IT BEGAN ON A DAY of prickly Sydney heat, a last hard burst of the dying summer in late March 1962. Over seven hundred people jammed into the plain upstairs auction room at Castlereagh Street to see the selling off by James R. Lawson Ltd of the art collection of the late Norman Schureck, a prominent cosmetics entrepreneur. Probated at £30,000, it was an impressive cluster of paintings. The most popular Australian historical artists—Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, Hans Heysen, Conrad Martens, G.W. Lambert—were represented with choice pictures among the 282 lots, and there were significant pieces by overseas masters such…