By DON MILNE
Who is New Zealand's greatest artist? While some might plump for Goldie, others for Frances Hodgkins (and yet others argue that the question is ultimately meaningless), most followers of the arts would settle for Colin McCahon.
His major works, often so vast in their scale and concept, certainly fetch increasingly higher prices. But even auctioneer Peter Webb was surprised at the bidding for a tiny work offered at auction last month.
One of the Waterfall series executed between 1959 and 1965, when McCahon was working at the Auckland Art Gallery, the enamel with sand on board, signed and dated December 1964, went for $55,000 ($61,187.50, with 10 per cent buyer's premium and GST).
Not bad for a little work just over 30cm square. Webb's estimate was $25,000 to $35,000.
But the price, which drew a few gasps, was typical of the high buyer interest and rising market shown in the two big Auckland sales at the end of last month.
The International Art Centre's sale, a day after Webb's, drew 600 people - a record for a New Zealand art auction, according to director Richard Thomson - to return "well over $1 million."
There was a great deal of interest in the two early Goldie still lifes, painted when the artist was still at Auckland Grammar (they sold for $27,000 and $30,000 respectively, before premium). But paintings of the celebrated Pink and White Terraces, buried by the Tarawera eruption of 1886, also sold well.
Scenes by Charles Blomfield, who painted and repainted the Terraces, went for up to $24,000, while similar views by J.B.C. Hoyte brought $17,000 and $25,000.
The best price for a classical New Zealand work was $45,000 for a charming portrait of the artist's daughter by Petrus van der Velden, bought by Grahame Chote, another IAC director, for a private client. Top price overall went to a Pissarro landscape, which fetched $80,000.
For more contemporary works, Webb's was the place. A big, 1963 Don Binney bird painting went for $60,000; its companion, painted a year or so later, is being negotiated around the same price. That may well be an auction record for a living New Zealand artist.
A selection of works by Ralph Hotere also sold well, with the best - a work of incised, burnished and cut steel with applied enamel, dating from 1984-85, titled Mungo at Aramoana - fetching $40,000. And Tawera Landscape with Tree, a painting by the late Michael Illingworth, whose works seldom come up at auction, went for $25,000.
A record may have been set for Gretchen Albrecht, too, when her lovely Storm Cloud at Sunset (1976) sold for $33,000.
No doubt about it, the market is on the move again.
Upcoming: Webb's, in Manukau Rd, have their regular sale of affordable art (up to around $1000) on May 8 - often a time to pick up bargains. Their next major art sale is June 29.
Cordy's, in Great South Rd, have a Pacific artefacts, antiques and art sale on May 16.
The next sale at the International Art Centre in Parnell is in July.
McCahon sale brings gasps
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