The Sotheby’s audience, normally relatively unanimated, remained so for the lot, and indeed throughout the sale, perhaps used to a slideshow of million dollar works, of which there were two successes on the night, including the cover lot, Fred Williams’ Mountain Creek, Mt Kosciusko, 1976 (Lot 11 ). Contested in absentia by phone handlers early in the bidding, it was left to art consultant David Hulme and the Packer family consultant Sue Hewitt to battle it out in the room. The latter won out, securing the work for a hammer of $1.4 million dollars (est. $800K-1.2M).
The very next lot, a much snowier subject, Peter Booth’s Untitled, 1999 (Lot 12 ), heralded a trend of mid-level major works exceeding estimates. The four-metre painting pulled in competing bids to reach $570,000 against a sensible estimate of $300-400K, setting a new auction record for the artist.
On the whole there was considerably more action on, and better results (based on estimates) for a raft of other works in the sale, which made up for the failure of a handful of vaunted works, including a French peasant scene by E Phillips Fox, a French market scene by Ethel Carrick, an unfinished and unflattering McCubbin study of a woman reclining uncomfortably in the bush, and an excellent, albeit obscure, colonial work depicting Sydney (Lot 30 ), as well as a run-of-the-mill Kelly.
The same fate befell a pricey Norman Lindsay piratical abduction subject, Ladies for Ransom, described in the catalogue entry as “a playful composition.” Really guys? Contextualising the work’s origins in Lindsay’s anti-wowserism is one thing, but the promulgation of threatened rape (have a look at the fear in the women’s faces) should not be dismissed so casually, even in the context of allegory, mythology or worse, “western erotica” (their expressions were described as “theatrical”).
Paintings that vaulted over estimate kept up momentum, and auctioneer Martin Gallon’s enthusiasm, throughout the sale, and the first half in particular.
Brett Whiteley’s underestimated teaser Blue Painting, 1960 (Lot 1 ) kicked off the trend, selling to luxury car dealer/prestige home flipper and collector-cum-art dealer and self-styled entrepreneur, Steve Nasteski, for $170,000 (est. $55-75K) after a string of yelled bids and a determined final warning that “my client will keep going.”
Nasteski, who has been described in the press as “the Brett Whiteley dealer” [emphasis added] and “one of Australia’s leading art dealers” didn’t bite at lot 2, a way-less-interesting Whiteley, and wasn’t seen to be chasing anything else in the sale.
Others certainly did chase works though. A glamourous hip couple who stood out in the crowd for their youth as much as their non-Anglo ethnicity hauled several works and contested others. They started tentatively at the back of the room, standing behind the rows of 100 chairs, and caught everyone’s attention buying the elegant Cressida Campbell highlight, Interior with Cat, 2010 (Lot 7 ) for a deserved new auction record of $240,000 (est. $100-200K).
After a shaky start and a stall at $750,000, they jumped in on Howard Arkley’s Rococo Rhythm, 1992 (Lot 13 ) at $840,000, but were outbid on the phone at $900,000 (est. $800K-$1 million). Moving into the throe of things, they sat in row three until the sale’s near-end, snaffling up the two works by John Kelly: Man Lifting Cow (Large), 2017 (Lot 84 ) for $120,000 (est. $55-65K) and the humping bronze cows, Form and Function, 2001 (Lot 85 ) for $40,000 (est. $14-18K).
Mostly, however, the sale cleared with paintings going to one lucky buyer with their eyes on the prize and pockets/purse replete. Sometimes these were dealers, such as Denis Savill, who chased Arthur Streeton’s Cairo, 1897 (Lot 23 ) to its upper end estimate of $120,000 with a satisfactory exclamation of “Got one!” upon hammer fall.
A never-before-seen genre picture by Frederick McCubbin was the star lot in this category. An Old Politician, 1879 (Lot 31 ) had been in one family’s possession since the 1880s. Depicting a much humbler subject than one imagines today’s pensioned-up pollies might look in their retirement, the painting was fiercely fought on six phones and in the room to settle at $480,000, nearly five times its upper estimate.
Consignment strategies at auction houses follow set patterns, such as the ‘bankables’ which usually produce the top lots and the meat of the sale. And then there are others, including: ‘more of those that did well last time please.’
