The sale offered a number of small, yet representative body of works from the modernists of the 1920s-50s. The vendor of Herbert Badham’s Domesticity (lot 1), may well have been inspired to offer the work following Bonham’s recent success with the artist. This modest size, high key work, revealing an intimate perspective of a mid-century, mid-summer Sydney interior, sold for $35,000. The back cover lot, Weaver Hawkins’ swirling, fumbling and yet elegant group of footballers in Football, (lot 4) sold for $70,000 hammer, equalling the artist’s record set by the Bonham’s Grundy sale. Although Roy De Maistre’s Studio Interior from his London home (lot 2) found no buyers on the evening, his earlier 1920s Basque-set Beach at St Jean de Luz (lot 18) attracted phone and room bids and sold at mid-estimate for $95,000.
Alison Rehfisch, a modernist whose works continue to be modestly estimated, was evidently popular with the bidders after both Red Dresser (lot 38) and Sailing Boats (lot 41) sold around or above the high estimates. Elaine Haxton’s semi-nude, theatrically set, arabesque patterned The Persian Lute (lot 40) inspired spirited bidding up to $7,000 whilst her more formally composed Old Sydney: The Ship and the Mermaid received no bids over $14,000.
The representation of historical pictures in the catalogue was sparse throughout. Yet, Haughton Forrest’s important HMAS Galatea (lot 30) just sold at the low estimate of $12,000. The real gem of the evening was a portrait of Geoff Moriarty, 1901 by Frederick Jr. Woodhouse. With the MCG in the distant background, the image is one of earliest known paintings of an Australian Rules football player.
Understandably, the lot attracted a great deal of institutional interest, with Melbourne gallerist, Robert Gould placing the final bid of $13,000 – a purchase likely to go to one of the State’s institutions, possibly a companion piece for Sidney Nolan’s Footballer at the NGV. Although celebrated for his paintings of horses, Woodhouse’s Footballer smashed the artist’s previous auction record of $8,500 set in 1985.
Ethel Carrick Fox’s 1943 Voluntary Service, (lot 3) depicting the local wartime fundraising efforts, in which the artist herself participated, sold to the phones over the high estimate at $90,000. Fox’s Moroccan Market Scene (lot 16) was also bid over the high estimate at $36,000. The taste for the ‘Australian impressionists’ continued as all three paintings by Tom Roberts sold well on the evening.
Another auction record was set when the cover lot, Howard Arkley’s A Large House with Fence, (lot 11), sold to the room for $380,000 hammer. The large canvas was an iconic representation of the artist’s obsessive interests with the motif of the suburban house. Another iconic image, and the second most expensive work on the evening, was Charles Meere’s Australian Beach Pattern (lot 14). One of at least three identical compositions to have bizarrely come out of European collections in recent years, this copy of the original, which hangs in the collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, was nevertheless well received by deep-pocketed bidders when it sold for $265,000 – almost $100,000 more than the last time it was offered at auction in 2003.
The post-war modernist works were met with mixed results. Suite of Paintings VI by Charles Blackman (lot 5), a work exhibited at the watershed exhibition, Recent Australian Painting at London’s Whitechapel Gallery in 1961, was sold by a ‘very willing vendor’ for $160,000. Blackman’s Schoolgirl Crying, failed to sell. Similarly Arthur Boyd’s early and rare, painted ceramic work, Card Players (lot 6) saw hands waving in the air and finally sold at mid-estimate of $100,000. Conversely, the more typical Fishing at Dusk on the Shoalhaven was met with all hands down.
The first of the Jeffrey Smart paintings to be offered this month, The Skaters (lot 13), sold to the room at just under the low estimate of $160,000, half of the its low estimate when it was offered by Bonham’s twelve months earlier for a hopeful $300,000. The vendor of lot 12, Tim Maguire’s massive Untitled 2000U52 was also very willing to sell but the bidding did not even reach the reserve of around $80,000.
Bonham’s took a gamble by presenting such a small lot, high-value, auction last night. With just 15 of the lots comprising close to 80% of the pre-sale estimate, Bonham’s ran the risk of having a disastrous sale. Although the auction was not replete with ‘fresh’ works – 24 out of the 41 paintings having already been offered to auction at least once – the results were impressive and promising. The spectacular results which Bonham’s enjoyed in 2013 may now occupy a distant memory, Bonham’s should nevertheless be thrilled with last night’s results which signalled a spring in the step of this autumn’s auction season.
Overall auction results:
Hammer $1,859,500 (inc. premium $2,269,000). Lots sold: 28.
87% by value (106% inc. premium). 68% by volume.
