Auckland art sales top $3 million in a week

By DON MILNE

Any talk of an economic slowdown in Auckland certainly hasn't hit the art market. Two big sales within five days saw buyers dip into their pockets for more than $3 million. The highest price was a record - not to say mind-boggling - $380,000 at Webb's for an abstract painting by Gordon Walters.

Called Tirangi II, the severe black-and-white work from 1980 is a classic example of Walters' reworking of the Maori koru motif, recalling, as art critic Michael Dunn suggests, "moko, tribal masks and the totemic."

Walters, who died in 1995 aged 76, had an extraordinary break in exhibiting from 1949 to 1966 because, as he said, "New Zealand was so hostile to abstraction." His best-known works, the koru paintings, were first shown in 1966.

One of the few Walters works of such quality in private hands, Tirangi II went to a New Zealand private collector after spirited bidding.

Taking into account the 10 per cent buyer's premium and GST paid on the premium, it sold for $422,750. The estimate was from $250,000 to $350,000.

Webb's sale last Tuesday was the first in its renovated (at a cost said to be not far from $1 million) rooms in Manukau Rd. It was well attended, as was the International Art Centre's 30th anniversary offering the previous Thursday in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell.

The Parnell sale took just over $1.1 million and was the centre's fourth in a row to pass that figure. Webb's exceeded $2 million.

Works by two living artists also set records at Webb's. Painting '77 "Yellow" (1977) by Ralph Hotere went for $100,000 (premium excluded) which was at the top end of the estimate of between $75,000 and $100,000. Girl Asleep 14, a 1965 work by Pat Hanly, did even better against its estimate of $55,000 to $75,000, selling for $95,000.

Both were outstanding examples of the artists' early work.

The Quik and the Ded, by artist-of-the-day Bill Hammond, for which a record of between $85,000 and $120,000 was hoped, sold for $95,000.

The International Art Centre sale saw a record set for more traditional artist Peter McIntyre, with Autumn, King Country, going for $35,000. The previous record for McIntyre, set just two years ago at the centre, was $29,000, for a painting of Skippers Gorge.

A watercolour of roses by Margaret Stoddart fetched $40,000, the second-highest price for this increasingly popular artist, while a Lindauer portrait of the Ngati-Naho chief Kewene Te Haho did not do quite as well as expected but still went for $110,000.

"The market is very buoyant, with people prepared to pay very highly for works of exceptional quality or rarity," said Richard Thomson, director of the International Art Centre.

Among the works of historic interest, an oil painted around 1887 by the Rev Richard Laishley of a Maori family at Thames attracted strong bidding, including interest from overseas. It sold for $42,000.

Bidding was equally strong at Webb's for two attractive historic works, one by the Rev John Kinder of St Stephen's Chapel and Judges Bay, Auckland, painted around 1881, and the other by J. B. C. Hoyte of the Golden Crown stamper battery, also in Thames. The former sold for $36,000 and the latter for $37,000, both well above their estimates.

Coming up:

Dunbar Sloane will hold its last auction at the White Heron, Parnell, on April 26 and 27, before finding new premises. Major art will be sold on the Thursday, with a spill-over of affordable art on the Friday morning.

A feature will be "the most beautiful Goldie ever to be offered for auction" - a portrait of Ngapuhi chieftainess Harata Rewiri Tarapata.

Webb's has an affordable art auction planned for May 15, with the next catalogued art sale on June 26.

The International Art Centre's next sale is planned for July.