Sculpt a tidy investment

Sculpture can be fun, like Jeff Koons's Puppy. This 12.5-metre-high floral and topiary work was exhibited in front of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney in 1995. It's not something you'd necessarily want on your back patio but sculpture doesn't have to be monumental. Small sculpture is also being created and, depending on the artist, can be as good an investment as a painting.

There is now an annual Small Sculpture Prize, held by the Woollahra Council in Sydney, which this year attracted 550 entries from around the world.

Entrants include established artists such as Ron Robertson-Swann, Braddon Snape, Rodney Pople, Stephen Bird, Huseyin Sami, Will Coles, Ken Yonetani, Jonathan Jones and Nell. Indigenous artists Jack Bell and Impiti Winton are also entered.

All the sculptures are for sale except the winner's, which is acquired by the council.

Small sculpture is a relative term but the Woollahra rules define it as a "freestanding, non site-specific, three-dimensional object constructed of durable materials", no larger than 80 centimetres in any dimension.

For collectors, small is more likely to be defined as something that can sit comfortably on a coffee table, mantelpiece or bookshelf and isn't a danger to small children or pets.

Materials used are many and varied. The 2008 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize winner was Adam Cullen, also the winner of the 2000 Archibald Prize for his portrait of David Wenham. His sculpture, Pegasus Flying Over Sydney, was made from shells, bullets, wood, metal, chrome and the skin of a blue-tongue lizard. It was given a value of $12,000.

Other finalists and chosen materials included Joan Ross's Come a Little Closer (kangaroo fur and plastic, $5500), Rosalind Lemoh's Sunday Best (boots made from polished concrete, $660) and Daniela Turrin's Cabinet of Curiosities 2 (timber cabinet, flame-worked glass raindrops, entomology pins and paper labels, $3950).

Collectors such as Natalia Bradshaw (see My Collection) see these sculptures as an affordable alternative to large-scale collecting. Over the years, she has picked up small pieces by established sculptors such as Ken Unsworth and Robert Klippel.

She says she bought the Klippel instead of shares and given the recent performance of stocks, this proved to be a wise move.

Her Unsworth is a maquette (scale model) for one of his monumental works that was never made. He is also regarded as a blue-chip artist these days.

Among Bradshaw's favourites is a work by Lionel Bawden, made from hundreds of hexagonal pencils he glued together then carved into shape. She was smart enough to pick this up for $2200 a few years before he won the 2009 Wynne Prize for landscape art. The win made his work skyrocket in value. Bradshaw estimates this piece would now be valued about $40,000.

Other sculptures of note are by Nick Mangan, Robert Owen and Caroline Rothwell, all young emerging artists. What surprises is the variety of styles and materials and if you follow the gallery circuit, these delightful contemporary pieces can be picked up for as little as $500.

The winner of the 2009 Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize will be announced on Friday. The public exhibition will be held from October 24 to November 1 at Woollahra Council's Redleaf building, 536 New South Head Road, Double Bay (open 9am-5pm weekdays, 10am-4pm weekends). Entry is free.

MY COLLECTION

Art consultant and sculpture collector Natalia Bradshaw sits on the board of the Woollahra Small Sculpture Prize, which opens this weekend in Sydney.

She has bought several pieces from previous exhibitions as well as from the many gallery exhibitions she attends each year.

Born in Canada, she has been living in Australia for 25 years. Her job is to recommend which works of art should be added to her clients' collections. While buying major works for her clients, she is often tempted to pick up the little fun pieces for me.

Some, like the Hany Armanious Muffin and Lionel Bawden's pencil sculpture, have proved to be great investments as well. She has another work by Bawden, a small "travelling piece" about the size and shape of a pebble. It, too, is made from pencils.

As well as small sculpture, she is an avid collector of dolls and snow domes.

$500

Caroline Rothwell's 2005 piece, Weed No. 4, was created by pouring molten silver into a flexible fabric mould. She is regarded as an important emerging artist who now works large-scale.

$1500

Nick Mangan's sculpture of painted bone and wood is a rare small piece by an artist who generally prefers to work with larger objects such as axe, shovel and hammer handles. All his work has appreciated in value.

$8000

This work by Sydney contemporary artist Hany Armanious is one of his Assorted Muffins series, part of his 2003 show at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. Made from plastic foam and cardboard, it sold for $1400 at the time but would now fetch about $8000 on the secondary market.