A miscellany of 38 mostly smallish works from the collection of the late Celia Dunlop of Wellington started the auction with the top price going to a finely balanced work on paper by Gordon Walters Grid No. II (Lot 16 ) from 1983 which sold for $60,000.
A large unstretched canvas by the Maori woman artist Robin Kahukiwa entitled We Must Love Ourselves Again (Lot 8 ) sold for $17,000.
Of the five works by Michael Parakowhai on offer, What's The Time Mr. Woolf (Lot 52 ) attracted spirited bidding selling for $20,500 against the estimate of $12,000-18,000.
Bill Hammond's Canopy Six (Lot 54 ) a recent work in acrylic from 2013 sold well at $55,000 coming in at the low end of the estimate.
A shadow of doubt was cast over drawings by Charles F. Goldie late last century and earlier this century by some unscrupulous people in the art world, but when a drawing like Ngaheke (Lot 67 ) comes on to the market with squeaky clean provenance, collectors sit up and take note. The drawing from 1931 that the artist had dedicated to his sister certainly had the room buzzing when offered with the bidding starting at $25,000 for the 25 x 20 cm drawing and quickly rose to $71,000. Although not a record price for a drawing by Goldie this work takes a rightful second place.
A rare signed vintage photograph of Goldie (Lot 68 ) by W. H. Bartlett with the same provenance as the drawing sold for $2,600 and a small Goldie oil painting, Life's Long Day Calmly Closes': Ena Te Papatahi, A Chieftainess of the Ngapuhi Tribe (Lot 69 ) measuring 21 x 16 cm from 1919 sold at the low estimate of $240,000.
The exquisitely crafted large abstractions of Milan Mrkusich are usually not easy sellers but A + O have had reasonable success in moving them on in the past. In this sale, the large Painting Dark III (Lot 72 ) sold for $110,000, and Blue Achromatic (Lot 75 ) from 1980 sold for $90,000, also right on the low estimate.
Colin McCahon's small 3 panel work, Can You Hear Me St. Francis (Lot 73 ) 30 x 90 cm overall, had some great expectations surrounding it especially in the light of the recent record breaking sale of The Canoe Tainui but when offered, it climbed slowly to $280,000 and was sold subject to vendor approval coming in $70,000 short of the low estimate.
A Tony Fomison painting entitled Isn't My Turn (No 122) (Lot 74 ), an oil from 1976 failed to attract any bids at all whereas a few days earlier at Mossgreen-Webbs a much smaller Fomison oil painting of Veronica's Napkin was one of the big ticket items.
Just when I was thinking the record breaking year was running out of breath, a work by Dunedin based artist Nigel Brown entitled The Need to Belong sold for $23,000 against an estimate of $14,000-$18,000.
The sale total was $1.575 million including buyer's premium compared with the estimate range for the sale of $2.132 to $3.015 million.
It has been a great year for the secondary art market in New Zealand with all the auction houses, big and small and old and new making their own unique contributions to a year full of change excitement struggle and wonder.
What is in store around the corner as 2016 turns to 2017 only time will tell....
All prices shown are hammer prices and expressed in $NZ.
