The chief perpetrator of the catalogue proliferation was Mossgreen leading to quips in the industry that that it would be nice to have shares in their printery.
This at least flatters the type of collectors it is pursuing, as in addition to having the most impressive presentation for selling purposes, the buyers would enjoy having a record of their collection to go with their other personal mementos.
The strategy appears to have paid off for the diversified auction house, gallerist, publisher, and tearoom, with a $4.4 million increase in turnover of fine art from $9.1 million to $13.5 million.
Vendors clearly liked its business plan although in turnover, Sotheby's Australia achieved the largest gain, its turnover leaping by $9 million to $27.40 million.
Provenance was the new buzz word in 2015 and Sotheby's Australia played on this in two different ways. Sotheby's name goes back to 1744 whereas Sotheby's Australia was formed in 2008 and is a franchise of the global brand. As a former curator of Australian art at the National Gallery of Victoria, Mr Geoffrey Smith, chairman of Sotheby's Australia should know where many of the paintings by leading artists might be and this knowledge is paying off with the inclusion in their catalogues of some very original provenances, the most notable of which has been the Arthur Streetons originally owned by the learned anthropologist Walter Baldwin Spencer, a key patron of Streeton.
Sotheby's Australia lost out on the Louis Abrahams portrait by Tom Roberts, sold for a solid price in London by Christie's to the National Gallery of Australia which needed it for its Tom Roberts exhibition.
Sotheby's Australia prospers without local competition from Christie's in local auctioneering. Both of these global players put aside Australian operations to expand in places like Dubai, Mumbai and Shanghai before the global financial crisis.
Christie's still has a big private treaty operation in Australia, which in recent years has involved sales worth many millions of dollars to Australian institutions.
Sotheby's Australia's catalogues occasionally give hints that their operation in Australia is participating in this, and also feeding consignments of overseas works into Sotheby's UK and US offices for clients.
The private treaty business tends to flourish in difficult economic times but the key to the attraction of the sales is discretion – as well as anxiety not to expose works that might just fail at auction – so the trade is very much under wraps most of the time.
The four leading auction houses all reported selling a higher of percentage by number of paintings offered, but overall, the percentage of Australian art sold at the auctions covered by Australian Art Sales Digest showed a fall from 68 per cent to 64 per cent.
In terms of total sales, Menzies was still in front with a virtually unchanged $31.92 million compared with $32.41 million previously but it has a different business model to the other auction houses. Its proprietor, Mr Rodney Menzies and entities associated with him, buy and sell at his own auction house with the advantage that if he pays buyers premium, it is effectively to himself.
The management of the business is being devolved to his son Cameron and the latest sales have been notable for repeat offerings of works that in some way come under his aegis. Many of these must soon be eligible for the resale royalty - five per cent on the hammer price for a work of art on its second and subsequesnt sale at auction - since the Artist's Resale Royalties act was passed.
Mr Menzies rightly protests the inequity of this, as the royalty is applicable even if the painting is sold at a loss. As the royalty is payable for 70 years after the atist's death, the royalty frequently benefits artists' widows, children or grandchildren rather than struggling artists.
Deutscher and Hackett stayed at number three with total sales barely changed at $16.53 million in 2015 ($16.64 million in 2014). This was with the help of a larger format catalogue and the rationalisation of its sales venue to the “heritage site” of the Cell Block Theatre in the non-comfort non-commercial atmosphere of the National Art School.
A big loser in the turnover stakes was “others” although this may not have reflected the leading auctioneer lost to the Grim Reaper during the year, Mr John Williams, as his business was picked up vigorously by Theodore Bruce.
Also passing away during the year were several major artists, including Bob Dickerson and Ray Crooke, ending a year of generational change which is also taking place in the gallery world.
Both artists deserved a big floral tribute from the auction industry for about an equal contribution to the market, with $17.86 million in art auction sales in the records of the Australian Art Sales Digest from 2687 lots from Crooke, and $18.19 million from 2655 lots from Dickerson from the 1970s to the present.
Sotheby's status was assisted by its sale of the three most expensive paintings sold during the year - a Fred Williams at $1.7 million, an Arthur Boyd at $1.59 million and a Sidney Nolan at $1.16 million. In this it unseated Menzies as leader.
Provenance was to the fore on many fronts with Mossgreen benefitting from its acquisition of the most fabled collection of the year, that of the heavily-tomed Peter Elliott collection, as rich if not richer in international primitive art as local.
