Saleroom: Captain Cook's market is still going strong

By DON MILNE

Right from the pillaging days of Cook and Banks, good Maori artefacts have been in high demand - and more than two centuries on, the market is still busy.

So Dunbar Sloane's artefact sale last week, with 300 lots, attracted strong attention and prices, with almost all sold.

Top price went to an exceptional and large (52cm long) wakahuia from the early-contact period. It went for $60,000 (hammer price, with 12.5 per cent buyer's premium and GST, $68,436), believed to be a record for such a piece.

At the other end of the size scale, a 6.4cm greenstone pekapeka (pendant), also from the early contact period, fetched $22,000 ($25,093 with premium and GST). A rare early tiki from Taranaki went for $33,000 ($37,640) and a wooden long axe, with steel head, labelled as "taken from the Rebels at Matutu 1864", reached $10,000 ($11,406), also a record.

Many better pieces remained in private hands, with institutions often outbid.

Back to more recent works, two sales at the International Art Centre saw strong support and a good range of prices.

Ralph Hotere's Requiem (1973-74) fetched the top price of $75,000.

Evelyn Page continued her popularity, with a 1942 view of the Earnslaw tied up at the wharf at Queenstown selling for $60,000 (add 11.25 per cent for buyer's premium and GST).

A Garth Tapper logging scene went for $22,000, evidence of increasing interest in this artist, while Robert Ellis' Motorway Journey (1970) fetched $17,500.

Two curiosities were Boat Study and Cottage by Jetty, painted in 1955 by Hotere when he was teaching at Taheke School in the Hokianga. Described as the two earliest works by Hotere to be offered for sale (and, to be honest, showing little sign of his later development), they went for $6500 and $7000.

In the centre's affordable art sale, a highlight was the Don Binney Frigate Bird screenprint from the Barry Lett series, which went for $3000 (double the higher estimate).

The Hotere Red on Black print from the same series fetched $1400, while the Gordon Walter's Koru made $750.

Up the road to Newmarket and Dunbar Sloane next week, Hotere is again expected to be a highlight, with a giant vertical setting of Bill Manhire's poem The Voyage estimated to sell at from $300,000 to $400,000.

The purchaser will need a tall wall - this 1976 work is about 3.3m deep. It is part of a series of banners painted by Hotere in 1975 and 1976. The technique included oil and enamel on unstretched coarse canvas, left out in the open to give further texture. It is a grand, powerful work, with echoes of McCahon.

The sale includes several other works by Hotere and three drawings by Frances Hodgkins, an artist this house specialises in. Other artists represented include John Pule, also growing in demand, Dick Frizzell, with one of his Phantom series, Michael Smither, Shane Cotton and Richard Killeen.

Those on the hunt for bargains - especially prints - could look at Sloane's affordable art offering next Thursday night.

Coming up: Sloane's sales are in Auckland next Wednesday (investment) and Thursday (affordable), and in Wellington on August 25 (art) and 26 (applied arts).

Cordy's next catalogue sale is on August 24.

Webb's next investment sale is on September 21.

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