An up-and-coming icon

By DON MILNE

Japan has long had its living national treasures, and New Zealand now has the equivalent - the 10 national icons announced recently by the Arts Foundation.

No one was surprised that Ralph Hotere, the Otago artist whose majestic works continue to command record prices at auction, was among the elevated elite.

But some outside the art world might have wondered about the second painter on the list, Milan Mrkusich, whose name is scarcely household currency.

Yet Mrkusich, who is six years older than the 72-year-old Hotere, is increasingly being recognised as a unique force in New Zealand painting.

Part of the reason he has not received greater recognition, perhaps, is that his works pay no homage to the New Zealand landscape or the culture and idiom of this country.

He is, as Gil Docking described him in Two Hundred Years of New Zealand Painting, a "cerebral painter, deeply attracted by the emblematic and abstract possibilities of painting".

His work is strongly, almost relentlessly, abstract, yet it generally has a warmth, depth and vitality lacking in lesser daubers of the abstract persuasion.

Mrkusich was born in Dargaville and self-taught, and his works are increasingly finding a perceptive audience.

At Webb's sale this month - when a work by Hotere set a record auction price of $275,000 (before 10 per cent premium and GST) for a living New Zealand artist - a Mrkusich painting, Four Elements Above, sold for $47,000. And a 1977 Mrkusich collage went for $10,000.

The record for Mrkusich is understood to be $77,500 for Emblem One, set at Webb's in June last year.

His works are not to everyone's taste, but now he has received well-deserved official recognition, who knows?

There are no works by Mrkusich in the International Art Centre's offering next Thursday, but there are some fine paintings, including two works by the British-French post-impressionist Lucien Pissarro.

Painted in 1928 and 1934, and given by the artist to friends, they have been passed down by the family to wind up in New Zealand. The later work is estimated to sell at from $80,000 to $100,000, and the earlier at $50,000 to $75,000.

The sale includes several interesting historical works, too, including an 1882 painting of kauri logging on the Coromandel by Alfred Sharpe (estimate $100,000-$150,000), and an 1899 replication of the settlement of Wellington by the New Zealand Company by Captain Matthew Thomas Clayton ($80,000-$120,000).

Another early work, by Nicholas Chevalier, is of a Tahitian girl selling shells and coral (estimate $70,000-$100,000). Chevalier's Tahitian looks as if she would be more at home in the Greek Islands than in Papeete, but the work has some charm.

Several works by Raymond Ching and Margaret Olrog Stoddart, plus a lovely early watercolour by Frances Hodgkins, also appeal.

But the top price could go to one of Colin McCahon's French Bay series. The market for these works is strong, and this could well hit the top mark of $225,000.

Coming up: The International Art Centre's sale is in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell, next Thursday, July 31.

Webb's next affordable art sale is August 12, with its next major sale on September 23 (art), 24 (jewellery) and 25 (decorative arts).

Cordy's next art and antiques sale is on August 19.

Dunbar Sloane's next Auckland art sale will be on August 20 and 21, and will include works by Colin McCahon, Pat Hanly, Ralph Hotere and a fine Frances Hodgkins from Britain which could match the record prices set earlier this year. Sloane's will also hold an art sale in Wellington on August 27 and 28.