Saleroom: Icy inspiration sets glass record

By DON MILNE

Philosophers have debated for years what counts most in the production of art - inspiration or technique. And most have plumped, quite rightly, for the former, while acknowledging that many of the world's finest and most inspirational artists have also been masters of technique.

So glass-making, traditionally regarded as one of the most difficult of crafts, becomes art when it shows off not only the maker's deep mastery of the technical skills but also true inspiration.

It helps, too, if the work is as beautiful as Ice Bowl by Karekare artist Ann Robinson, offered at Peter Webb Galleries in the last sale of 2000.

Robinson has extended the art of lost-wax casting of huge glass pieces to remarkable lengths. Her works have been exhibited - and sell well, for high prices - in Australia, the United States and Japan. So popular is she overseas that New Zealand buyers tend to snap up anything that comes on the market; a piece offered by Masterworks Gallery in Ponsonby before Christmas sold in 20 minutes.

Ice Bowl, thick-walled (how long does it take to cool such a piece of glass?) and as frosty, icy blue as if it had been carved from a chunk of the Ross Ice Shelf itself, was reckoned to sell for between $7000 and $9000.

In the end, the work fetched $10,200 ($11,220 with 10 per cent buyer's premium), a record for New Zealand glass at auction, according to auctioneer Ross Millar.

This rare example of Robinson's work came from a national corporation's collection (bailiffs at the door?). Private buyers tend to hang on to her work, matching aesthetic pleasure with the knowledge that their investment is appreciating.

Also appreciating in value are works by photographer Peter Peryer, designated last September as one of five inaugural recipients of the Arts Foundation's laureate awards.

Six of his photographs from a private collection, dated from 1978 to 1982, sold at Webb's at prices ranging from $1650 to $3300 (premium included) - rather lower than the optimistic estimates.

Webb's sale, just a fortnight before Christmas, saw many works passed in or sold subject to the buyer's approval of a lesser price than had been hoped for. Perhaps end-of-year exhaustion had set in early.

Still, a charming oil of an Italian couple by Girolamo Pieri Nerli, who painted in New Zealand for five years, fetched $57,200, and a 1979 painting titled McFedrie's Farm, Autumn-Winter by Toss Woollaston sold for $16,500.

Which brings an interesting comparison. A very similar (if somewhat larger) Woollaston, McFedrie's Farm in Afternoon Shadows, sold at Dunbar Sloane a few days earlier for $55,000.

The works were clearly related, but the Dunbar Sloane offering had the added advantage of familiarity, having hung on loan in the Wellington offices of the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust for some 20 years, and been used by the trust for a Christmas card. So much for sneers at Christmas card art.

Dunbar Sloane's end-of-year sale was a real mixture, with the high point the $176,000 fetched by a painting by Kennett Watkins, an Auckland artist and art teacher prominent in the 1880s. This big work, almost naïve in its style, shows a Maori family canoeing on the Waikato.

Watkins, who was principal of the Free School of Art established in Auckland by John Logan Campbell, fostered a distinctive New Zealand school of landscape painting. His works hold mainly historic interest today.

Also of historic interest, but not much, were a handful of paintings by the noted New Zealand plastic surgeon Sir Harold Gillies. He was obviously more skilled with a scalpel than with a brush: "Nobody wants them, and fair enough," said auctioneer Paul Neal, as he struggled to find reluctant buyers at $10 or $20 each. Cheap buying, but don't hold your breath for a return.