Among the outstanding artists’ auction records was the tiny 16 x 28.5 cm Silver Sands (Bondi), 1918 (Lot 16 ) by Elioth Gruner, selling for $200,000 hammer price. Regarded by many as his best work, these diminutive beach paintings are proving their worth and stature by prices most recently achieved.
The very closely related Fisherman, Coogee Beach, 1913 was sold by Sotheby’s just in May 2017 for $135,000, setting the most recent record price for Gruner. Previous to this, one of Gruner’s more traditional and much larger landscapes Mingoola Valley, 1920, had held the artist’s auction record for ten years since May 2007.
These two paintings had been held in the same family for several decades, the family of William Grant Buckle, founder of the Bill Buckle Auto Group on Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
In 2006, the two paintings had been sold to two different buyers. Now in 2017 after their resales, they have once again been reunited into the one important private Australian collection.
The night provided a number of very impressive results, starting with Godfrey Miller’s Still Life No 1 (ca. 1955) (Lot 1 ), estimated at $45,000-65,000 and selling for a very fruity $95,000.
Speaking of very small paintings selling for very high prices aka Mr Gruner, Mr William Dobell’s The Fortune Teller (1935), (Lot 4 ), packed in as much excitement and colour as a painting measuring 22.6 x 24.7 cm could, reminding us clearly why Dobell is regarded as one of Australia’s finest 20th century painters. This Epsom racecourse scene with its funfair, dancing Pearly Kings and Queens and the fortune teller and young woman in what looks like an open top Riley motorcar, offer the viewer and also the buyer an absolute delight of a painting. Its $60,000-80,000 estimates were completely ignored by bidders determined to secure this gem. It sold for $230,000 hammer price, exactly the same price as the other Dobell offering, his very important The Narrows Beach 1956, (Lot 6 ), estimated at $150,000-200,000.
Surprisingly, Roy de Maister’s Poinsettia, 1928 (Lot 5 ) failed to find a buyer on the night on expectations of $100,000-150,000.
This was not the case for Russell Drysdale’s Boy with Lizard (1966) (Lot 7 ), which enjoyed solid bidding on the phone and in the room, selling for $440,000 on estimates of $400,000-600,000.
Jeffrey Smart’s extremely well regarded The Mail Exchange, Rushcutters Bay (1989-1992) (Lot 8 ) easily eclipsed its $300,000-350,000 estimate, selling for $415,000.
Though selling at its low estimate of $1 million hammer, Arthur Boyd’s Moby Dick Hill (1949) (Lot 9 ) joins the ranks of one of the most valuable paintings by the artist to sell at auction, putting it into third position along with The Frightened Bridegroom (1958), sold by Sotheby’s in 2011 for $1 million, and Dry Creek Bed, Alice Springs (1953-54), also selling for $1 million, again with Sotheby’s, in 2012.
Moby Dick Hill previously sold at Menzies in 2010 for $740,000 hammer.
Also an early work by one of Australia’s most lauded mid-century creatives, John Perceval French Nuns, 1948 (Lot 10 ) sold for $370,000 hammer, just above its low estimate of $350,000.
Depending on how you like your Whiteleys, whether sublime or overt, lots 11 and 21 gave you the choice. Magnolia Tree in the Rain, 1977 (Lot 11 ) offers a beautiful and minimalist Lavender Bay cameo in grey with light drizzle. Bids however were more of a downpour, the lucky buyer dropping $480,000 hammer to secure the view, $80,000 above the high estimate.
The much larger and phallic The Drought Crow: Sloping Up on the Olgas 1 (Upfront and Outback) (Lot 21 ), estimated at $700,000-900,000, also sold well for $840,000 hammer price, tipping it just above the magic million dollar mark when including buyer’s premium.
Meanwhile, Emanuel Phillips Fox luminous Monastery, San Lazzaro (1907) (Lot 17 ), was estimated at $300,000-400,000. The painting might have had spiritual intervention, as it flew to a hammer price of $870,000, setting a new record for the artist. Including buyer’s premium the buyer will have to part with $1.061 million, thus breaking the threshold and making Phillips Fox the newest member of the group of Australian painters selling at auction for over one million dollars.
