Despite the occasional flurry in Sydney with local hero Sir William Dobell, Christie's head office became a little nervous about its new investment Down Under and Sotheby's half-hearted in its follow up to the Dobell sale at the Sydney Opera House.
This left Graham to pick up ever greater treasures of Australian art, particularly late colonial and Impressionist, than those it had secured before either of the global auction houses arrived.
Graham’s death continues the recent sad loss of people who were leading identities in the art world of that period, with the death also of art dealer Joan McClelland and antique dealer Gary Kay. The losses mark the end of a style, colour and commitment that began to set Australian art on a roll.
Graham Joel was from the same mould as these colleagues but with an even wider impact on the public. Despite the mid to late 1980s inroads of international competition, the Australian art auction market was substantially owned by Joels for more than a third of the 20th century century
An almost unassailable formula appears to have come into shape at Joel’s under Graham’s leadership involving regular mammoth sales of up to 1500 lots two or three times a year, plus sales in its rooms, which were firstly located off Little Collins Street, Melbourne, then in St Kilda, and now in a former school building in South Yarra which they purchased.
With the additional help of a large interstate following, the curtain literally went up on the second act of the modern Australian art story at their thrice yearly art auctions in the Malvern Town Hall where records were set in mammoth sales to a full house.
Many myths, some surely with an element of truth, came into being which help explain this phenomenal success. Joel’s is said to have been as much a finance company as an auction house. The art and antique trade were allowed to accrue substantial credit from the company on their purchases.
The company had unquestioned loyalty of its staff and Melbourne buyers largely due to Graham’s ability to get along with common folk. Moreover three generations of the Dwyer family spent many years running the art department for Joel’s.
The business then was very different from what it is today. Graham Joel's homely approach, his dry sense of humour and asides to regular auction goers contrast with today’s highly polished auctioneers.
But he always had full control of the room and his repeated "shush" and fixed stare when dealers at the back of the room chatted too loudly was something to be feared, although Jon Dwyer, the last member of the family to work for Leonard Joel's maintains Graham was never seen to lose his temper in the saleroom.
Jon Dwyer said that when he told Graham he was off to join Christie’s there were no recriminations, Graham gave him his blessing and paid him out handsomely. His handshake was enough to guarantee a deal.
Joel’s progress also reflected the ease with which Graham made friends, particularly in the accountancy and legal professions. Not that he was a man of many words and he seems to have eschewed the hype of modern communications that were beginning to be associated with the sale of art at auction.
Christie's and Sotheby's the first multinationals to establish in Australia in the 1970s and 1980s found it impossible to compete with his ties with this community which had trusteeship of estates in which many of the great Australian Impressionist paintings were housed, and due to a generational change in supply, began to hit the market from the 1960s. Dealers and collectors described this as their golden age of finds but were naturally not anxious to particularise them.
There were lots of sleepers, runs of great pictures, and numerous works to puzzle over. It was a golden age for finds. When it was still possible to use the term housewives, it was said that these women saved up their money for six months to have something to spend at the next Joel’s art sale.
Joel’s laconic observations and quick repartee were often on show and apparently his mind stayed active to the end. His mispronunciations of artists names, however, will be remembered as a trial. Despite his gregariousness on the rostrum, he was a very private man. One of his principal hobbies was fishing.
Jon Dwyer insists that Graham Joel was a keen art fancier - more so than many auctioneers who seem to end up with an accidental collection. Sotheby’s Australia recently showed an interest in the collection by presenting an exhibition of the key works, mostly of a traditional persuasion which was all that was collected during that period. However, there are no indications that the collection will come on the market. Even the closest members of the family have not been told formally of the future of his art collection.
Before the advent of bidding numbers, buyer's initials were called out to indicate the purchaser. Graham Joel's purchases were recorded as a combination of the first letters of the names of his three children Simon, Warren and Treena. Simon became a doctor, and Warren and Treena worked in the family business for different periods of time.
For the auctions at the Malvern Town Hall, the crowds came, some with cut lunches, and loved it. Graham Joel put his extraordinary capacity to appear relaxed to good use. At the town hall sales, the auction record for an Australian work of art was broken at least five times.
Joel's set a new record price for an Australian work of art in 1969 at $32,000, when they sold Charles Conder’s Orchard at Box Hill. It went to the Victorian department store owner Jack Manton who is said to have defeated the National Gallery of Australia in one of many frequent duels between them that enlivened the auction room. It is now in the NGV.
Bidding between the gallery and Manton for the best Australian Impressionist art must have been a delight for the beneficiaries as well as general members of the public to see.
