If Charles Dickens were to imagine a pair of art collectors – who, having amassed a serious trove of Australian modernist works, suddenly chuck it in for a love of street art – he may have conjured something like Andrew King and Sandra Powell. King’s bushy but carefully curated beard is certainly straight out of the Victorian era, and Powell’s enigmatic smile wouldn’t look out of place on A Tale of Two Cities’ Madame Defarge, knitting her way through the revolution. Speaking to them in their gorgeously rambling St Kilda mansion, you get the sense it’s an association with which they’d be rather chuffed.
“Of the artists we used to collect,” King says, which included major figures like Sidney Nolan, Albert Tucker, Brett Whitely and Joy Hester, “most of them were dead, and if they weren’t, well, they looked dead.”
Powell agrees that one of the best things about collecting work by living artists “is meeting the artists”. “In all those years of collecting, I’d never met artists,” she says.
A chance encounter with two books in an Urban Outfitters in Covent Garden set them on the street art path, one of those rare moments of divine revelation that are responsible for many local street artists’ trajectories. “One of the books was by Banksy and one by Blek le Rat, the French stencil artist,” King says. “I ended up buying both of them. Without a doubt, that night changed our lives.”
Powell and King, who as collectors go by the name Sandrew, made their fortune in the fashion trade but now dedicate huge reserves of time and energy into tracking down street artists, both local and international. Their house is so chock-full of important work, they’re able to mount a public exhibition of more than 100 pieces in Melbourne’s CBD – which opens later this month and includes work from Invader, Adnate, Ron English, MEGGS, ELLE and Rone, plus a whole room of Banksy – seemingly without making a dent.
“We were very lucky that we quickly met people,” says Powell. “We were asking everybody, ‘Who do you think are the greatest street artists, who should we be looking at, and how can we learn about this as quickly as we can?’” Blek le Rat, considered the godfather of stencil art, gave them an initial list of five essential artists to collect, putting himself, naturally, at No 1. Banksy was on there; in fact Sandrew now own the country’s largest Banksy collection, including a new work, Firewall, which will make its Australian debut this month. Portuguese twins Os Gemeos made Blek le Rat’s list too, as did US artists Swoon and Shepard Fairey.
Sandrew’s interest in the international scene is undimmed, but it is their enthusiasm for homegrown street art that will cement their legacy. Early in their collecting career they tried to convince a San Franciscan gallerist to hold an exhibition of Australian street art, then still a fledgling scene. He agreed on the proviso that Sandrew curate it.
“We called the show Young and Free,” says King. “I’ve gotta tell you, it was one of the proudest moments of my life. We introduced the young Sofles, there was Rone, there was Vexta, there was DabsMyla. There was HA-HA. MEGGS, Reka … just these incredible Australian artists.”
The emotion that clogs King’s speech as he effortlessly reels off this formidable list speaks to a genuine dedication to these artists’ work. Acquisition is one thing, but Sandrew – who often house artists in the converted stables in their back yard – seem more committed to spreading the word. “We like to say that we’re ambassadors,” Powell says.
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It’s certainly a laudable aim, but isn’t there a disconnect between the culture of street art on the one hand – politically provocative, socialist and anti-authoritarian – and market-driven private ownership on the other? Isn’t the danger that, once you remove street art from the street, it becomes a pale imitation of itself, conventional and even conservative?
“We collect art by street artists,” Powell says. “That’s the distinction. In the beginning, we would see art on the streets and we’d say, where can we buy your art works?” The question drew a blank from the artists, who weren’t used to thinking of themselves as commercially viable. “So we commissioned work from them. And then we helped and encouraged artists to put on exhibitions. What Andrew and I love, the single thing that gives me the biggest thrill, is when an artist gives up their day job to become a full-time artist.”
And certainly, the work that remains on the walls of their house – let alone what will be going into the exhibition (which they’ve named The Outsiders Melbourne) – is anything but pale or conservative. Massive pieces by Adnate, Kaff-eine and Rone fill the large negative spaces, and speak to the variability and emotional range of the form. The kitchen has been tagged by artists in blue, which gives the house a genuine edge of playfulness and dynamism.
“Whenever anyone walks into our private house, they’re amazed because they’re not used to seeing street art in a home environment.” And if it changes the meaning of the work, Sandrew don’t seem particularly fussed. In fact, they think that’s the point.
The scene “went from graffiti to street art to muralism. Things evolve,” says Powell. “I’m a great believer in change. OK, bring it on, what are these artists going to do next?”
Many of the artists in the collection have moved from the margins to the mainstream, but Sandrew believe Australia’s major galleries and art institutions remain ambivalent at best about street art’s legitimacy and worth. “They don’t understand it,” says Powell. “They don’t have control over it.”
King agrees, adding that “street artists operate outside the art establishment.”
“The streets are their gallery and their art is open to the people.”
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The Outsiders Melbourne runs from 12 December 2024 to 25 May 2025 on the corner of Flinders Lane and Hosier Lane, from noon to 6pm. Entry is free.
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