Highlight of the sale were 12 sculptures in bronze and one in marble by British sculptor John Robinson (1935-2007) which accounted for 11 of the top 15 prices in the sale.
The Robinson works sold for $184,000 (including premium) against a low estimate of $35,000 and a high estimate of $56,000.
Although John Robinson is acknowledged as being British, he had extensive connections with Australia, his father being Australian.
Joining the Merchant Navy for pay of one shilling a month and keep, John Robinson set sail for Australia, straight out of school at Rugby aged 16.
On arrival after meeting up with cousins who had been evacuated to Australia during the war, he decided to extend his visit and spent the next 5 years as a jackeroo "working my way around Australia".
Deciding it was time to settle down he purchased a semi developed block of land in the Ninety Mile Desert in South Australia.
It was here that his interest in sculpture, first fired by his art teacher at Rugby was rekindled.
Working in a shed in his property he began modelling in clay and plaster.
With a young family coming of school age, he decided to move with his family back to the UK, where he set up a studio, firstly in North Devon, and then in Somerset where he spent the nexy 30 years.
He first made a name for himself with figurative sculptures, many of them commissioned for public spaces and institutions.
There are nine editions of his sports figure Acrobats, which stands 5 metres high, one of which is located outside the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. In Melbourne, Pathfinder, a bronze figure of an Olympic hammer thrower is in the Victoria Gardens opposite the National Gallery of Victoria.
Prior to the Mossgreen sale, a leading international art auction guide listed only 6 works by Robinson coming onto the market, none of them in Australia.
Highest price in the Mossgreen sale was for the marble figure 'Danaide', (illustrated) 1985, after the original by Rodin which sold for $62,000 against estimates of $15,000-25,000. So not only did the work look like a sleeper, it was a sleeper.
Amongst the bronzes, Bonds of Friendship from Robinson's later abstract period sold for $44,640 again easily exceeding the estimates of $3,000-5,000.
As the number of Robinson's works in private hands is small, the scarcity of his works coming onto the market is understandable and it's likely to be a long time (if ever) before any are seen again in Australia.
