Two recent sales at New Zealand auction houses, Cordy’s Auctions in Auckland and W.T.Macalister in Christchurch show that good old-fashioned legwork and lateral thinking can really pays off.
A standard assessment of the deceased artist Roy Dalgarno’s estate in Parnell, Auckland, turned into one of the most memorable finds in the career of Andrew Grigg of Cordy’s. While valuing works for the beneficiaries he uncovered a group of works by modern Indian artists including two mixed media works by Indian artist Bhupen Khakhar.
Khakhar was an important figure in contemporary Indian painting. He was an artist who was self taught and also practised as an accountant but managed to become one of the most important Indian artists after 1960, with works that were narrative, autobiographical and represented the common man.
Online research suggested that the works could be of value, but a lack of comparable sales meant they were hard to estimate. Although they were rare, in good condition and had a great provenance, Cordy's placed a conservative estimate of $8,000-$12,000 on each work for their sale on 6 October .
Cordy’s has always produced fairly modest printed catalogues and the art component of their sales is small compared to their number of decorative arts lots. Cordy’s do upload their catalogues on the Invaluable site but they don’t offer online bidding during the sale.
To make sure these works didn’t go unnoticed the Cordy’s team got press in the NZ Herald and targeted major international interested parties by personally contacting them. From there, word spread on the grapevine and within two days of the auction going online, the estimates had been revised upwards to $20,000-$40,000 and tellingly, potential buyers weren’t deterred. Cordy’s received about 50 email enquiries with interest coming from the USA, India, London, Middle East and Australia.
On the night of the sale, with 5-6 phone lines booked and three substantial absentee bids on each painting, plus buyers in the room, the bidding opened at $15,000 but strong and sustained competition saw each sell for $102,000 hammer.
Both works went to the same New Zealand buyer who was in the room. With the advantage of being able to view the paintings in person the buyer perhaps had the confidence to go just a little bit higher than his international competitors. The team at Cordy’s thought that the NZ Herald articles were instrumental in bringing new buyers and spreading the word locally.
By comparison, a British painting will be returning to the UK after Christchurch auction house W. T. Macalister sold a painting by Edward Seago (British, 1910 - 1974) on 20 October. W. T. Macalister has moved away from the traditional auction model and sells more by private treaty and curated auctions.
For this auction, held at a Christchurch hotel, and featuring decorative arts, furniture and art, there was no catalogue, either hard copy or online. Clients were personally invited to view by mail or email. Nor was online bidding available.
The Seago had also come from an estate, had been purchased by the owner directly from Colnaghi Gallery, London in the 1970s and was a good, sizeable painting with a great provenance.
Using their experience in running online jewellery sales and targeting buyers through Facebook and Instagram, W. T Macalister were able to create an ad, which targeted English collectors and buyers of Seago’s work on social media. From here, they were contacted by buyers in the UK and it was one of these contacts who ended up purchasing the work for $60,000 (hammer). As this painting had originally been valued at $45,000 by a UK expert, this was a great result using unconventional marketing.
(All prices are in New Zealand dollars.)
