Jane Phare recalls her first-close up viewing of a Colin McCahon painting as one of the artist's masterpieces is expected to reach an eye-watering price at an art auction this month.
Back in 1993 the Herald sent me to interview art collector and philanthropist Jenny Gibbs to talk about her work as a dedicated and generous benefactor of the arts.
But there was another purpose to the mission. "See if you can find out if it was Jenny who bought the McCahon," my editor said. The media had earlier covered, with incredulity, a newly-set record for a McCahon painting paid by a mysterious unnamed buyer. It seemed an enormous amount at the time, several hundred thousand as I recall.
Gibbs, now Dame Jenny, and I drank tea and talked for an hour in her beautiful Paritai Drive house - part home, part stunning art gallery. Finally I asked her THAT question. "Was it you who bought the McCahon?"
Gibbs' face remained expressionless as she studied me. Then she raised her eyes, ever so slightly, to a spot above and beyond my head. I swivelled round and there it was in all its magnificence on the vast wall behind me - a large McCahon painting.
Gibbs' name came up again this week as the owner of one of the last three paintings McCahon completed in 1982, which she bought for $100,000 after his death in 1987. Another of the 1982 paintings hangs in the National Gallery of Australia and now the third - McCahon's Is There Anything of Which One Can Say Look This Is New? - is up for sale this month at an auction of the BNZ's multi-million collection of contemporary New Zealand paintings, prints and photographs. The painting is expected to sell for between $1.5 million and $2.5m.
As University of Auckland associate professor Dr Linda Tyler remarks wryly of Gibbs' purchase: "Now $100,000 spent in 1987 seems a very good investment."
The McCahon is one of 50 paintings that will be offered for sale on September 18 with another 150 pieces due to be sold at a second Webb's auction on September 27. The collection, which includes works by renowned artists Colin McCahon, Rita Angus, Gordon Walters, Toss Woollaston, Gretchen Albrecht, Milan Mrkusich, Don Binney and Ralph Hotere, is expected to raise well over $10 million.
The proceeds will fund a philanthropic foundation BNZ set up to help community organisations and iwi across New Zealand working to improve Kiwis' lives. Webb's will also donate a significant portion of its fees from the sale to the new foundation.
The BNZ collection is of fine pedigree. In the heady pre-stock market crash of the early 1980s, the bank commissioned renowned Wellington art dealer Peter McLeavey to put together an art collection that would represent the best of contemporary New Zealand art.
McLeavey took the task seriously, buying paintings, prints and photographs between 1982 and 1987, artwork that would hang in BNZ's head office in Wellington and, later, Auckland for both staff and clients to enjoy. Tyler remembers taking tours for BNZ, showing paintings to the public that were hung "cheek by jowl" in the bank's art room.
McCahon's Is There Anything of Which One Can Say Look This Is New? originally hung in an executive suite in the bank's Wellington building in Willis St and in later years over a staircase in the bank's Shortland St building in Auckland. The work was lent to other galleries in New Zealand, Australia and the Netherlands, as were other pieces in the banks' collection.
In 1993 McLeavey was asked to advise on the proposed sale of the McCahon, to which he responded: "It is one of the cornerstones of the Bank of New Zealand's art collection. Much prestige flows to the bank from this one object."
The bank never did sell the painting, until now. Another of McCahon's paintings O Let Us Weep, painted in 1969, is also for sale and is expected to reach between $800,000 and $1.6m. Kauri, McCahon's 1952 painting of his humble house in Titirangi, was bought from Webb's by the BNZ in 1984 for $50,000, a good amount of money at the time. It is expected to sell for between $350,000 and $550,000.
Tony Fomison's Icon by Fra Angelico No. 1 was bought by the bank from Webb's in 1984 for $2500. It's now being auctioned with an estimate of $100,000 – $200,000. Philip Clairmont's painting Kidney Table was bought in 1986 for $15,000. It
will be auctioned with an estimate of $200,000 – $400,000.
Gordon Walters' 1979 painting Makora has a pre-sale estimate of between $600,000 and $850,000 while Fomison's Fugitive, painted in the early 80s, is expected to sell for between $600,000 to $900,000. Milan Mrkusich's painting Golden Centre of Two Elements is set to sell for between $180,000 and $320,000.
And sitting oddly in the contemporary mix are two 1889 paintings by Charles Blomfield, one of the White Terraces and one of the Pink Terraces. Their pre-auction estimates are between $40,000 and $70,000.
• BNZ artworks featured in the September 18 auction be on view at Webb's in Mt Eden tonight between 6pm and 8pm, and will remain on view every day from Thursday September 8 until September 17 from 10am to5pm on week days, and 10am to 4pm at weekends. The auction will start the following day at 2pm.
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