Pricey Kandinsky Rejected

The National Gallery of Australia has decided not to spend $35 million on a Russian expressionist painting. Wassily Kandinsky's Sketch for Deluge II was offered to the gallery and though it considered the purchase, the gallery said yesterday it was just "too expensive". "It's a wonderful painting, but the gallery's not going to buy it," a spokesman said. A spokesman for Arts Minister Rod Kemp said there would need to be a "very, very valid argument and a strong case" to spend $35 million on a painting. All paintings costing more than $10 million require ministerial approval. The most the gallery has paid for a work is $7.4 million, for Lucien Freud's After Cezanne.The work, an oil on canvas, was offered by a New York dealer. For the full story - click the title Irish Art