International art-works – particularly examples by Fernand Léger, Lynn Chadwick and Andy Warhol – took centre stage at the Menzies auction in Melbourne on Thursday night. The emphasis, which was deliberate, also seemed rather fitting.
After all, it’s been a remarkable few months in the international auction market, climaxing with the new record set in May, for Picasso’s The Women of Algiers (1955), knocked down in New York for US $160 million.
The Menzies auction may not have scaled the heights of recent sales in London and New York, but once or twice there was the hint of a similarly heady atmosphere. When Lynn Chadwick’s bronze Maquette II 1984 (Lot 32 ) came up, auctioneer Martin Farrah pointed out that a similar group had just sold in London for almost A$750,000. But the Australian crowd failed to rise to the challenge, and the Menzies work was knocked down for $190,000, $30,000 above its high estimate.
Owner Rod Menzies, who bought the works by Chadwick and Léger in New York last month, was quoted in Thursday’s Financial Review as saying he was prepared to risk a loss on them both. As the article explained, this was part of a longer-term plan to make international art the point of difference between Menzies and other local auction houses.
Accordingly, the star of this show was Léger’s China Town 1943 (Lot 40 ). Estimated to sell for $1.3-1.6 million, it was knocked down, after an entertaining spate of bidding, for $1.8 million, somewhat above its purchase price last month. This heavy, muscly canvas, painted in New York, while Léger was living in the USA (1940-45), seems to bear out the claim that the artist’s later work represents a transition from Cubism to Pop Art. Perhaps one day we’ll see one of the great Légers from the 1910s or early 20s in an Australian auction, although their current prices of at least A$6 million may prove a bridge too far for the local market.
Warhol’s Head after Picasso 1985 (Lot 39 ), previously auctioned by Menzies in 2008, gave one lucky buyer the work of two major 20th-century artists for the price of one! A much slighter painting than the Léger, this screen-printed canvas, from Warhol’s own collection, but rather beaten-up-looking (folded?), only just reached its estimate, selling for $1.4 million – a bargain by comparison with the madness of recent international results for this artist, but perhaps realistic, especially here.[i]
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Several of the major Australian works in the sale had appeared before in local auctions, with Menzies and others, in some cases more than once. For instance, Arthur Boyd’s “bride” series work, Death of a Husband 1958 (Lot 41 ), is listed no fewer than nine times in the AASD data-base, for auctions between 1996 and the present. It sold below its estimate of $600,000-800,000, and probably needs to stay at home for a while before venturing out again.
Gary Shead’s amusing The Royal Touch 1996 (Lot 31 ), by contrast, surpassed its estimate of $120,000-150,000, reaching a hammer price of $165,000. A lively catalogue essay by Emeritus Professor Sasha Grishin may have helped swing the pendulum here.
Other familiar works also sold below or just on their lower estimates, including significant examples by Sidney Nolan, Joel Elenberg, Jeffrey Smart, Rosalie Gascoigne, Rover Thomas and Emily Kngwarreye. Other higher-priced Australian works were passed in, after failing to meet expectations, including several further canvases by Boyd, pictures by Elioth Gruner, Margaret Olley, and others. Bronwyn Oliver’s large-scale copper Shell 2003 (Lot 37 ) was also passed in, after bidding stalled at $340,000.
Two canvases by Fred Williams demonstrated the contrasting aspects of this painter, recently derided, controversially, as a limited, over-hyped artist.[ii] Australian Landscape I 1969 (Lot 38 ) is a grandly abstracted, almost monochrome (brown) expanse, whereas Yellow Gorse, Yan Yean 1972 (Lot 35 ), from only three years later, features a scrubby treed skyline and surprisingly vivid foreground colour, exemplifying what Patrick McCaughey describes as “the great change” in Williams’ art from 1971-74.[iii] The painter’s rapidly evolving response to the Australian landscape during his middle years could hardly be exemplified better. The earlier work was knocked down for $650,000, but the 1972 canvas was passed in.
Several paintings by under-valued Antipodean Clifton Pugh (1924-90), from the estate of his second wife Marlene, sold for prices around or a little over their modest estimates. Bush with Bats 1958 (Lot 3 ), for instance, was knocked down for $7,000 (estimate: $3,500-4,500). Pugh painted for many years at his country property Dunmoochin, near Cottles Bridge, exploring the flora and fauna of the bush in a more intimate register than Boyd or Williams. Many other artists visited Pugh at Dunmoochin and painted there, including Rick Amor, whose Ray and Booree in a Waterhole on the Coopers 1987 (Lot 71 ), also from Marlene Pugh’s estate, sold for $5,000 (hammer).
Tom Roberts’ characterful Portrait of Mrs Cakebread, the Artist’s Grandmother-in-Law (Lot 53 ) seemed to surprise the auction house, rising rapidly beyond its upper estimate of $20,000 to sell eventually for a hammer price of $42,000.
Bargains were to be found among the other Australian works on offer. For instance, John Firth-Smith’s Winter Rounds 1982 (Lot 47 ), a fine, large, rarely-seen abstract painting with an exemplary provenance and exhibition history, made it to only $36,000 (a little below its estimate).
Colin Lanceley’s Les Sons et les Parfums tournent dans l’air du Soir 1990 (Lot 22 ), a Pop/3D interpretation of Baudelaire, estimated to sell for between $25,000 and $35,000, was knocked down for $26,000. Bouquet 1983, a characteristically gestural, if unusually representational work by Stanislaus Rapotec (Lot 117 ), sold for only $4,000, at the lower end of its estimate.
The Rapotec provided an intriguing parallel with Sidney Nolan’s Untitled (Blackboy) 1969 (Lot 181 ), knocked down for $6,000 (estimate: $3,000-4,000). This was a one of a series of smaller Nolans from the estate of well-known Sydney dealer Eva Breuer, who died in 2010 (the major works from her estate appeared at Menzies’ March sale in Sydney). Other works from the same source in this auction included several small David Boyds, snapped up by his fans.
Among the rest, there were international prints by Picasso, Hockney et al. (from a Sydney collection), and the usual pot-pourri of local works on paper, some also previously auctioned by Menzies.
Towards the end of the sale, there were also a number of curious little panels by James Gleeson, several identified as from a French private collection, featuring a nude male displaying his assets in a variety of typical “psychic landscapes.” Nobody in the room, including the auctioneer, seemed to warm to these works (or was prepared to admit to liking them), but several did sell, for small-ish prices: e.g. Untitled (Figure in Psychoscape) (Lot 135 ), sold for $2,400 (estimate: $3,000-4,000).
More heterosexually appealing, perhaps – or maybe the real explanation was the relief arising from its being the last lot of a long sale – was a rare Whiteley linocut, Warming and Reading 1981 (Lot 202 ), which achieved its lower estimate of $7,000.
According to the auction house 81% of the lots were sold, representing 84% by value.
NOTES
[i] Compare http://www.artmarketmonitor.com/2014/04/23/top-ten-andy-warhol-prices/ (accessed 25 June 2015).
[ii] For the furore following Robert Nelson’s review of Williams in the Melbourne Age, 9 May 2012, see http://www.artinfo.com.au/articles/read/battle-of-the-bowties--artinfo-quizzes-robert-nelson-on-patrick-mccaughey-and-ronald-millar-over-fred-williams (accessed 24 June 2015).
[iii] Fred Williams, Sydney: Bay Books, 1980, ch.7.
