His desire to have the works seen, led him to begin donating many of his finest pieces to a number of Western Australian institutions. These have included the Art Gallery of Western Australia, and Murdoch, Edith Cowan and Curtain Universities. And recently he rather reluctantly decided to offer more than 200 pieces for sale through Mossgreen auctions.
Amongst the major works in the Ian and Sue Bernadt Collection single vendor sale held in the soon to be demolished Tea-Rooms at Randwick Racecourse on Monday 30th of August, were a number by artists foremost in the movement.
However the offering in general was extremely eclectic with a heavy emphasis on West Australian works from many of the newer community art centres and a large number of paintings from other regions, that are characterized by strong colour and naive imagery.
Of the major lots Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s early 1990 untitled canvas (Lot 20 ) measuring 152 x 122 cm and modestly estimated at $40,000-$60,000 sold to Sydney art consultant Annette Larkin for a bargain $51,009 including buyers premium. The work had been on loan to the Art Gallery of Western Australia through the 1990’s, as had another Kngwarreye work, Stripes 1995 (Lot 24 ). This work went the same way for $31,577.
Rover Thomas’s Some Places I have Been (Lot 19 ) carried an extremely low estimate of $30,000–40,000 and represented superb value having been painted for Waringarri arts just prior to the artist’ death in 1998. It achieved $46,151 incl. BP when hammered down to Sydney collector and art entrepreneur Leo Christie.
The work illustrated on the cover by Paddy Bedford (Lot 18 ), carried a Jirrawun Arts and Martin Brown, Sydney provenance. Measuring 122 x 135 cm this dramatic and thoroughly modern work sold to a phone bidder against two others in the room for $57,081 incl. BP.
Mossgreen offered all lots at prices that more than met the current market. Reserves were extremely low, yet the failure of the large number of Western Australian works was telling.
Amongst the 101 pieces that failed to sell on the night, 31 had been created in communities located on the AYP lands to the immediate west of the tri-state border. Here paintings are distinguished by a tendency toward gestural application and a highly colour-charged palette.
When added to a further 21 colourful works with a naive sensibility by the likes of Peggy Jones, Sambo Burra Burra, Gertie Huddleston and Long Tom Tjapanangka, along with those with similar aesthetic appeal by Mangkaja, Balgo Hills , Bidyadanga, and Ikunji artists this number swelled to comprise more than 70% of the failures on the night.
This sale provided ample evidence of an over hyped primary market in which gallery prices are completely out of kilter with the real value of art works. Many pieces sold at prices well below their purchase price and others failed to sell, regardless of how deeply the reserves were cut.
It is certainly a salutary lesson for the large number of predominantly West Australian collectors currently besotted with recent art movements in remoter regions of their state.
Only 39% of lots sold on the night generating $537,000 or 49% of the total value on low estimates ($1,093,000 including buyers premium). However within a day of the sale Mossgreen specialist Shaun Dennison had sold further 20 lots thereby lifting the success rate to 50% by volume and 53% by value. A hard nights journey in to day!!
