For art consultant Sally Dan-Cuthbert, the collecting process is equal parts emotional and cerebral.

By Sarah Vandepeer MAY 2016

When I ask Sally Dan-Cuthbert if her interests outside of art permeate her collection, she thinks perhaps not. But there is a flash in the former competitive tennis player’s eyes as she describes, with a collector’s pride, a print in her collection that is a better copy than the one held by the Art Gallery of New South Wales. For her, art has a powerful physicality; it moves body and soul, a response that is amplified when works are placed with a sensitive attunement to their surroundings.

Art is a family affair: collecting runs though the Dan-Cuthbert veins. Exposed from an early age to a rich patchwork of cultures, architecture and art galleries by parents who were also passionate collectors, Dan-Cuthbert believes that her children have inherited her passion for art by osmosis. The collection is set out in the family home against a panoramic backdrop of the Sydney Harbour. Nestled among key works by Janet Laurence and Susan Norrie are specially commissioned family portraits by Lindy Lee. When I question the respected art consultant, who counts Christie’s auctioneers and clients including Goldman Sachs among her credentials, how many works are in the collection that she has built over 28 years, the answer is uncertain. “This is not about collecting for a catalogue or investment, so I don’t even count,” she says. ... Subscribe to read this article in full