The ex-wife of prominent Australian artist David Bromley is selling off dozens of his paintings and sculptures in a huge auction to 'let go' of the past, eight years after their bitter breakup.
Tori Dixon-Whittle, 48, is offloading more than 200 items, including 60 pieces of Bromley's art worth up to $100,000, through Melbourne auctioneer Leonard Joel.
The auction, billed as 'the unique aesthetic of Tori Dixon-Whittle', also includes some of her own paintings, and furniture and art she picked up during her seven years living in Vietnam, post marriage.
Bromley, 58, and the former actress and model separated in 2010 after 17 years of marriage, after which he dated Amy Williamson and later married lawyer Yuge Yu in 2013.
One of Australia's most sought-after artists, Bromley specialises in female nudes and has painted celebrities like Lily Allen, Kate Fischer, Kendall and Kylie Jenner, Miranda Kerr, Kylie Minogue, Megan Gale, and Kate Waterhouse.
Ms Dixon-Whittle wrote in a Facebook post promoting the auction that she wanted a 'new beginning' after returning to Australia with the former couple's three children earlier this year.
'During decades in the art world, diverse work and travel, and my last seven years living in Vietnam, I've kept feathering our bowerbird nest,' she wrote.
'In planning our recent move back to Australia, I decided it was time to let a whole lot of things go - new beginnings!'
Ms Dixon-Whittle did not mention her ex-husband in any promotion of the auction or a brief interview with Leonard Joel.
'Who I was when I arrived [in Vietnam] and who I was when I left were very different,' she said.
The 60 artworks on sale included dozens paintings of children, another of his favourite subjects, along with dogs, decorated furniture, metal boats, and wooden aeroplanes.
Among the most expensive items were a bronze sculpture of two children playing leapfrog, with an estimate of $5,000-7,000, and two paintings of skulls and butterflies at $5,500-$7,500.
The auction has enraged the art community in Bromley's home town of Adelaide, where he moved from Britain as a young boy in 1964, and around the country where his art is widely owned.
Collectors feel selling so much of Bromley's art at once would hurt the value of his work, and that the collection should have been kept for their children Holly, 14, Willem, 11, and Arlo, nine.
They also objected to Ms Dixon-Whittle including her own art alongside his, along with other pieces she bought in Vietnam - some with no artist listed - in such a huge 'fire sale'.
One collector even called it a 'ruthless act of nastiness and desperation'.
Sales of Bromley's paintings averaged $9,990 each in 2007, but fell by half after the global financial crisis along with other Australian artists like Robert Dickerson and Pro Hart.
This was still far more than the hundreds of dollars most of the pieces in Ms Dixon-Whittle's auction were listed at.
Bromley, a six-time Archibald Prize finalist, was born in Sheffield, England, in 1960 but never returned after emigrating as he suffers from severe agoraphobia and can't travel by plane or boat.
However, his art is popular in his birth country and exhibited widely around the world.
He credited painting with helping him escape a troubled adolescence filled with depression and drunkenness that prevented him from holding down a steady job.
Bromley and his current wife now live in Melbourne with their young children Wen and Bei Bel, and bought the heritage-listed Old Castlemaine Gaol earlier this year.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
