Hugely influential, while paradoxically being personally little known, the death of Terry Ingram (1942–2024), arts journalist and author should not pass without acknowledging his profound impact on our knowledge of, and the subsequent growth of, the Australian art market.
Terry, for over 43 years, was not only the longest-serving journalist at the Australian Financial Review, but he also wrote the Saleroom column, making him one of the most highly read and influential commentators on Australian art. Nobody, and I mean nobody, had written about Australian art, so persistently, in a national publication from the late 1960s till his full-time retirement in 2012. Having followed in Terry’s footsteps as an art market analyst for The Australian newspaper weekly for a decade, I can uniquely say that it is not that hard to score a byline in a major newspaper either now or back in the day. Easy, once, twice or every day for six months or so. However, it takes real discipline and determination to write a full page or even a column every week for decades. That, ladies and gentlemen, is one gritty achievement.
