JANE RAFFAN
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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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.
