Rare Goldie paintings in auction of NZ art

By PHILIP ENGLISH

Two of the earliest known paintings by Charles Frederick Goldie - New Zealand's most famous artist - are for sale by auction for the first time.

The two still-life works were painted in the 1880s when he was a 15-year-old pupil at Auckland Grammar School.

The auction also includes 10 paintings of the Pink and White Terraces near Rotorua, the geological marvels destroyed by the eruption of Mt Tarawera nearly 115 years ago.

The rare Goldie watercolours depicting Maori artefacts - and in one a dead tui - are being sold after being in a private collection for nearly 50 years.

They were bought from the artist's wife, Olive, a few years after his death in 1947 at the age of 76.

The paintings are notable because of their artistic merit and their historical context and could attract public institutions among prospective buyers.

While in private ownership the pair went on public display during the Goldie exhibition that travelled the country from 1997 to 1999, illustrating that in his early years the painter who was best known for his Maori portraits specialised in still lifes.

But the paintings are also thought to have gone on show more than 100 years ago, when Goldie was 16, in an Arts Students Association exhibition held in the old Milne and Choyce store in Queen St.

A critic writing in the New Zealand Herald of December 3, 1886, referred to pictures including one of "Maori carvings, mere, baler, matting and tui-bird, by Mr Goldie, jnr."

According to Roger Blackley, curator of the 1997 Goldie exhibition and lecturer in art history at Victoria University, the cloak in the painting is still in the Auckland Museum, whose former premises in Princes St housed the Arts Students Association.

He said the paintings were from the time of an artistic development in the mid-1880s when there was a move for a more specific New Zealand identity in local colonial art.

The move called for Maori content as well as indigenous landscapes and native flora and fauna.

For many Aucklanders, such paintings provided a first experience of Maori art, Mr Blackley said.

"These are youthful works but I think you can see they are relevant to what he went on to."

The fact that the paintings were unsigned meant there could be other unknown Goldies around.

Letters written by a young woman living next door to the Goldie family referred to her being given paintings by "Charlie" - pictures of flowers undiscovered to this day.

Goldie's better-known Maori portraits have attracted some controversy in recent years.

The National Gallery paid $900,000 for two in a private sale in 1990, after being offered the paintings for $160,000 the year before.

During the 1970s and 1980s came revelations of the activities of art forger Carl Feodor Goldie.

But Mr Blackley said there was no doubt over the authenticity of the two watercolours because of their recorded historical details and original ownership.

"These are exceptionally well-preserved watercolours ... These are the first full-blown works of art by Goldie that we know about, apart from childhood sketch books of which there are several around."

Richard Thomson, a director of the International Art Centre which is auctioning the watercolours on March 31, said he got the surprise of his life when the owner and his family walked into the gallery with the paintings under his arm asking: "We'd like you to include these in your next auction."

Generally, early works by an artist do not have the value of later, more popular works.

In public sales Goldie portraits have fetched a maximum of up to $200,000.

Mr Thomson said putting a value on the two still lifes was difficult because no Goldie watercolours had ever been sold before.

However, they each had reserves of around $20,000.

The sale of European and New Zealand art includes the largest private collection of paintings to be offered for auction of the pink and white terraces at Lake Rotomahana.

The famous terraces were destroyed by the eruption of Mt Tarawera in 1886.

The 10 paintings include works by Charles Blomfield and John Barr Clarke Hoyte They carry reserves of between about $4000 and $30,000.