Although a small sale, the extraordinarily keen response to Mossgreen's sale of the Geoffrey Stilwell collection of Tasmaniana in Hobart also showed that buyers liked provenance.
The late Mr Stilwell, a former librarian with the Library in Hobart, was known as "Mr Provenance" because of his commitment to Hobart history.
Provenance looks like becoming a major issue if a legal case in New Zealand in the new year establishes that auctioneers are required to identify their vendors. This arises evidently from the purchase by a man in the legal fraternity of a work allegedly not in the main corpus of a supposedly single-owner sale at an auction in NZ.
Attempts in New York along the same lines seem to have fallen by the wayside. The new year should also see the raging recent Whiteley and other “fake” case come to trial. This may not help confidence.
The figures for the year underestimate the value by which Australian art has fallen over the year in global terms because of the fall in the Australian dollar against the US dollar. Australian art may no longer be overpriced but critic Robert Hughes, who famously once insisted it was, is not around any more to tell us.
A total 12,289 paintings were sold (2014 - 11,463) out of 19,548 (2014 -18,886) which were offered at auctions in Australia.
Lugging an extra 562 pictures around, catalogueing them and loading their images online availed the auction hands little. The average price fell from $9268 to $8890.
Yet observers who attended the year's auctions – and there are still enough to fill a room despite the anonymity of the internet and telephone bidding – would have noticed that bidders are more focussed in their bidding, imagining that they can outwit the auctioneer about their enthusiasm to buy, but still making their purchases after a slow duel with the reserve, the phone, the Internet and sometimes another room bidder.
As in 2014 the bidding has repeatedly been on an inexorable grind to the final fall of the hammer except for one or two of the choicest lots.
These lots have usually been rare or collectors' items. The market has thrown up some very satisfying fresh material that takes only two collectors to elevate previously unknown highs. Those buyers setting the pace are so keen they have been thrusting their paddles in the air to bid.
At Menzies sale of December one woman was thrusting her partner's paddle-holding arm in the air, reversing the absurdly stereotypical assumption of the female as the passive participant in financial matters. In the end however the pair did not secure the Rupert Bunny they were seeking.
Although the three top prices were achieved by Sotheby's and the fourth and fifth went to the Menzies group.
Again no work of art sold for more than $2 million. The highest price was for the Fred Williams Trees and Hillside of 1964 which made $1.78 million at Sotheby's in Sydney in November.
The market's switch in taste to the contemporary has also posed the problem of large canvasses which are difficult to place in anything but a MacMansion.
The market's biggest feed from an individual artsit was from 43 Fred Williams sold during the year, which grossed $7.76 million. Last year it was from Brett Whiteley's 98 works which were sold for $12.4 million.
Despite the greater attraction of long dead artists, only one, the New Zealander Charles Goldie produced enough turnover for him to be in the combined NZ - Australian top 10 list and list of 10 gross earners this year.
There were no pre-moderns in the top 10 list of sale prices this year whereas in 2014 there was a Tom Roberts and a Frederick McCubbin.
The oldies kept generating income however.
In 2014 Arthur Streeton and Von Guerard made it to the top 10 list last year in terms of revenue generators but then there were several Von Guerards on offer and 31 works by Streeton sold. .
The sale of these was uninhibited by the resale royalty because it the 70 years during which it could be collected had passed.
The profiles enjoyed by Von Guerard and Streeton continue to be strengthened by the availability of work overseas of Australian and non Australian content.
The auction industry is also expanding its push into gallery operations, Mossgreen announced this month that the very popular Criss Canning has joined its stable. Mossgreen also announced a link with Fehilly contemporary.
While artists die – very reluctantly if their grand age of the latest is considered - collectors also discovered that they have artists they barely knew of.
Top new prices included a good number of women including the two unrelated Florences (Fuller and Williams); Hilda Rix Nicholas and Jane Price. Joseph Wardell Power, Justin O'Brien, Raynor Hoff and Thomas Balcome also sold very well helped by the rarity of their significant works at auction.
Investment in the auction industry was very visible on Sydney's Queen Street, Woollahra, and now that nearly all the major art auction houses hang their shingle out in that street, the auction trade has clearly trumped the antique trade for which the street was once renowned. Despite Mossgreen, Sydney maintains a very firm eminence as an auction centre.
Bonhams, the only full blooded multinational operation here, saw its turnover fall from $8.45 million to $6.14 million showed it has not given up on us by moving to Queen Street and seeking to boost its Aboriginal content.
