Collectors don't need to be on the rich list

By DON MILNE


There aren't that many people around, a commentator remarked, who can afford to pay $100,000 or more for a work of art.

Well, no. Not in my neighbourhood, anyway. Nor, in an equally valid statement of the blindingly obvious, are there very many New Zealand artists, living or dead, who can command that sort of money.

McCahon, Goldie, Hotere, Hammond, and Hodgkins are certainly in that elite group - at least with their best works.

The late, great Pat Hanly will surely soon be assured of such a place, while Don Binney and Michael Smither are knocking at the door.

Big sales make the headlines.

But how about the other end of the scale, where the auction-houses make their bread and butter?

For people who have a few hundred, or a few thousand, dollars to spend, the choices are myriad.

So, at Webb's affordable auction this month, prices for about 200 lots ranged from $35 for an 1884 Burton Brothers albumen print of the Manawatu Gorge to $4000 for a Dick Frizzell Big Egg - Little Egg screenprint from the Auckland War Memorial Museum edition of a year or two ago (a splendid return for the vendor).

Webb's had obviously adjusted its estimates, so more works sold on the night.

The seven works which topped $3000 make an interesting list: paintings by Smither ($3500), Tom Mutch and Don Driver ($3800 each), and screenprints by Frizzell ($3000 and $4000), Robin White ($3400) and Hanly ($3200).

Works on paper by these artists, and others - such as Gretchen Albrecht, Robert Ellis and Richard Killeen - are attractive, reasonably priced works that are generally rising in value.

Another artist who worked largely on paper has shown an even more dramatic rise in popularity and price.

Woodcuts by E. Mervyn Taylor (1906-1964) hardly attracted a bid a few years ago. Maybe they were too familiar to older buyers through the association of many with the one-time School Journal. But their local, and particularly Maori, themes have made them highly desirable.

A strong image of weeping Maori women made $6000 at Dunbar Sloane's Wellington sale in August and one of figures and a war canoe scene made $5500.

Sloane's have 19 works by Taylor in Wellington next week, including a watercolour and pencil drawings. Estimates range from $1000 to $6000.

Another artist whose works on paper are commanding higher prices is Trevor Lloyd and here I must, as the business writers do, declare an interest. Lloyd, cartoonist for the Herald for many years, was attracted to etching through his art student daughter Connie. He produced about 300 etchings of Maori life, the bush, native birds and scenes of Auckland. Those works, and his sketchbooks, evoke a New Zealand long gone.

We started collecting him with the purchase about 40 years ago of a strong image of the head of a tattooed chief. It was the first of many. They once cost $50 to $150 each but a month ago one went for $2000.

* Coming up

Cordy's catalogue sale is next Tuesday, with art in the evening session.

The International Art Centre has an investment sale on November 24, and collectable art on December 5.

Dunbar Sloane's Wellington art sale is next Wednesday and Thursday, followed by a big sale in Auckland on November 25.

Webb's final major sale for the year of art, jewellery and antiques, will be on December 7-9.