Art Auction Sale Reviews

What a cocktail: a cavalcade of online-only sales; unseasonably late sales spurred by cabin fever-induced fetishes for in-the-flesh buying; regular buoyant blue-chip sales; all muddled with sparks-flying works by women repeatedly overvaulting expectations. 2021’s tally ended up an adversity-beating recent market-high around $120 million dollars with Deutscher and Hackett atop the leader board for the second Covid-blighted year, this time ending with a tally of nearly $32.5 million, well clear of the pack.

Australian artist the late Jeffrey Smart (1921-2013) loved Italy, emigrating there in 1963 and eight years later acquiring the rustic farmhouse ‘Posticcia Nuova’ in central Tuscany.

It was the site for many of his paintings including The Arezzo Turn-off II, 1973 – which features prominently as lot 5 in Melbourne-based Deutscher and Hackett’s art auction from 7pm Wednesday December 8 at 105 Commercial Road, South Yarra.

The sale contains important modern works from a Melbourne private collection and traditional paintings from an Adelaide collection – as well as a selection of other artists.

Contemporary Australian ‘instafamous’ artist Catherine Jenna Hendry (C J Hendry), 33,  will make her Australian auction debut at Menzies Wednesday December 1 Important and International Art sale from 6.30pm at the company’s Sydney gallery at 12 Todman Avenue, Kensington.

Born in South Africa but raised in Brisbane, where she studied architecture and finance before pursuing an art career, Hendry is known for her hyper-realistic, large-scale renderings of luxury objects using a self-developed scribbling technique that sometimes take 200 hours to complete.

Bonhams saw out the season with its Important Australian Art auction eclipsing records along with a few false starts, to clear 124% by value and 75% by lot. The second session offered up a single owner core: Sir Sidney Nolan: Selected works from the Estate of Lady Nolan, which did its job tidying up the rear with a solid performance lacking sparkle.

Smith & Singer’s final fine art auction of 2021 saw this year’s trend of smashed high estimates continue, including two new auction records. Not surprisingly, these were for two female artists: auction room queens Clarice Beckett and Del Kathryn Barton. Attended by more than 40 people in the room, the 78 lots were again very strongly bid on the phones and also on the internet. The cover and star lot of the night, Brett Whiteley’s serene The Dove in the Mango Tree, 1984 (lot 24) estimated at $900,000-1,200,000 was fought over on the phones and in the room, however it finally settled on a room bidder, who secured it for $1.6 million.

Mirka Mora, the icon of Melbourne’s cultural life, dazzled the secondary market at Deutscher and Hackett’s 10th November sale with a self-portrait (lot 17) that locks in Melbourne’s café culture of the 1960s with an irresistible joy and doll-like charm. It doubled its high estimate of $70,000 to sell to an internet bidder for a hammer price of $140,000. This eclipsed Mora’s previous record of $77,500 set in 2019 at Leonard Joel’s The Magical Studio of Mirka Mora.

The self-portrait with multiple Mora figures, also simply known as People, is a humble and unpretentious painting with vivid yellow enamel and oil on composition board has an undeniable magic that perhaps hides a loss of innocence for the children of her generation damaged by the holocaust. Included in the catalogue were black-and-white images of Mora with her painting at the Herald Outdoor Art Show in 1960 along with an adoring fan: the French singer Maurice Chevalier. These two souls obviously had much to express about life and love of European culture.

Australian painter Tom Roberts (1856-1931) has long been regarded as one of the country’s finest 19th and early 20th century landscape and pastoralist artists with major works on display in the National Gallery of Victoria and other significant museums.

Now a rediscovered and repatriated painting from a private French collection entitled A Modern Andromeda, 1891-92 (lot 31) is being auctioned in the Melbourne rooms of Deutscher and Hackett from 7pm Wednesday November 10 at 105 Commercial Road, South Yarra with a catalogue estimate of $400,000-$600,000.

One of Australia’s leading Aboriginal artists Rover Thomas (circa 1926-1998) achieved top billing at Melbourne-based Gibson’s Auctions Australian & International Art sale on October 24 when his painting entitled Old Bedford Station circa 1985 (lot 90) sold for $61,000.

Most Australians are familiar with former Australian Rules Football champion Geelong ruckman Sam Newman – if only for his antics over 24 years on Channel 9’s The Footy Show.

Newman played 300 games for Geelong Football Club in the Victorian Football League from 1964 to 1980 before he retired, was named in the 1969 All-Australian team and represented Victoria eight times in interstate matches. 

His media career began in 1981, his longest stint being with The Footy Show from 1994 to 2018.

A special global fundraising art auction will be hosted here in Australia by Leonard Joel, in collaboration with the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and supported artist studios.  

The sale titled Art to Roam offers 94 artworks by artists with disabilities from around the world, including the UK, US, Canada, South Korea and Australia. All funds raised will be evenly split between the artists and IFAW to help save Africa’s endangered elephants through their Room to Roam project.

Menzies first timed online only auction was dedicated to prints and multiples, including a smattering of photographs, sculptures and ceramics. Featuring works by international greats like David Hockney, Banksy, Keith Haring, Andy Warhol, Damien Hirst, Roy Lichtenstein, Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall and Francisco De Goya, the 54 lots would not have been out of place in London or New York.