And so we saw a swathe of works by the records-tumbling hot-hot-hot Cressida Campbell (now bankable), along with the newly cool Antarctic paintings by Sidney Nolan. The latter’s Headland, 1964 (Lot 71 ), went to the room for $95,000 (est. $60-80K), while Antarctica, 1964 (Lot 18 ) sold mid-estimate for $70,000.
So, too, the ad hoc and highly reasonable approach: ‘quick, let’s grab a few choice works following an artist’s recent retrospective’. Hey presto! We have Heysens, father and daughter Hans and Nora, whose still life pictures and landscapes (mainly dad’s) have been tangoing across the country.
From this group of six, Hans Heysen’s Still Life with Fruit and Flowers, 1913 (Lot 40 ) sold to the room for $55,000 (est. $35-45K), while later in the sale, Nora Heysen’s more inviting comestible tableau, A Study, 1931 (Lot 61 ) attracted enough interest from the half-empty and probably hungry room (it was 8pm by then) to sell for $55,000 (est. $30-40K). Hans Heysen’s dynamic droving watercolour, Approaching Storm with Bushfire Haze, 1913 (Lot 62 ) fared much better than the sale’s earlier tranquil watercolour of cows grazing amid dappled gum trees, making $75,000 against an upper estimate of $45K.
From among other bankable names, a few works were dragged well over estimate, including Arthur Streeton’s Towong Gap, 1930 (Lot 20 ), which was chased by two determined patrons to $280,000 (est. $100-150K), and his view of Sydney in development from 1921 (Lot 24 ), which made $290,000 (est, $180-220K).
Helping to carry the sale, other attractive and well-priced examples sold fairly close to expectations, such as Margaret Preston’s Still Life, 1917 (Lot 15 ). An interesting formal exercise in composition—with its strong central void and use of black at the periphery to carry the eye around the picture—it sold for $170,000 (est. $100-150K).
The Blackmans in the sale included ugly works and oddities, which mainly went unsold. The better works from the seven included the restrained Bather, 1958 (Lot 46 ), which sold for $85,000 (est. $45-65K) and the very peculiar Flower Seller, 1964 (Lot 54 ), which doubled its (low) high-end to sell to a punter for $36,000.
Russell Drysdale’s bankability stayed firm, with The Aeroplane, 1971 (Lot 17 ) soaring into the top 5 results at $520,000 (est. $350-550K), while his interestingly worked small charcoal drawing, Man with Ram, 1941 (Lot 70 ) exceeded expectations to achieve $55,000 (est. $25-35K), almost double the hammer of its first appearance in 2005. Earlier, a large, delicately drawn and varnished charcoal by Boyd (varnished: what were they thinking?) went unsold (lot 4, est. $50-70K).
Yosl Bergner could never be called bankable, but was an important and perhaps unique figure in Australian modernism. A work with serious art historical cred, Carlton Slum, 1944 (Lot 69 ) went unsold, despite featuring in the ground-breaking 1962 NGV survey of Australian social realist work: Rebels and Precursors. This type of provenance is ordinarily a trigger for serious collectors, but not those that turned up to this 5-star outing.
And the only work they clapped, despite the several auction records achieved on the night? Clarice Beckett’s pretty Saturday (Lot 60 ), which made $42,000 against an estimate of $18-25,000. Go figure.
Sale total hammer $9,845,000 / Sale total $12,011 (incl. BP)
Pre-sale Low-end $10,685,000 / Pre-sale High-end $14,439,000
Sold by Value 92% / Sold by Lot 70%
Lots in Sale 87
Major Unsold Lots
10 – Sidney Nolan, Kelly in Landscape, 1969 ($450-650,000)
21 – E Phillips Fox, Landscape, between the Counties of Morbihan and Finistère, 1889 ($500-700,000)
22 – Ethel Carrick Fox, The Market, 1919 (est. $1.2-1.6 million)
30 – Jacob Janssen, View of Sydney, 1850 (est. $600-800,000)
32 – Frederick McCubbin, (A Quiet Study), 1886, (est. $220-320,000)
33 – Norman Lindsay, Ladies for Ransom, 1939 (est. $280-380,000)