Graham knew what he was doing and the audience knew he knew. They hung from the balconies on the first night of the sale of the Hans Heysen estate in 1968. Some sellers offered inducements to have their works included on the nights of major sales.
Graham subsequently took the record to $82,000 for a J A Turner and $100,000 for Eugene Von Guerard’s Lake Illiwarra in the first sale of an Australian painting for a six figure sum. The painting was sold to Sydney property developer Max Herford.
To Robert Holmes a Court, one of the leading “entrepreneurs” of the 1980s he knocked down Sir Arthur Streeton’s Settlers Camp for $800,000 The latter “entrepeneur” or share shuffler Robert Holmes a Court’s was Alan Bond’s keenest competitor in the world of collecting, and he also set a record price of $1.25 million at Joel’s buying Rupert Bunny’s La Nuite de Canicule (The Hot Summer Night) showing languid ladies on a balcony.
It was only after these sales that the London auctioneers who had been seeking to carve their hegemony in the saleroom came within cooee of securing a worthwhile place in the Australian saleroom. John Glover’s Bath of Diana was knocked down by Sotheby’s Australia for $1.6 million. The deal, however, became unstuck in a in a dispute relating to lack of disclosure or otherwise of the exportability of the picture.
With no Internet and scant phone bidding sales were seen as for real even if some sly bidding was taking place which was not so obvious. Graham’s “Going. Going. Gone gone gone” followed by a price on many occasions left many in attendance in suspenseful wonderment.
Dealers from Mayfair were frequently among who attended the sales, with visitor numbers running close to 1000 for some sales.
Some of the incidents appeared to show an extraordinary lapse in application and indifference to detail. I recall that the bidding on one lot went to $750,000 and Joel suddenly slipped back to $7500. But this was corrected immediately and one of the few lapses in the sale of hundreds of lots in each session, as he stood up and lent on the rostrum for hour after hour. "Let it be", appeared to be Joel’s attitude to the occasional error, which Graham Joel tended to address immediately and usually stood by his decision once his mind was made up.
Melbourne dealer, the late Joseph Brown praised Joel's style. Joel got on with the job, not reading out the catalogue entries or overly indulging in repartee like some auctioneers, he reminded. The repartee was quick and sharp.
When Christie’s and Sotheby’s opened in Australia, they brought with them the buyers’ premium which Joel’s declined to introduce until the 1990s. It was, and still could be argued that the buyer's premium is restraint of trade given that the auction houses claim to be acting for both the buyer and the seller.
Prior to 1993 it was illegal to charge a buyer's premium in New South Wales. A premium was charged in Victoria by the multinationals enabling them to reduce the commission paid by the seller and this assisted in drawing works from interstate to those auctions. But this resulted in a change in the flow of works to Christie's and Sotheby's and away from Leonard Joel. While Melbourne old clients remained loyal, new younger vendors weighed up the costs more carefully.
The multinationals still effectively helped Leonard Joel to consolidate Melbourne as the centre of the trade in “recycled” art. Knowing that the supply of fine and important Australian paintings could be spasmodic Graham Joel ensured the maintenance of the firm through a solid cash flow from weekly household goods auctions which were run separately.
Graham Joel never failed to comment to the room on a peculiar art choice. I liked the occasion when someone bought a painting of two haggard sepia faces, he interrupted with the observation he thought it was dreadful. "That picture has been in three sales. Everybody takes it home and brings it back. They all lose money on it," Graham Joel said. But, as he pointed out to the latest buyer, there was not much to be lost this time. It fetched only $30.
Traders who still feel warm and nostalgic about the period may forget that the dollar was worth less in those days. The contents of the auctions were also different. The great old works drifted slowly into public collections – the cupboard became bare, in favour of abstract contemporaries which apparently were not Graham’s taste
Graham Joel and the people that began to follow him had done their job too well. Nowadays the paint on many works is barely dry, and the works are abstract in concept if not in execution. Bargains may still turn up but the stock is now recent art. Joel’s handled some of the great art from old gentlemen’s clubs which ladies and some ethnic groups would not – ironically – have been invited to join in days gone by.
In a circular to favoured clients and friends, John Albrect, current managing director of Leonard Joel's wrote:
“We were saddened to hear this weekend that Graham Joel, the heart of Leonard Joel’s history for more than half a century, passed away.
Graham, unquestionably, laid the foundations of the modern Australian art and antiques auction market in Australia and this fascinating industry lives on as one of his legacies.
“As we mark our centenary this year, we are saddened that Graham will not be here to celebrate with us."
One wonders what he made of the new, brand conscious auction industry. And whether he would have appreciated the accolade of "foundation builder of the modern Australian art auction market".
