David Challis

Dr David Challis is a postdoctoral researcher and sessional teacher in the Art History program at the University of Melbourne. His ongoing research interests include exploring the historical underpinnings of the global art market in addition to researching issues relating to the structure, operation and future developments of the contemporary art market in Australia and across the globe. His first monograph, titled 'Foreign Currency Volatility and the Market for French Modernist Art' was published by Brill in 2021. His research distinctions include the Art History program’s Dwight Final Assessment Prize (Fine Arts) for academic merit 2014, the Australian Post-Graduate Award 2015 and the 2020 Paul Mellon Centre Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Paul Mellon Centre for studies in British Art. David returned to full time study at the University of Melbourne in 2013 after a successful twenty-five-year career in the Financial Markets Industry based in Australia and London.

Publications

Book:
• David M. Challis, Foreign Currency Volatility and the Art Market for French Modernist Art, (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2021).

Book chapters:
• ‘Policy, Precarity and Stimulus in the Visual Arts Economy’ in NGV Triennial 2020, (Melbourne: National Gallery of Victoria, 2020).
• ‘Moving Mountains: French art dealers and the economics of translocation’ in Christel H. Force (Ed.), Pioneers of the Global Art Market: Paris-based dealers and networks, 1850–1950, (London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020).

Journal articles:
- ‘Rodin’s sculpture in Japan and the Economics of Translocation,’ Journal for Art Market Studies, Vol. 2, No. 2 (2018).
- ‘Goitres, growths and distortions: Rodin’s Balzac in Melbourne’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Art, Issue 2, 2021
- Co-authored with Anita Archer, 'The Lucky Country': How the COVID-19 Pandemic Revitalised Australia's Lethargic Art Market', Arts, 2022.