At present, there are now 19 painters, including Phillips Fox and his wife Ethel Carrick Fox who broke the barrier in 2008 with the gorgeous Market, Under Trees, 1919. The list contains 17 men, and 2 women, the other being Emily Kame Kngwarreye.
In the process, Arthur Boyd, Emanuel Phillips Fox, and Brett Whiteley provided Sotheby’s with three of the highly sought but elusive of all art auction results in Australia, the million dollar painting.
In fact, just six Australian paintings have sold above $1 million in Australia this year, and for the record, they are by value, including buyer’s premium:
· Russell Drysdale, Grandma’s Sunday Walk, 1972, Mossgreen Auctions, $2.97 million
· Sidney Nolan, Ned Kelly – Outlaw, 1955, Deutscher + Hackett, $2.56 million
· Eugene von Gerard, Breakneck Gorge, Hepburn Springs, 1864, Sotheby’s, 1.95 million
· Arthur Boyd, Moby Dick Hill, Sotheby’s, $1.22 million
· Emanuel Phillips Fox, Monastery, San Lazzaro, Sotheby’s, $1.061 million
· Brett Whiteley, The Drought Crow…, Sotheby’s, $1.024 million
The other major Whiteleys also found favour with collectors: Major Mitchell, 1978 (Lot 24 ), sold mid-range for $440,000, whilst In the Bottom Park at Lavender Bay…. (Lot 35 ), sold at its low estimate for $650,000, having sold quite recently as part of the Peter Elliott collection in 2015 for $500,000 hammer.
Arthur Boyd’s work remains as popular as ever in the secondary market, and with regular calls from auctioneer Martin Gallon that between 5 and 8 phone bidders were lined up to take on the room (and now also internet bidders), Boyd’s Landscape with Dam (1972) (Lot 15 ), a pretty Shoalhaven picture clearly stirred the masses. There can only be one winner, and $160,000 hammer was the magic figure that secured this work, doubling its low estimate of $80,000.
Boyd’s Bride in the Moonlight (1960) (Lot 33 ) however was a decidedly grittier art connoisseur’s picture, created 12 years prior and part of Boyd’s important and ground breaking “Bride Series”; it sold for $275,000 on estimates of $180,000-220,000.
Both large-scale paintings by Fred Williams sold on the evening, with the infinitely more pleasing Mernda (1972) (Lot 25 ) selling at the low estimate of $200,000, while Echuca Landscape No. 4, 1963 (Lot 26 ) went to its top estimate of $120,000 hammer.
One has to feel a little sad that Charles Blackman’s The Pink, 1953 (Lot 34 ), a historically important painting from his pivotal Schoolgirl series did not sell on the evening on expectations of $250,000-350,000. The rape and murder of a 12 year old schoolgirl proving perhaps difficult subject matter for a lounge room picture, attention for Blackman then focussed on the later, larger and much more colourful Suite, 1961 (Lot 37 ), which sold for $250,000 on the low end of the estimate.
The best of Criss Canning’s colourfield paintings are rare to market, and when one like Pink Poppy (2002) (Lot 54 ) appears, it attracts good interest. Estimated at $8,000-12,000 and numerous bidders, the hammer price of $17,000 was hardly a surprise.
Rick Amor’s paintings can be somewhat dark, moody and introspective, and therefore somewhat difficult. However, his brighter paintings are more than likely to surpass expectations, and Silent World, 2003 (Lot 61 ) was no exception. Estimated modestly at $30,000-40,000, interest was fierce for the dramatic beachscape, selling for $96,000, the artist’s third highest price at auction.
Such are the vagaries of the auction room that on occasion, bidders might well be sat next to each other when pursuing the same work. In the case of Thomas John Domville Taylor’s (1817 – 1889) Sketchbook (Lot 83 ), the two room bidders stood on either side of a Coke machine in the Fort Macquarie Room at the Intercontinental Hotel. These seemingly amateurish sketches on 21 sheets may well shed more light on Australia’s colonial past, and in particular on the history of Southern Queensland in the 1840s.
Bidding between the lady and the gentleman was fast, eclipsing the estimates of $200,000-300,000 easily, and this rare and important sketchbook consigned by the descendants of Domville Taylor ended up selling for $420,000 hammer to the gentleman.