The vibrantly coloured portraits explore the convergence of royalty and celebrity – presenting the Queen as an icon of our time – and are set to establish a record price for Warhol prints at an Australian auction.

Apart from the Warhol offering, the sale features a diverse selection of 55 works by Australian and international artists and draws on current collector interest in important prints, photography and sculpture.

One of iconic Australian artist Arthur Boyd’s (1920-1999) Wimmera Series paintings from the 1950s (lot 126) was the big winner at Leski Auctions sale of the Foster Collection from the family’s Mount Eliza mansion Dendron House on Sunday September 5. The painting was knocked down for $110,000 – almost twice its catalogue estimate – or $131,450 when the buyer’s premium is taken into account. All the auction items sold for a total of $362,228 (including buyers’ premiums) against a pre-sale estimate of $153,720 – or 235 per cent by value.

With a clearance by lot of 83% (104% by value) that secured $2,925,000 (incl. BP) for the trust coffers, the Bonham’s sale of Important Australian Art might have well said Covid-what?

Market observers are used to auction firms promoting their ‘tightly curated sales’. Bonhams didn’t use that C-word in its promotions, but it certainly showed engagement with an unfashionable one: connoisseurship.

Connoisseurship took a battering in the 20th century, becoming another dirty ‘C-word’. In the second decade of the 21st century, with cryptocurrency fuelling the rise of ridiculous sums paid for NFTs – the emperor’s new clothes of art – there are plenty of industry commentators that believe it’s time connoisseurship made a comeback.[i]

In the past year or so, we have seen most major fine art auctions opening with Australia’s favourite early to mid-century female artists. Indeed, Leonard Joel have been running dedicated women artists auctions since 2017 and announced their fifth edition of the event for 20th October, while Bonhams in their 24 August sale of Important Australian art have reserved the first seven lots for Dorrit Black, Janet Cumbrae-Stewart, Clarice Beckett, May Gibbs and Florence Fuller, as a case in point. 

Deutscher + Hackett go one further by marketing their important fine art sale scheduled for 29 September as “Twenty Important Women Artists and Selected Australian and International Fine Art”, putting women very much at the forefront of current auctions.

We expect Smith & Singer to offer a good selection of important women artists in their next major sale scheduled for 22 September, and Menzies’ November sale will no doubt also be heavily weighted with the current female stars that collectors are so keen on.

Is the booming interest in the secondary market in women artists grounded in real dollar figures or simply a myth?

The sale of 43 highlights from Pat Corrigan’s photography collection shakes more than a tail feather at Deutscher and Hackett’s online only sale: they achieved a total $660,000 IBP, which equates to an extraordinary 191% lots sold by value, and over 98% by volume.

Without the perceived glamour of art being presented in both Sydney and Melbourne, production of a glossy auction catalogue, previews with drinks and canapes to discuss the merits of individual artworks, their provenance, condition and framing etc, we now have the much talked about “online only art sale”.

The challenges of holding fine art auctions in Australia continue unabated with carefully planned sales disrupted significantly by the randomness of Covid-19 lockdowns. Within the industry, we get used to the way the leading auction houses organise their sales.  The logistics involved are something we tend to take for granted, but we should not underestimate the lengths that Menzies, Deutscher + Hackett, Smith & Singer, Bonhams and also now Leonard Joel go to regularly to transport substantial numbers of artworks between Melbourne and Sydney on a 800 kilometre road trip. We don’t believe that auctioneers anywhere else in the world provide such a comprehensive service of showing all art from one sale so that it can be viewed in person by as many art collectors as possible.

Menzies is honouring former Archibald prize winner Ben Quilty with its catalogue cover for his work Skull 3 2006 (lot 22) in their Wednesday June 30 Melbourne auction following the artist’s record-breaking success in its March sale for Beast 2 which sold for $220,000.

The auction, from 6.30pm at Menzies Gallery 1 Darling Street South Yarra, will feature a comprehensive range of Australian and international paintings and sculptures.

According to curator Lisa Slade writing in the Menzies catalogue ‘In Quilty’s hands, the car becomes a symbol of mortality, mateship and masculinity, a vanitas motif or reminder of the transience of life’.

Adrian Newstead’s Cooee Gallery, the first to specialise in Aboriginal art, celebrates 40 years this year. At a time when one might expect a gallery director with such a long established business to be calling it quits or at least slowing down somewhat, Newstead’s seemingly boundless energy and enthusiasm led Newstead and executive director Mirri Leven to establish an additional gallery space on Oxford Street for Aboriginal art sales and auctions.

If you’ve been anywhere in the art world in New Zealand in the past 50 years, you will have come across John F. Perry.

New Zealand’s artistic and cultural landscape was greatly diminished this week, when John Perry the artist, obsessive collector, ex museum curator, arts writer for AASD and other publications but most importantly friend / mentor to many, passed away at home above his shop Global Village Antiques in the old Regent Cinema in Hellensville, West Auckland on 6 June 2021.

