When it comes to provenance for this artist, it doesn’t come more highly sought-after than Richard and his wife Joan Crebbin – they began collecting Klippel’s work in the 1960s and became the artist’s major patron, amassing the largest private collection of Klippel’s work during their collecting years.
A decade after Richard Crebbin’s death the family released a small group of sculptures, as well as works by other artists, to the market at a Christies auction in August 1998. Almost two decades on, the long-time family home at Castlecrag in Sydney designed by Walter Burley Griffin is being sold and the remainder of the extensive art collection will undergo its final dispersal.
Important Works from the Crebbin Collection, consigned to Deutscher and Hackett, is the most significant private collection of Klippel sculptures to come onto the market since the highly successful WR Burge Collection in 2006. It includes 18 sculptures and 5 works on paper that follow the arc of Robert Klippel’s career - beginning with early wood carvings from the 1940s and continuing through to the magisterial sculptural constructions and bronzes of the 1960s, 70s & 80s.
The early wood carvings (lots 3-9) are making an extremely rare auction appearance. (The only AASD auction record of a wood carving from that period is from Crebbin’s auction at Christies in 1998). War-time shortages during 1944-47 meant fine woods were scarce so Klippel produced relatively few pieces and those he did make were necessarily modest in size. No.21 Pointed Theme, 1945 (Lot 3 ) sits at 14.5cm high and is hand carved in Tasmanian hardwood. Though a huge leap in style from that which we are accustomed to seeing from Klippel, it displays a finesse and finish that shows immense potential for an artist so early in his career. Less of a leap is No.51 Constructional Carving, 1948 (Lot 9 ) which gives an early indication of the artist’s pursuit of the vertical form, towering over his earlier carvings at 51cm high. Both sculptures are enticingly estimated at $15,000-20,000.
No.113 Metal Construction, 1961 (Lot 10 ) has the more familiar constructional elements we see in later works but with an unusual curved arrangement of parts - not so much reaching for the vertical as arching for it. This piece was included in the artist’s major retrospective held at the AGNSW in 2002 (along with most of the other sculptures in this collection). It is one of the two top ticket items in the Crebbin Collection, estimated at $80,000-120,000. The other is No.316 Metal Sculpture, 1966-76 (Lot 11 ) – which Crebbin bought at Klippel’s first ‘sell-out’ exhibition at Watters Gallery in 1979.
Though none of the sculptures are likely to reach the auction record set by Opus 361 (Eighteen Miniature Constructions) at the Burge auction, which sold for $440,000 hammer ($507,800 IBP), the content and history of the Crebbin collection make it exceptional. No other collector had such a major impact on the artist’s career trajectory than Richard Crebbin, making the works he chose and held onto for decades all the more desirable.
The collection also features 12 works by other prominent Australian artists such as Justin O’Brien, Eric Wilson and Russel Drysdale and has an estimated value of $600,000-800,000. It will be auctioned by Deutscher and Hackett in Sydney on 30 November as part of their Important Australian, International & Aboriginal Fine Art sale which features 136 lots with a total estimate range of $3,200,000-4,500,000.
