‘Unabashedly luxurious’: John Laws’ art and antiquities collection up for auction

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Linda Morris

More than six months after the death of the legendary veteran broadcaster John Laws, the luxurious private world of one of Australia’s most recognisable radio voices is set to be shared with the public.

The estate of the late broadcaster and his wife, Caroline, has announced major cultural gifts to the Art Gallery of NSW and Powerhouse Museum, alongside a massive, multimillion-dollar auction of the couple’s personal collection through Bonhams Australia.

Laws spent seven decades on air at stations such as Sydney’s 2UE and 2SM. At the height of his career, he was drawing more than two million a listeners a day to his morning show.

John and Caroline Laws in 1998.

Former prime minister Paul Keating once described him as the “broadcaster of the century”. However, his career was not without controversy – he was involved in a “cash for comment” scandal which sparked widespread debate on the influence of the media on consumer choices.

He retained a loyal audience until he retired, a year before his death in November 2025, aged 90.

Bonham’s managing director Merryn Schriever said Laws was an erudite and discerning collector. While an occasional buyer at auction, he was more frequently a client of private dealers and the legendary David Jones Art Gallery.

“In every sense he was maximalist connoisseur,” she said. “A lover of the unabashedly luxurious, deeply traditional in some areas, but also eclectic and highly personal.

“He loved craftsmanship: watches, Cartier and Montblanc pens, Hermès and Gucci accessories, Lalique glass, antique furniture and luxury desktop objects all point to someone who prized old-world notions of elegance and status.”

Schriever said the 600 lots comprising 1000 items were surprisingly wide-ranging and also included Chinese antiquities, Art Deco glass, Australian paintings, rare natural-history books, decorative arts and period furniture.

“John Laws and Caroline weren’t simply buying ‘expensive things’; they enjoyed assembling interiors layered with historical and visual texture which has made their home a privilege and pleasure to be in as we prepared the collection for market,” she said. “The emphasis is less on minimalist modern taste than on objects that announce themselves – tactile, polished, beautifully made.”

Ahead of the public sale, his estate gifted key pieces from Laws’ professional and personal life to public cultural institutions.

Rupert Bunny ‘The four-leafed clover’ c1915–1917, The John and Caroline Laws Collection.AGNSW

The Powerhouse Museum has officially acquired Laws’ famous gold-plated German Sennheiser microphone, a defining symbol of his career that was set up next to his coffin at his state funeral at St Andrew’s Cathedral.

Museum’s chief executive Lisa Havilah said Powerhouse curators were invited to the residence of John Laws earlier this year to look at a collection of items spanning his career.

Apart from the golden microphone, the curatorial team selected objects related to his achievements, from ARIA’s and Commercial Radio Awards to significant people in his career.

“John Laws was a key figure of Australian broadcasting; he had and incredibly long ranging career and shaped the style of talk back radio as we know it today,” Havilah said.

“Objects like the golden microphone, that are so strongly connected to Mr Laws’ persona as ‘the golden tonsils’ are a part of the cultural identity and history of Sydney. We are honoured that these important objects are now part of the Powerhouse Collection.”

The Art Gallery of NSW has received a major donation of artworks from the couple’s private art collection. It includes four paintings by John Russell, the Australian painter closely associated with leading late 19th-century French artists, including Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh and Henri Matisse, as well as two important paintings by Rupert Bunny – one of the most successful Australian expatriate artists of his generation.

The collection also includes a major watercolour of England’s Lake District by John Glover, and a drawing of the Fish River by Brett Whiteley, created while the artist was staying at the Laws’ Oberon property in 1979.

The Laws’ remaining estate will be dispersed next week across Bonhams’ five live and online auctions on June 2 and 3. Paintings by Australian artists including Brett Whiteley, Margaret Olley, Ray Crooke and Tim Storrier, alongside an onyx sculpture, Anna I, 1978, by Joel Elenberg, are estimated to fetch between $300,000 and $400,000.

Among the selection of antiquities is a Roman marble statuette of Silvanus and a ram, circa 2nd century, estimated at $3000–$5000.

Public previews will take place inside the Laws’ residence at Woolloomooloo in Sydney from May 29 to June 1, just before the hammer falls.