With one click of the mouse, an anonymous internet bidder secured Arthur Streeton’s The Grand Canal, 1908 (lot 21) for a record hammer price for the artist of $2,500,000 at Deutscher and Hackett’s Important Australian & International Fine Art in Melbourne on 21 April 2021. The record auction price for a work by the artist was previously $2,100,000 paid for Settlers Camp 1888, and sold in 2012, also by Deutscher and Hackett. For bidders, this sale was a welcome Melbourne return to the room after the prolonged isolation of lockdown. Cautious at first, the sale warmed to a party atmosphere by the end. Deutscher and Hackett are to be congratulated on selling over 89% by lot and 131% by value realising $9,580,950 (IBP).

Australian modernist women painters need a dramatic price re-evaluation after the hammer price of some of the carefully-placed opening lots of Smith and Singer’s Sydney auction reached double the top estimate. Particularly noteworthy was the 1935 canvas Interieur by Bessie Davidson (lot 5) selling for a hammer price of $540,000, well above the reasonable estimated range was $200,000 - $250,000. This was a drawn-out battle between no less than seven telephones and a determined room bidder who finally won out. Thank goodness we are back to physical in-the-room auctions again.

It is probably no surprise that Rupert Bunny’s (1864-1947) important circa 1899 religious painting St Veronica (lot 23) scooped the pool at Melbourne-based Gibson’s Auctions Australian & International Art sale on Sunday April 18, 2021. Catalogued with an estimate of $20,000 – 30,000 it sold for $26,840 (including buyer’s premium).

It is a powerful and timeless image that portrays the legend of Veronica witnessing Jesus carrying the cross for his crucifixion and offering her veil as a towel.

The image of his face was then miraculously transferred onto the cloth and Bunny tries to show the event in an act of subtle realism.

To anyone who has never been to Venice, Australian artist Arthur Streeton’s (1867-1943) painting The Grand Canal, 1908 is a marvellous almost lifelike portrayal of waterways, gondolas and orange stepped terracotta tiled roofs from the lofty heights of Palazzo Foscari.

So good is the work that experts place it alongside paintings of the same subject by such international greats as French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) and 18th century Venice School Italian Giovanni Antonio Canal (1697-1768) – commonly known as Canaletto.

Australian artist Fred Williams (1927-1982) is one of the highlights at Melbourne-based Gibson’s Auctions forthcoming Australian & International Art auction from 2pm Sunday April 18 at 885-889 High Street, Armadale.

The work on offer, a 1968 gouache on paper entitled Desert Landscape (lot 14) with a solid provenance and part of his 2011 National Gallery of Australia exhibition titled Infinite Horizons, while nowhere near the money paid for one of his major paintings still has a healthy $30,000-$50,000 catalogue estimate.

It was a sign of things to come at the Menzies fine art sale on Wednesday 31 March in Sydney. Under the motto “Menzies – The Art of Discovery” two modestly sized traditional 1920s landscapes far exceeded expectations: Horace Trenerry’s Country Road (lot 8) sold for $16,000 on estimates of $7,000-10,000, while Mount Coot-Tha (lot 9) by Lloyd Rees carried hopes of $8,000-12,000 and sold for $17,000, climbing to double the low estimate.

With similar verve there was strong bidding in the room for Euan Macleod’s contemporary landscape Large Figure in Early Light, 1991 (lot 12). After securing the painting for $15,000 (est. $8,000-12,000), the young gentleman immediately strode out of the room in an uncannily similar fashion to the figure portrayed in the painting he had just acquired.

Melbourne’s inclement weather did not keep enthusiastic potential buyers from a Sunday March 21 viewing of paintings at Menzies forthcoming art auction on Wednesday March 31 at the company’s Sydney-based Menzies Gallery at 12 Todman Avenue, Kensington. Given the 12-month tussle Australia, like all other countries, has had with COVID-19, there was a sense of optimism that perhaps the worst of the pandemic was behind the industry – and that regular viewings and live auctions could once more become the norm.  

The loss of legendary Sydney restaurant Lucio’s is clearly felt by many and surely no more than by its ebullient and larger than life owner Lucio Galletto. However, all good things must come to an end, and on Sunday we saw the break-up of 40 years of the art collection that was part and parcel of Lucio’s where great art and great food made for a perfect mix, and a place of dynamic creativity in every regard.

The cover lot, Anooralya (Wild Yam), 1989 (Lot 6), a lyrical and staggeringly beautiful early work by one of our most important female painters, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, proved its star qualities, achieving $100,000 beyond its high-end to sell to the phones for $350,000. The second top lot, also by Kngwarreye, did its job, albeit with a slightly longer than hold-one’s-breath delay, with Early Summer Flowers, 1990 (Lot 11), being referred and then secured later in the sale for $245,000.

Seven early bark paintings from the Gary Bradley estate are being offered alongside the likes of works by iconic Aboriginal artists Emily Kane Kngwarreye and Rover Thomas at Deutscher and Hackett’s forthcoming Melbourne Aboriginal Art auction from 7pm Wednesday March 17 at 105 Commercial Road, South Yarra.