Saleroom: Real faces, real places

By DON MILNE

Private collections always have a fascination - especially when they belong to someone of standing in the art world.

A hundred works from the collection of John Perry, Elam graduate, painter, art consultant, historian and, for 20 years, director of the Rotorua Museum and Art Gallery, will be up for sale at Webb's in Newmarket tomorrow night. The proceeds will go to restore the art deco Regent Cinema in Helensville, which Perry has bought to house what he calls "the Kaukapakapa Folk Art Museum" - the 200-odd items of art and kiwiana he has acquired to present a highly personal picture of 20th-century New Zealand.

The pictures he is selling represent about three-quarters of the collection he has amassed since the early 60s.

He has always been a discerning buyer. In his years at Rotorua, he assembled, at a cost of perhaps around $250,000, a splendid collection of New Zealand art now valued in the millions. He is delighted that, at last, the "stunning building" which houses it in "a spectacular location" is being air-conditioned, to protect the works from Rotorua's sulphurous fumes.

It is due to reopen in January, with one of the first exhibitions a collection bought by the Rotorua Energy Charitable Trust - on advice from Perry as consultant.

His own collection - "teaching aids, object lessons" - is a cross-section of New Zealand art of the 20th century, including such artists as W.A. Bollard, J.D. Perrett, Dick Frizzell, Gavin Chilcott and Richard Killeen.

All, he says, reflect some view of New Zealand. "They show real places, real people. There's not a lot of abstraction. They trace an evolution."

These are not vastly expensive works - Webb's estimates that most will go for under $3000. But a Woollaston oil from 1964, End of the Paparoa ("I bought it from his son Philip out the back of his Land-Rover"), and a powerful mountain scene by Canterbury painter Austin Deans, formerly hanging in New Zealand House, London, are estimated at up to $25,000 each.

Nearly 200 other affordable works from other vendors are also on sale.

Still on the New Zealand theme, Dunbar Sloane's first big sale at new premises at 2 St Marks Rd, Newmarket, on November 14 and 15, will include a little gem of a cabinet by William Seuffert, son of the great Anton and perhaps even more skilled. Intricately inlaid with native woods, it is understood to have been made for John Stoop, Mayor of Onehunga from 1917 to 1919. The table-top piece is estimated to sell at between $20,000 and $40,000.

Coming up: The International Art Centre has a strong offering, with works by Frances Hodgkins, Charles Goldie and Margaret Stoddart, in Holy Trinity Cathedral, Parnell, on Thursday, November 8.

Cordy's in Great South Rd has another tribal art sale - increasingly a specialty of this auction house - on Monday, November 12, followed by an art and antiques sale on the Tuesday.

Webb's final big art, antiques and jewellery sale for the year will be on December 11, 12 and 13.