John Peter Russell, Australia’s master impressionist on location in 1890s France, left Cruach en Mahr, Matin, Belle-Ile-en Mer (Lot 11 ) to posterity, a painting that shines with the intoxicating blue-violet sparkle of an opal. It surpassed modest estimates of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 to equal the artist’s record with a hammer price of $3,200,000 in Deutscher and Hackett’s Autumn auction of Important Australian and International Contemporary Art in Melbourne.
With women artists to the fore, the auction began with standing room only. Yet it was the telephones that burst to life for Margaret Preston’s blue-chip woodcut Pink Jug (Anemone), 1925, (Lot 1 ) selling mid-range for $55,000. (Deutscher and Hackett sold another version of this image a year ago for the same price.) The bidding continued with 5 telephones competing for a diminutive copper sculpture by a female artist relatively unknown in the secondary market. Daphne Mayo’s Two Jolly Sailormen, c1942, (Lot 2 ) brought a new auction record for the artist, with the figurine piece settling on a hammer of $48,000, near the top of its estimated range. Her previous record set in 2003 was a mere $800 for a plaster rendering of a baby’s head. Hopefully more work will be made available to the market.
Melbourne favourite Mirka Mora did not disappoint with The White Rabbit and Family, 2004, (Lot 3 ) selling at the low estimate for $50,000. It had previously sold at Leonard Joel for $17,000 in 2010. After last week’s record of $700,000 at Smith and Singer’s Sydney auction for a Bronwyn Oliver sculpture, it came as a complete surprise that the artist’s smaller copper wall sculpture Link II, 1993, (Lot 5 ) with estimates $80,000 to $100,000 failed to attract a bid on the night and was passed in.
A spectacular Brett Whiteley was the first of the three Clemenger works offered. Whiteley’s magnificent golden reminiscence of earlier days in western New South Wales, The Wren, 1978, (Lot 6 ) brought a fevered bidding competition between 3 telephones only to be stolen by a knockout $3,000,000 bid from the back corner of the room. Certainly, such a bid was right on the top of the estimated range, but this was very much a superior picture with extraordinary use of stippling and brushpoint techniques. The tiny wren, central to the painting’s (and Whiteley’s) psyche, sat poised and overpowered in the vast painted field. Well estimated, and well bought.
A second, and stylistically equally well-known Whiteley, Bather on the Sand, 1975-6, (Lot 9 ), showed the arabesque of a beached female figure. The catalogue writer applied the term ‘hedonistic’, but the pose is simply a metaphor for Sydney’s modern Bondi. Australian culture loves the beach, surfing and the bronzed Aussie both male and female. But here the bather’s face masks a typical Whiteley inner turbulence. True to form the work sold for $1, 550,000 comfortably above the top estimate—even the opening book bid of $1,200,000 was above to low estimate of $1,000,000, so there was considerable interest. Continuing the million dollar lineup, an ‘Alice’ painting by Charles Blackman, Which way, Which way?, 1956, (Lot 10 ) sold on low estimate at exactly $1,000,000.
Looking extraordinarily contemporary, but with totally believable expressionistic brushwork showing birds diving off Williamstown pier, John Perceval’s The Splash, 1956, (Lot 8 ) sold for $400,000, in line with the established pricepoint of his Williamstown works.
John Peter Russell, Australia’s master Impressionist on location at Belle-Ile in 1890s France, left us Cruach en Mahr, Matin, Belle-Ile-en Mer (Lot 11 ), a painting that shines with the intoxicating blue-violet sparkle of an opal. Russell lived in and keenly observed this local rugged coastline. He paints a very truthful impression of sea and light using layers of dancing brushwork. After fierce bidding from the room and the telephones, the result surpassed Deutscher and Hackett’s modest estimates of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000 to equal the artist’s record with a hammer price of $3,200,000. Next, another equal artist record was achieved for Margaret Preston when Anenomies, 1916, (Lot 12 ) sold to the room for $500,000.
The legacy of painter Lin Onus continues to bind Aboriginal and Western cultures together with magical foresight. The magnificent Yellow Lillies, 1993, (Lot 20 ) is a woven matrix of painted reflections of both water and traditional rarrk bark painting motifs. It rapidly sailed to the top of its estimated range to sell for $450,000. His work seems destined for an even stronger future in the secondary market.
A small group of international works performed well in the central section of the auction. With no less than 7 telephones operating, presumably some with international connections, bidding on the pointillist oil by Henri Martin, L’Eglisede Labastide-du-verte, c1920s, (Lot 24 ) , gathered momentum to reach $185,000, eclipsing the modest $100,000 - $150,000 estimates. Next a small but mysterious Auguste Rodin bronze, with a translated title Head of a Funerary Spirit, c1998-9, (Lot 25 ) sold well above its top estimate for $55,000. Bernard Buffet’s Hurrah! Portovenere!, 1977, (Lot 26 )—a tabled still life of the artist’s much-loved nautical bric-a-brac—sold strongly at $350,000, more than double the low estimate.
Perhaps more interesting for a local audience, an elegant and mysteriously narrative oil on canvas by the itinerant British/Canadian artist Edward Roper, Aboriginal Camp, Victoria, 1884, (Lot 47 ) which achieved an Australian record for the artist, selling for $55,000, nearly triple its low estimate.
An interesting small range of contemporary works appeared in the second half of the auction. A visually intriguing self-reflection constructed in the unusual materials of viole, acrylic mirror and wood by Jonny Niesche, Mutual Vibration (All Together Now), 2017, (Lot 39 ), sold mid-range for $11,000. His star seems to be on the rise after recent solo presentations in 2024 at both the Melbourne Artfair and the Aotearoa Artfair. Imants Tillers is a contemporary artist whose star has truly risen. His Outback: P, 2008, (Lot 35 ) consisting of 55 canvas boards with Australian placename texts and cryptic scripts sold comfortably at $55,000.
Modestly-scaled sculptures comprised a section of the auction that failed to perform. Passed in on the night were: Clement Meadmore’s Outspread, 1991, (Lot 32 ); Robert Klippel’s No 488 Birdbath, 1982, (Lot 33 ) and Inge King’s Nayads, 1993, (Lot 34 ) with low estimates of $90,000, $150,000 and $40,000 respectively. These may reach negotiated sales, but on the night bidders seemed to be chasing paintings for their walls rather than objects to stand by.
The sale total was $13,599,000 ($16,689,682 including buyer's premium) with 134% of the lots sold by value, and 85% ssold by number.
All prices quoted are hammer prices and do not include buyer's premium unless otherwise noted..
