Grundys' sale of the century rakes in $19m Works by John Brack, Fred Williams and Jeffery Smart being auctioned at the Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal last night. IT was billed as the sale of the century -- and it did not disappoint. The auction of television pioneer Reg Grundy's art collection set a new benchmark for a single-owner art sale in Australia when it grossed $19.2 million in Sydney last night. The auction total includes a 22 per cent buyer's premium charged by the auction house Bonhams. Charles Blackman's early oil-on-board Hoardings was the first painting off the mark, selling for $240,000 ($288,000 with premium) after an initially shy show of hands. Twelve new artist's records were set during the two-hour sale. Most spectacularly, Fred Williams' You Yangs landscape 1 sold for $1.875m -- the buyer will pay $2.29m including the premium. Of the 89 artworks offered, 84 per cent found buyers at prices Reg and Joy Chambers-Grundy were prepared to let them go for. In a last-minute change of heart, the couple withdrew a John Brack ink on paper just before the sale because they realised they hadn't kept anything else by the artist in their remaining collection of 70 works. About 300 people attended the auction at Sydney's Overseas Passenger Terminal, including former weapons inspector Richard Butler and Aussie Homeloans' John Symond, but neither appeared to bid. The Grundy collection, built up during the 1980s and 90s, was carefully curated and contained many blue-chip examples of prominent Australian artists' work. So it was not surprising to see records fall for Margaret Preston, Herbert Badham, Narelle Jublin, Frank Hinder, Tony Ruckson, Weaver Hawkins, Sam Fullbrook, Rosalie Gascoigne, Timothy Johnson, Paddy Jaminji, and Robert Campbell Jr. The Grundys' curator John Cruthers said after the sale that he was disappointed that key paintings by Ian Fairweather had failed to sell. "It's still a very tough market, would be my read of the situation," he said. A whole lot of dealers will have to go back into their stockrooms and reprice their Fairweathers by 50 per cent. Mr Cruthers acknowledged that many of the Grundy artworks were in the $200,000- $600,000 price range, where it is difficult to find buyers. Because of this, bidding was often slow to move around the room. Mr Cruthers said buyers wanted trophy pictures, and this was borne out in the spirited bidding for John Brack's The New House and The Breakfast Table. Both early works sold to the same female buyer for $1.95m and $1.46m (including buyer's premium) respectively.