Battle of the Commonwealth Artists

By David Hulme & Brigitte Banziger, on 25-Mar-2012

Bonham’s New Bond Street sale rooms in London are offering a timely catalogue titled “The Grosvenor School and Avant-Garde British Printmaking” on 17th April at 2 pm. It is timely due to some spectacular results achieved in the last few years at auction houses around the Commonwealth world – particularly for linocuts by Canadian Sybil Andrews, Briton Cyril Power and Australian Ethel Spowers. Looks like the three main Commonwealth countries are pitting their artists squarely against each other in this sale comprising a tidy 87 lots.

Ethel Spowers is one of our most outstanding Australian printmakers; ‘Wet Afternoon’ is her most sought after image which has appeared five times in the last five years. ‘The Gust of Wind’, 1931, was last sold through Christie’s Australia for AU$14,000 hammer in 1999.

Christie’s sold ‘Bringing in the Boat’, 1933 by Sybil Andrews last December in London for a stand-out £24,000 hammer price. Heffel Fine Art in Vancouver generally have had the lion’s share of sales of Andrews’ work. However a fair number have turned up in Australia according to AASD, with a AU$15,000 hammer being the highest price for ‘Football’, achieved by Christie's in November 2003.

The auction record for a work by Sybil Andrews goes to Heffel Fine Art for ‘Flower Girls’, 1934, selling for CAD $95,000 hammer, followed closely by ‘Rush Hour’, selling for CAD $90,000 in the same sale in May 2008. ‘Rush Hour’, although from a different edition number, is the cover lot for this upcoming Bonhams auction. Here it’s called ‘Speedway’, lot 46, estimated at £50,000- £70,000.

Ethel Spowers of course is one of our most outstanding Australian printmakers; ‘Wet Afternoon’ is her most sought after image which has appeared five times in the last five years, culminating in record prices by Christie’s London, £42,000 hammer in April 2011, and Deutscher + Hackett at AU$65,000 hammer in November 2011. ‘The Gust of Wind’, 1931, last sold through Christie’s Australia for AU$14,000 hammer in 1999.

At Bonhams, you will have to wait for the last lot, number 87, to bid on this gem of a linocut, when we should see healthy capital growth in this image; it is offered with an estimate of £15,000 - £20,000.

Meanwhile, it was Australian auctioneer Menzies who achieved a spectacular result for Briton Cyril Power’s ‘The Eight’ from 1930 in March 2008, selling for a AU$44,000 hammer. This result however was well and truly trounced by Bonhams in December 2011, when sold for a massive £48,000 hammer.

We see Power’s best images almost double in value: Sotheby’s sold ‘The Tube Staircase’, 1929, in London in July 2009 for £11,000; in June 2010 it fetched £18,000. The brilliant ‘Merry Go Round’, c. 1929, sold for £5,500 hammer at Sotheby’s in London in March 2006, and again in September 2011, however this time for a massive £26,000 hammer

So – who will win the Commonwealth Battle of the linocut artists? The gloves are off at Bonham’s on 17th April, and interest and competition spanning the globe from Canada to Britain and to Australia will no doubt be fierce.

About The Author

Brigitte Banziger and David Hulme are the principals of Banziger Hulme Fine Art Consultants, established since 2003. With their combined experience of over 40 years, they provide private collectors as well as companies and public institutions with independent expert art valuations. In addition to their appraisals for insurance, family law, deceased estates and market values, they assist clients with transparent advice when buying or selling an individual artwork or an entire collection, for some of Australia’s most significant private collectors. David Hulme is an approved valuer for the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program, and both Brigitte and David are members of the Art Consulting Association of Australia, where David served as President from 2015 to 2019. David Hulme is a regular art market critic and commentator on the Australian art market and has been interviewed by numerous media, including the 'Australian Financial Review', 'The Australian' and 'The Sydney Morning Herald'. He has also been interviewed on Network 10’s 'The Project', on the ABC’s Radio National Breakfast show with Hamish MacDonald, the ABC’s 'The Business' program amongst many others.

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