The dispersal will itself be held in three separate sales with international highlights being sold in London while Deutscher + Hackett is selling 56 lots of Australian and modern British paintings in Sydney on August 28 and Mr John Williams sells 250 plus more affordable lots of antiques and arts from the collection on August 24.
Both of these sales will be in Sydney but thrilled by the runaway prices achieved at its previous auctions of the world's eminent “stylists'” collections, Christie's is sending more than 300 lots of furniture, paintings and smaller decorative arts to its London parent for auction on a date to be fixed. Both the South Australian Mr Aitken and the Mexican born Mr Gonzalez also had clients in London and Paris in the 1960s and 1970s when they had business there.
While they had plenty of clients in Sydney too, with Mr Aitken often commuting between continents, the pair began focussing their separate business Down Under in the late 1970s. It is thought that they will still be remembered in Europe where they dealt with members of the world's social number one A list. Many of these, such as Claudette Colbert, however, have passed away. Mr Gonzalez is remembered as the man who said no to Christian Dior who offered him a job when Gonzalez visited him there in the mid 1960s. He refused Dior's offer because the offer jeopardised Gonzalez' press pass. Gonzalez was a master of the old style illustration in fashion advertising.
The man who took the job, so it is said, was Yves St Laurent. By coincidence, St Laurent's collection, with that of his partner, Mr Pierre Berge, was sold by Christie's in London for nearly €400 million in February 2008. The clients of great stylists do indeed have a following in the memento market it seems, as it was these who chased the Laurent “trophy” pieces to stellar heights.
Mr Gonzalez, had three boutiques, including one in Sydney's Rose Bay in 1969-72 trading as Mexicana. He concentrated on women's creations highlighting the Mexican peasant fashion look. Some of the clothes he has designed are in the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney and documented in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Now 86, and wheelchair bound, Mr Gonzalez has no illusions that the collection matches that of Yves St Laurent nor do his and Mr Aitken's following. However, Christie's Australian representative, Mr Ronan Sulich told the Australian Art Sales Digest that Christie's obviously would not be sending the container to London if it did not believe it would be rewarding.
He was not prepared to say what was in the container yet, as cataloguing was still taking place and estimates arrived at. It is likely to include at least a Victorian painting or two. Mr Gonzalez, sold a Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema portrait through London dealer Mr Peter Nahum some years ago. Also in the Deutscher + Hackett catalogue is a drawing by Sir Edward Poynter. This has been retained for sale in Australia because it is a study for Helen in the Art Gallery of NSW.
Some of the pictorial contents might be more modern as Mr Aitken was a big fan of the British artist Bridget Riley. He bought many works directly from the artist. Ten of these are being offered in the first 30 lots which kick off the Deutscher + Hackett sale. The works by Riley have a high estimate of up to $80,000. Riley has a following here, based on a pioneering exhibition of her work held by the Coventry Gallery in Sydney's Hargreaves Street in Paddington in the early 1970s, and upon representation in several public exhibitions over the year.
Mr Aitken's taste appears to have been more minimalist than his partner's although in mannerisms Mr Aitken was more of rococo. He eccentricity was heightened by an over the top North Adelaidian accent.
Aitken, who was educated at Melbourne' Caulfield Technical College, is remembered by one old timer as a great lover of white. He did not go to the extent of other decorators of the time and paint fine pieces of antique furniture white. But he dressed in white – and the occasional pastels. This fascination explains why 'White" appears in several of their titles, including two of the works in the Deutscher + Hackett sale, by Brett Whiteley.
These were acquired in 1962 from Whiteley's show at Mathiesen Fine Art in London when Mr Aitken's pioneering decorator business in London had just begun . Some of the other Whiteleys in the show were acquired by British public collections, and are considered by some to be his best period, although being abstract, the market marks them down.
Quirkily gone are the days it seems when a daintily coloured pretty little Impressionist painting by a second ranking Australian Impressionist would kick off a mixed vendor sale. The opening lot for the Deutscher + Hackett sale is a Guadier-Brzeska black and white linocut, The Wrestlers.
Although believed not to be big money the offerings excel in their collector focus. The Deutscher + Hackett lots consists of 50 mostly small works estimated to be around $1 million.
The top price in the Deutscher + Hackett lots is expected to a Geoffrey Smart autobahn painting at $150,000 to $200,000. Many of the works head from this subset, ranging from Rupert Bunny to Loudon Sainthill and Donald Friend.
The London sales venue follows the solid response to a previous deceased Australian collector's stock in February. Christie's sold the Ross Hamilton Collection: "Journeys to The Pimlico Road" for a total of £944,888 which was 88 per cent by value and 77 per cent by lot.
Mr Hamilton, who was born in Melbourne Australia in 1942 and died fifty years later, helped transform the Pimlico Road, between Lower Sloane Street and Buckingham Palace Road, into an internationally famous centre of the London antique trade. The shop had been faithfully continued by one of his admirer disciples a until their deaths brought it to the end of its day.
The coming sales have added poignancy by Mr Aitken's death while the Deutscher + Hackett catalogue was being prepared. He died completely unexpectedly in a fall at his home in Sydney on July 2. After their 50 years together Mr Gonzalez has been distraught and is expected to go to Quebec where he has family.
Both had disappeared from the scene for the last decade or so. Mr Aitken appeared pointedly to do so, when he instructed galleries to strike him off their invitation lists as he was no longer interested.
The catalogue of the Deutscher + Hackett sale has been published on the company's web site and Mr John Williams is has sent out the brochure of his next sale which features many of the works consigned for clearance from his bite of the collection.
The second of the great decorator sales which said farewell to the contributions of a whole generation of collectors was that of Leslie Walford which Mossgreen sold in November last year.
Mossgreen has been particularly close to Christie's Australia but the partners in the coming dispersal had a predisposed friendly client relationship with Deutscher + Hackett.
