The first highlight of the evening was a Paul Dibble bronze sculpture Soft Geometry (Series 2) (Lot 16 ) which sold for $30,000, well above the $18,000 upper estimate while a large format albumin print of a Huia tail feather by Fiona Partington (Lot 26 ) went to a phone bidder for $30,500 just below of the $32,000 high estimate
The next big bang was a fabulous early Jeffery Harris painting from a private Christchurch collection. Painted in 1974 this masterwork was a highly charged narrative like a double page spread from a picture story, comic, or graphic novel. Aptly titled Day after Day (Lot 31 ), it sold well above the upper estimate of $40,000 for a serious $54,000, after a considerable auction room battle.
It was not the night for the artist A. Lois White (1903 - 1984) with two classic early works recently repatriated from England failing to attract any bids, clearly from a contemporary focused room. However, I expect Girl with Swans (Lot 36 ) and Lady with Lute (Lot 37 ) will find a buyer in post-sale negotiations.
There comes a time every now and then when one is left scratching one's head and muttering quietly ''what the heck is going on here'' and when Akaroa (Lot 47 ) was offered for sale, I did just that. It was a Karl Maughan painting of ''more blooming back yards'', this one so fresh that none of the flowers featured had died was painted this year – 2018. Akaroa sold for $27,000; the estimate was $14,000-22,000. The career of this artist is booming, or should that be blooming.
Peter Robinson had mixed results on the night, but when There's More To Life Than Being a Pakeha (Lot 51 ), his large unstretched white on black acrylic & oil stick on canvas was offered it attracted some serious bidding, finally selling for a very respectable $78,000, a healthy gain on the estimate of $45,000 - $65,000
Then we came to "the three Don's", the first being a 1966 oil on canvas work entitled Summer Fernbird II (Lot 52 ) from an Auckland Festival Exhibition at the Barry Lett Galleries. Medium sized and carefully crafted with brush and palette knife it took auctioneer Ben Plumbly a while to get the bids underway at $250,000 but it rose with considerable rapidity when a new bidder entered the duel at $340,000 finally selling for $355,000 just above the low estimate.
The next "Don", Beyond Kuataika (Lot 53 ) depicted a kite like Tui flying above a contoured land and seascape, with three juvenile Kauri trees. It sold just above the lower end of the estimate range for $290,000.
The last of the trio was the largest, at 169.5 x 165.7 cm. This work, Pastoral, Te Henga (Lot 54 ) estimated widely at $450,000 – 650,000 from the mid 1960's introduced a new visual element into the artist's iconography: a rather curious awkward sheep looking rather forlorn and unshorn. Curiously this is where the sparks started flying because after a couple of dozen hefty bids, the work sold for $570,000 to loud applause to a bidder on the phone. The painting had merit in the masterly handling of the impasto paint surfaces and featured another northward flying bird this time the popular Fantail or Piwakawaka of the Maori, which is commonly found in many suburban gardens.
This trio of paintings fetched just over $1,200,000 (hammer), and with buyer's premium added around $1,500,000 to the sale total.
With the total population of the two islands of New Zealand equating to that of Sydney or Melbourne, prices achieved for art works on this side of the Tasman are much lower than those regularly achieved in Australia. When a painting whether historical or contemporary breaks through the half a million dollar mark it is certainly a red-letter day for the New Zealand market, and when the work was painted in my lifetime and by one of my old art school ''chums'' it is indeed a red letter day.
It is interesting how Don Binney's paintings evolved from the early fascination with Victorian stained-glass windows and lead light into the bird paintings fow which he is affectionately now renown. With both of us studying Design for Printed Reproduction at Elam Art School in Auckland I remember him saying...''Take away the bat and the rat and what have you got left? Birds". And it was birds and their echo on the landscape that have become his emblematic iconography.
The room numbers declined sharply after the Binney's were sold, and of the 35 works remaining, those by Colin McCahon Tony Fomison and Bill Hammond all sold well.
So the year ended at Art + Object with a sale total of $3.4 million, (including premium) bringing their annual total to $10.7 million, the second highest total since the formation of the auction house in 2007.
All prices are hammer, unless otherwise indicated and are expressed in $NZ.
