It’s
the talk of the art world – is the National Gallery of Australia about
to fork out $35 million for a Wassily Kandinsky painting, Sketch for Deluge II (right)?

Hopes were raised this morning when The Sydney Morning Heraldreported
that the gallery was sizing up the painting. Former National Gallery
director and art expert Betty Churcher told Crikey her “heart leapt
into her mouth” when she heard the purchase could be on the cards.

But it now looks as though it’s not to be. Just an hour ago the ABC reported
that National Gallery chairman Harold Mitchell had baulked at the price
tag. “We were considered among many people who could be purchasers of
it and we’re honoured to be in that position,” Mr Mitchell said. “But
it’s not something we would ever be able to do … unfortunately there
are many things that could be done with vast sums of money like this.”

Mitchell
says that if a benefactor could be found to fund the purchase the
gallery would reconsider its decision. “We have to build something that
is wonderful and uplifting, which the purchases of the gallery has
always done,” he said.

Churcher said the painting was from the mint period of Kandinsky, “just as he was teetering on the edge
of abstraction. It’s one of the great paintings of the 20th
Century, one of the signposts of modern art, that’s why the price is so
high.”