Young contemporary artist Ayesha Green is one of the success stories of the New Zealand art world over the past few years, and prior to this sale, only two works had appeared at auction. The work in this sale was the third and graced the catalogue cover. With very limited supply on the primary market it wasn’t a surprise that My Mother (Thinking of the Horizon) (Lot 5 ) sold for $19,500, against the low estimate for the lot of $9,000.
With a good mix of contemporary stock, without many blockbuster paintings underpinning the low end estimate total of $2.681 million it felt as if the sale could be a solid one, provided there were buyers to engage with the selection.
A few years ago, a painting by Ayesha Green was unheard of on the secondary market. This young contemporary artist is one of the success stories of the New Zealand art world over the past few years having considerable commercial and institutional success since graduating from Elam in 2016. Only three works have appeared at auction. The work in this sale was the third and graced the catalogue cover. With very limited supply on the primary market (the artist is solely represented by Jhana Millers Wellington), it wasn’t a surprise that the pre-bidding via the A+O app for My Mother (Thinking of the Horizon) (Lot 5 ) was already sitting at $18,000 before the sale started. Two more phones and clients online continued the battle once the lot started, with the hammer coming down at $19,500. The reserve for the work was $9,000.
Another artist whose initial foray at auction was successful was Australian artist Rebecca Baumann. Australian by birth and living in Perth, the artist has had significant traction in her career in New Zealand, having long term representation at Starkwhite Gallery in Auckland. Many of the artist’s kinetic wall sculptures are in institutional collections both here and across the Tasman, and somewhat unusually for someone well established their career, the artist hasn’t transacted on the secondary market. This will definitely change based on this week’s result; Automated Colour Field (Variation II) (Lot 18 ) was the subject of spirited bidding by an assortment of room, phone and internet bidders to sell for $37,000 against a $13,000 low estimate.
As much as I dislike the term ‘blue chip artist’, it is a useful description for those artists considered a safe bet with investment potential. In this sale, it was the paintings by McCahon, Fomison and Illingworth and works in a variety of media by Michael Parekowhai that proved why these artists are labelled so and set auction records time and time again.
In particular, a gem of a painting Tarawera and Deity with Island (Lot 54 ) by Michael Illingworth provided one of the exceptional results of the night, to achieve $87,500 hammer, no mean feat for a work the size of an A4 piece of paper. It did however tick all the boxes of a great composition, beautiful colours and classic shaped Illingworth figures, and is one of the best works by the artist to appear at auction for many years.
The top price in the sale on the night went to Tony Fomison’s painting, A Warning to France Whose Roads will Melt but hardly with Love (Lot 60 ). Previously in the collection of Tim and Sherrah Francis and sold by A+O in their standalone sale in 2016 for $80,000, the vendor benefitted in a big rise in Fomison prices over the past few years. Although the bidding was subdued, it still landed on the low estimate of $150,000 netting the owner a tidy profit.
Four lots by Michael Parekowahi achieved a 100% clearance rate, with good competition for all the works but the pair of Rainbow Serpent Dreaming (Lot 11 ) wall sculptures were the most popular items by far. Usually sold as individual works, the client must have owned the both the inward and outward facing figures so they were offered together. Although the initial estimate of $50,000- $80,000 seemed expensive, the most recent sales have made $25,000 and $38,000 hammer, so it was well in line with those. Art Consultant Sophie Coupland fought off competition both in the room and on the phones to secure the lot for $70,000.
Ralph Hotere often receives the ‘blue chip’ tag, but his market has been the most fickle of any NZ artist over the past two decades having a spectacular price rise in the early 2000s only to crash a few years later. While it is on the road to recovery now, the market results can be extremely mixed and hard to predict and results from Art + Object demonstrated this. Two tiny gold leaf works on glass were both extremely well contested with Black Rainbow (Lot 8 ) selling for $25,000 against a $15,000 reserve and its companion piece Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro (Lot 9 ) realising $23,000. By comparison, two further works lotted later in the sale, Black Window (Lot 64 ) and Avignon (Lot 27 ) failed to ignite any interest from the buyers.
Sculpture and decorative arts really provided some of the strongest results of the evening, with two very good examples of Paul Dibble sculpture achieving some of the auction’s highest prices. Art + Object has really built a market in this area, holding the top ten prices for the artist at auction. Rising Figure (Lot 42 ) had all the elegance and refinement you’d want in a bronze by Dibble, and it sold to an extremely happy room buyer for $115,000 against a low estimate of $100,000. An interesting piece combining cast glass and bronze The Nature of Nuture (Lot 40 ) by senior glass artist Ann Robinson, set a joint auction record when it sold for the low estimate of $45,000.
Of the 97 lots, there were 39 sold on the night, with a number that were subject to offers to be negotiated over the following days. This indicates how much the market has shifted in this year, when in the Covid years, the clearance rates would be sitting around 70-80% after a sale. The result is also no reflection on the setting of estimates which were fair and reasonable and the stock selection in the auction was of good quality.
I would sum up the mood of the sale as ‘conservative and selective’ and despite this Art + Object did a good job working to the market conditions, to produce the results they did. The clearance rate is currently sitting at 45% with offers still pending.
All prices are quoted are hammer prices in $NZ and do not include the buyer’s premium of 19% plus GST.
