Two women, three cities, 21 years: Inside Sullivan+Strumpf, a leading contemporary art gallery from Australia

Joanna Strumpf and Ursula Sullivan met more than 30 years ago, working alongside each other in the commercial gallery scene and at auction houses. Like many young people in the industry, they had bigger ambitions—a gallery of their own—and spent almost a decade working for others before deciding they were ready to make the leap. “And, of course, we were not at all ready,” Strumpf candidly admits, “because while we had worked for many other people, having your own business is a completely different thing.”

Sullivan+Strumpf opened in 2005 on the ground floor of a small terrace in Paddington. A few years later, the pair took over the upstairs as well. The growth continued in fits and starts from there: an eviction from that same building eventually pushed them into a larger space in Zetland. An outpost in Singapore followed in 2015, and Melbourne in 2022.

Left: Joanna Strumpf and Ursula Sullivan at the opening of Sullivan+Strumpf’s Singapore gallery in 2025. (Photo by Phillip Huynh) Right: ‘Red Ruby I’ by Dawn Ng. (Photo courtesy of Sullivan+Strumpf) Top: An Atong Atem commission titled ‘The Last Women’, displayed in the Time Fairfax Forecourt at the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra. (Photo courtesy of Sullivan+Strumpf)

Along the way, major museums became some of the gallery’s most significant clients: in 2022, the National Gallery of Australia commissioned one of their artists, Lindy Lee, to create Ouroboros, a $14 million sculpture that would become the largest commission in the museum’s history, now installed at its entrance. “That was a complete game changer,” Strumpf says, “for her career, and also for us as a gallery.”

Over 21 years, the pair have watched the broader industry mature alongside them. “The professional standards have certainly increased, from both the galleries and the artists,” Sullivan says, “and the ambition has increased too.” Art fairs have been central to that growth. The gallery’s first international outing was Hong Kong in 2010—a near sell-out on opening night, and the start of relationships with collectors still on the books today. It’s an environment they have come to understand well: some collectors, Strumpf notes, appear only at fairs and nowhere else; others avoid them altogether. 

Works by Ramesh Mario Nithiyendra (left) and Eko Bintang (right) presented at Art SG 2026. (Photos by Jin Cheng Wong)

For a gallery operating at a genuine distance from much of the rest of the world, fairs offered an efficient way to build connections; enough of a reason, in fact, that early success across Asian fairs led the gallery to open a permanent space in Singapore. “We had clients there, and we had the ambition to broaden our horizons,” Sullivan shares. “It’s actually been really great for our thinking. We’ve never been monocultural—we’ve always worked with artists from different cultures, ideas, and perspectives—but we wanted to develop that further.”

That intention is visible in the gallery’s expanding roster. Jakarta-based artist Eko Bintang, fresh off a sold-out show, and Depok’s Ella Wijt, whose work Sullivan describes as having “a beautiful attitude to simplicity and nature”, are two names they are currently excited about out of Southeast Asia. Sullivan+Strumpf also recently announced that it is now representing South Sudanese Australian artist Atong Atem (topmost), adding a major new voice to its programme.

The gallery’s in-house exhibition schedule is similarly full across all three cities. Sydney will next open a show from Lara Merrett, Melbourne from Gregory Hodge, and Singapore from Irfan Hendrian. On the fair circuit, Sydney Contemporary in September and Frieze London in October are next up—the former part of what Sullivan calls the “galvanising” home fairs that bring the local community together, the latter one of the “outreach” fairs where the gallery is introducing its artists to new audiences.

Left: Irfan Hendrian at work in his studio. (Photo courtesy of Sullivan+Strumpf) Right: ‘nothing is solid here’ by Lara Merrett, framed. (Photo by Simon Hewson)

Shared passions

Running through all of it is the genuine friendship between the two women. Both similar in age with two daughters apiece, they’ve grown together alongside the business. “We like to have fun,” Strumpf says. “We work really hard, but we have a lot of fun with what we do, and we’re able to laugh with each other and at ourselves. I don’t think I could have coped with anyone who didn’t share that.”

Sullivan adds, “We both want the same thing. We both want to work with the best artists and do the best thing by them.” They also share a fairly firm view on why people ought to be collecting in the first place. Sullivan is unconvinced by the idea of art as investment: “I think that concept has really damaged the American art market. In Australia, and Singapore, that’s not why people are buying. Our clients are collectors and lovers who get excited about an idea, about what the artist represents, and they like living with things that are beautiful.”

Strumpf frames it as investment in the self: “It’s maybe like education. Art changes who we are and how we think about things, the way reading and investing in our minds is important.” Over two decades in, it’s this kind of view that continues to define how Sullivan+Strumpf operates.

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In brief: Sullivan+Strumpf

Sullivan+Strumpf was founded in Sydney in 2005 by co-directors Ursula Sullivan and Joanna Strumpf. The pair first met while both working for the late Sydney secondary-market dealer Eva Breuer, having each moved to the city from Brisbane in 1996.

The artists: The gallery represents more than 40 established and emerging artists and artist estates from across Australia, the Asia-Pacific, and East Asia, with a programme spanning over 30 exhibitions annually.

The expansion: The co-founders have pointed to Art Basel Hong Kong 2017 as a defining moment, when the pair put everything into their booth presentation and went on to sell major works by artists including Lindy Lee and Sam Leach.

The gallery opened its first international space in Singapore’s Gillman Barracks in 2016, becoming the first Australian gallery to establish a permanent presence in Asia. During Covid, their Singapore outpost operated as a pop-up until they reopened a dedicated studio in 2025. Their Melbourne gallery in Collingwood opened in 2022.