The impressive collection hiding inside this five-storey Sydney home
Peter Wilson and James Emmett’s art collection has been an integral part of their lives for 25 years. It was so important to the brief they gave architect Matthew Bennett for their inner-city Sydney home that some pieces even appeared in the renders for the build.
They included “some of our work and some fantasy work that Matthew also thought we might like to buy”, Wilson says.
The art throughout the five-storey warehouse conversion is a layered record of the couple’s many personal, familial and philanthropic relationships.
“There’s certainly no single centrepiece that is at the heart of the collection,” Wilson says. “It’s been an organic process rather than following a framework.
“We very much acquire things because we like them.”
Among the works they have collected or commissioned are deeply cherished works, including those by little-known artists that they have inherited from family. It is all important to them.
Moving into the renovated building in late 2017 presented them with an opportunity to revisit their whole collection.
“To say that the walls of the previous apartment, particularly the living room, were a French hang would be an understatement – it was just plastered,” Wilson says.
Drawing on the relationships they have cultivated over their many years of volunteering on arts boards, including Wilson’s current role as Artspace chairperson, they asked for advice with a starter hang, before inviting Beatrice Gralton and Nina Miall to catalogue and rehang the collection in 2020 – a process that took 18 months.
“Things had come together organically, and we wanted somebody else’s eye on it,” Wilson says. “We were lucky enough to get two really good sets of eyes.
“The way things are arranged now feels more logical and thematic, and different rooms make sense, but the process also forced us to think about everything we had, including those that were in storage.”
Bennett, of Bennett and Trimble, created a layered display system through a four-storey void that allows the couple to change each floor according to their moods.
“It’s a fun party piece … and the one piece of the house that Matthew insisted I not be able to operate from my phone,” Wilson says. “And I think that”s wise!”
The racks, which include works by James Guppy, Christian Thompson and Nigel Milsom, were also curated by Gralton and Miall, but the salon hang of portraits in the living room is a particular favourite.
“It is such a joy to lie on the couch and look at those works together,” Wilson says.
Among the portraits are family heirlooms as well as commissioned portraits of Emmett and Wilson by painter Julian Meagher, whose work also hangs in the stairwell.
Emmett went to school with Meagher, and they have collected his work for a long time.
Many others, like the Harley Ives videopieces and Andre Hemer diptych, have come from Chalk Horse Art Gallery.
“It was around the corner from our old apartment, so we’ve bought a lot of work from them over the years,” Wilson says. “We like dealing with them; they know what we like. And it’s been fun because they’ve grown up as we’ve grown up.”
Emmett and Wilson like to support artists they know. That is how they came to acquire a large glass work by their old friend Mel O’Callaghan, her large video work Centre of the Centre, sketches by her husband, Clemens Habicht, and work by Oliver Watts, Oliver Beer and others.
On the piano is an edition of a small “Oscar” they commissioned from Caroline Rothwell as a gift for people who made special contributions to their wedding.
“We’ve known Caroline for years – she’s been on an art board with James – and we’d been wanting to buy her work for over a decade,” Wilson says.
That first commission led to another – a gargoyle on the rooftop. It’s the first of three that will be made over the next two years: one more for the warehouse and one to be installed in Wilson’s office in the city.
“These relationships are really rewarding,” WIlson says. “We like it so much, we’re going to try to do more of that.”
Despite the sense of cohesion that they had brought to their home – the gym, for instance, is hung with what Wilson describes as “appropriately masc works” by Jeremy Smith and Jonathan Rosen, and large-scale sculptures like Michael Parekowhai’s deer bookends great visitors at street level – the home feels absolutely lived in.
“The house is not a museum or a showpiece,” Wilson says. “Its very much a place to live. Hence, all my Lego on the piano and the books everywhere. It’s home.”
Profile excerpt from the book COLLECTING: Living with Art by Kym Elphinstone
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