Art Theft and Sexual Harassment
Facilitated by third parties within the artworld... an ongoing update.
15 July 2024 eBay listing of three stolen study collages (I didn't see listing until 24 August), two using photographs of me as figure models: 21C (21st Century) Feminism 2001, Pow Pow 2001 and Lick, Sip Suck 2001 (a reference to tequila advertising at the time).
19 July 2024 eBay listing of stolen Bird of Prey 2001, a study collage using a photograph of me, with description "who is the bird, who is the prey". I did not see this until August, after it became a sponsored post (paid ad).
14 August 2024 I became aware of eBay listings because Bird of Prey 2001 study was sponsored (paid ad) so it appeared at the top of Google search "Hazel Dooney art for sale", which I check periodically to review the secondary market.
24 August 2024 Listings removed by eBay at 4pm due to copyright infringement.
1 September 2024 At 3:12pm, false and defamatory information about me was added to the biography and exhibition sections of Design and Art Australia Online, related to an explicit photograph falsely attributed to me at Leonard Joel’s website (see update on 12 November 2024). I did not discover this until 22 May 2025.
7 October 2024 The website www.theartexchangegallery.com was registered at 23:40:51 UTC in Victoria, Australia. I did not discover this until April 2025, when the studies were discovered for sale there.
14 October 2024 Received a repeat fake enquiry from a hotmail account about works using with me as the figure-model from an art expedition to William Creek and beyond in 2001: “Hi Hazel, How’s things? I hope all is well. I am just seeing if you still have any prints from Williams Creek? I still want a hot woman with a gun on my wall!!”
I received the first of these emails on 27 January 2024.
The final painting of Bird of Prey was included in the book titled William Creek & Beyond, based on the expedition to Lake Eyre in 2001 and published in 2002.
17 October 2024 I wrote about being stalked by a group of men over the last year, organised by a man in the artworld who has harassed me for more than twenty years (paragraphs four to seven and paragraph ten).
31 October 2024 Stolen Bird of Prey 2001 study offered at auction by major art auction house Leonard Joel, retitled Untitled, without record of provenance or copyright approval. I did not know about this until 5 November.
5 November 2024 I saw a record of the stolen study at auction on international online database invaluable https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/hazel-dooney-untitled-2001-4054-c-2a44ea4a05 .
I searched Leonard Joel's website for records of my work in their previous auctions and did not find the listing. It had already been removed. However a separate google search found the record of it being offered for sale at their online auction, URL ‘https://bidlive.leonardjoel.com.au’ .
4:57pm I emailed Copyright Agency informing them of copyright infringement.
6 November 2024
10:42am Received email reply from Copyright Agency: "I emailed my contact at Leonard Joel earlier this morning and resent the list of ‘prior approval’ artists of which you are one. This same list was sent to this new staff member on July 24. And on other occasions to other staff members prior. I’m sorry that there is this level of non-compliance evident. Let's hope that this most recent correspondence will solidify the importance of needing to comply with our very simple request, ahead of any reproduction of your works."
3:37pm Received email from Copyright Agency: "Leonard Joel wanted me to advise you that they have removed your artwork from the website and sale and that they apologize for the oversight."
3:44pm I replied by email: "That’s not true. Here is a link https://bidlive.leonardjoel.com.au/auction-lot/hazel-dooney-untitled-2001_2A44EA4A05 ”
8 November 2024
10:48am My artwork is still on the Leonard Joel website: https://bidlive.leonardjoel.com.au/auction-lot/hazel-dooney-untitled-2001_2A44EA4A05
My artwork is also still listed in the catalogue (lot 4054)
https://bidlive.leonardjoel.com.au/auction-catalog/the-auction-salon-art_8F9PQY3HAN
Update 8 November 12:48pm Image removed due to copyright restrictions, two hours after On rapid change part II was simultaneously emailed to subscribers and published online.
Further Updates
11 November 2024
4:09pm Received an email from a collector of my work letting me know that my stolen Bird of Prey study was also reproduced without permission on mutual art.com
4:19pm I emailed Copyright Agency: “I write to request that Leonard Joel also have my artwork removed from mutualart.com due to copyright infringement:
https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/HAZEL-DOONEY/2A7A6AD46A354A4FFEA5A893ECE24AC4 "
12 November 2024
9:23am Received an email from Copyright Agency stating “Leonard Joel have acknowledged receipt of the request, and the removal is in train.”
9:29am I emailed Copyright Agency an acknowledgement and “I write to again request that the following explicit images are deleted from Leonard Joel’s website and any associated auction house databases due to copyright infringement and misinformation. I have already had them removed from several international art auction databases due to copyright infringement. Further, this digitally printed photograph is not titled ’Survival’ and it was not created in 2001.”
The photograph is not by me, it was included in an exhibition titled PORNO at MARS Gallery in 2008. The image is reproduced uncensored on Leonard Joel’s website using my name and the title of my etching, Survival 2002, from the same body of work as my stolen study for Bird of Prey 2001.
25 November 2024
10am Although I haven’t heard back from Leonard Joel (via Copyright Agency) I checked the website this morning. The images have been removed.
16 April 2025
The four stolen studies are now being exhibited and offered for sale at The Art Exchange in Melbourne, which opened in late 2024. These four stolen works were offered on eBay in July 2024. They are again mistitled, with Bird of Prey 2001 pluralised and study for 21C Feminism (accurately titled when posted to eBay) mistitled as Smoking Hot 2001.
7 May 2025
Due to Copyright Infringement, images of the four stolen studies were removed from The Art Exchange website by the platform that hosts it .
22 May 2025
After emailing Design and Art Australia Online the day before and receiving no reply, I created an account and at 8:12pm deleted the entire entry about me which included false and defamatory information (see 1 September 2024).
25 June 2025
According to Mutual Art, the four stolen studies were were sold by Christian McCann Auctions on 25 June 2025 https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Four-Girl-Studies--sold-as-a-Collection/8264E179C2747B5EE895C631485E3310 .
1 July 2025
I emailed Christian McCann auctions stating, “According to Mutual Art, four artworks stolen from me were sold by your auction house on 25 June 2025. You have infringed my copyright and intellectual property rights by reproducing them without my permission and you have failed to verify their provenance https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Four-Girl-Studies--sold-as-a-Collection/8264E179C2747B5EE895C631485E3310
These stolen artworks have been repeatedly offered in a way that involves sexual harassment, documented here (link to this page). It is also noted on my website at https://www.hazeldooney.com/secondary-market . A very basic internet search would have revealed this information.
I write to request the name of the vendor and the buyer.”
02 July 2025
Christian McCann Auctions have not replied to my email and my stolen artworks are still listed on their website at https://connect.invaluable.com/christianmccann/auction-lot/hazel-dooney-four-girl-studies-sold-as-a-collecti_05a41d6a32 . The two mistitled artworks are included in the group title, study for 21c Feminism (accurately titled when posted to eBay) mistlitled as Smoking Hot and study for Bird of Prey pluralised to Birds of Prey.
Combined, the made-up titles create the group title "Four Girls Studies (Smoking Hot) Birds of Prey 2001”.
