.

‘In Search of Lost Tribes’
, Peter Fish, Money, Sydney Moring Herald, 21 January 2004, p9

‘Arts Beat’, Diana Simmonds, Sunday Telegraph, 5 August 2001, p126.

‘Aboriginal Art Draws the Collectors’, John Kavanagh, Business Review Weekly, 21 July 2000.

‘Putting the Art Back in Artefact’, Denise Cullen, Weekend Money, The Sydney Morning Herald, 1 April 2000, p126.

‘Hammer and Stipple’, Carmel Dwyer, Arts and Entertainment, The Bulletin, 8 June 1999, pp 106–108.

‘Auctioneer on Alert’, Fiona Carruthers, The Australian, 8 May 1998, p17.

Arts Today, Radio National, 1 May 1998. Talk-back interview on Aboriginal Art with Angela Catterns.

 
ARTIFACTS ABORIGINAL ART CONSULTANCY • JANE RAFFAN M 0404 835 921 +612 8084 1829 JRAFFAN@ARTIFACTS.NET.AU  PO BOX 1522, Double Bay, NSW, 1360  ABN 61 326 138 272 facebook logo