Goldies expected to fetch $1m

International Art Centre director Richard Thomson with Thoughts of a Tohunga, Wharekauri Tahuna. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Three portraits by New Zealand artist Charles Frederick Goldie are expected to fetch about $1 million at an art auction in Auckland tonight.

One of the paintings, Thoughts of a Tohunga, Wharekauri Tahuna, is estimated to bring between $350,000 and $500,000 at the auction of important, early and rare art at the International Art Centre in Parnell, Auckland.

The others - No Koora te Cigaretti, Portrait of Kapi Kapi; and The Weariness of the Aged, (also of Kapi Kapi), were expected to bring $250,000 and $220,000 respectively.

There have been higher prices for Goldie portraits: International Art Centre director Richard Thomson said the centre sold one last November, Kawhena, Johnny Coffin, for $732,800.

In 2010, the centre reached the second highest price, of $573,000, for Forty Winks, which had been owned by Dame Kiri Te Kanawa.

"Goldie always attracts a very high level of interest, simply because as a painter of Polynesian portraits he established himself as one of the best in the world.

"His work is compelling and captivating and without Goldie we would not have been able to fully appreciate some of the very fine Polynesian heritage of the late 1880s until his death in 1947," Mr Thomson said.

Wharekauri Tahuna was painted by Goldie in 1938 and is a signed oil-on-canvas. It had not come to the market in 30 years.

No Koora te Cigaretti was painted in 1917. The subject, Kapi Kapi, was a favourite of Goldie and he painted her many times.

She died aged 102 after falling into a hot pool, having survived the 1886 eruption of Mt Tarawera which killed about 120 people, buried many Maori villages in ash and destroyed the Pink and White Terraces.

The third Goldie, also of Kapi Kapi, is an oil on canvas painted in 1918.

"His work shows a depth and a feeling for his subjects that is quite stunning and he gives an insight into the soul of those he paints," Mr Thomson said.

Other works in the 6.30pm auction include Ralph Hotere's Tairoa Head & Aramoana (expected to bring up to $20,000) and Oputae Observation Point ($45,000); an untitled work by Tony Fomison ($36,000); Philip Clairmont's Country Carnivore Carnival ($45,000); Sir Toss Woollaston's Tasman Bay ($40,000); and Peter McIntyre's King Country Farmer ($40,000).

5 Five big NZ art sales

Colin McCahon
Let be, Let be $1.14m in 2009.
C F Goldie
Kawhena, Johnny Coffin $732,800 in 2013.
C F Goldie
Forty Winks $573,000 in 2010.
Colin McCahon
He Calls for Elias $571,875 in 2011.
Gordon Walters
Tautahi $439,000 in 2013.