Ben Plumbly, their experienced auctioneer was able to find new homes for most of the fourteen works from the Artrix Group and members of the group would have been pleased with the results achieved. Thirteen of the works sold for prices that fell within or exceeded the estimates, with only one work being sold subject to vendor approval.
Top price of $25,000 amongst the Artix lots went to an oil on canvas by Allan Maddox entitled Cobalt Blue Complacency (Lot 3 ) from 1995.
The earliest work in the collection was a 1964 work by Pat Hanly, Girl Asleep (Lot 14 ) which sold to a bidder in the room at the top end of the estimates for $9,000.
At the opposite end of the scale, two works by Karl Maughan painted only last year were so fresh the paint was hardly dry and I swear you could smell the flowers. Tremaine Avenue (Lot 7 ) and Ruahine Street (Lot 8 ) were popular with the punters and both sold above their top estimate of $10,000 (each) for $18,500 and $17,000 respectively.
The second carved gourd by Theo Schoon to appear in an Art + Object sale (Lot 15 ) sold to an Auckland art dealer for $22,000, just $2,000 above the low estimate of $20,000, a long way from the $62,000 for one of his decorated gourds achieved recently.
Could it be that this example featured geometric design in sharp contrast to the Maori inspired organic design of the record breaker?
The next six lots were a suite of vintage photographs by Theo Schoon which he had traded with another Elam Art School lecturer, Robert Ellis. These strong and beautiful square format photographic studies produced on a twin lens reflex Rolliflex camera early in Schoon's flirtation with the geothermal wonders of Rotorua and environs all sold well with Study of a detail of Maori carving from a canoe, Canterbury Museum, (Lot 17 ) achieving the top price of $6,500 for the group. while the previous lot, Shading Slats in a Plant Study (Lot 16 ) sold for $5,600.
Light artist Bill Culbert represented New Zealand at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 with a series of major light installations His works of a sculptural nature don't often come on the market but when they do, and they are of a domestic scale they usually sell well. His Red Tomato Hokitika, Yellow Sunlight Gisborne, Blue Petroleum Careys Bay (Lot 25 ) which was the cover lot, sold well for $11,500, which was $1,500 above the low estimate.
Fiona Pardington's, Huia Lovers (Lot 27 ) a large mysterious diptych of an extinct male and female Huia bird sold for $23,500, just below the top estimate of $25,000, while Yvonne Todd's large scale photographic construction entitled Ethlyn (Lot 28 ) achieved $10,500. also just above the low estimate.
A preparatory study for an edition of Don Binney prints, entitled Kaiarare Kaka Great Barrier, (Lot 33 ) that has been in a private collection since it was produced in 1983 sold for $10,000 above the top estimate, while an untitled delightful oil painting (Lot 36 ) by Douglas MacDiarmid, recently returned to New Zealand, sold to an Auckland dealer for $10,000, just over the high end of the modest estimate range.
For $4,600, the same dealer purchased a supurb and rare Frank Hoffman photograph of New Zealand's most famous Maori woman of the 20th century, opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa (Lot 60 ) taken and produced in 1965.
A large format study of a folding chair by Philip Clairmont (Lot 68 ) had not changed hands since its original purchase in 1980 and was typical of Clairmont's mature raw meaty style. It sold for $55,000 to another Auckland dealer in the room.
A few of the key lots in the tail of the sale by McCahon, Hotere and Hammond failed to find buyers on the night, but the final lot in the sale, a work by Gordon Walters (Lot 76 ) attracted strong interest from potential owners with bidding starting at $50,000. It quickly rose to the hammer price of $74,000, which was mid-way between the presale estimate of $65,000-85,000.
With over a $1.1 million of art changing hands on the night making it the sixth of their nine auctions during the year to top $1 million, the well-oiled team at A+O must be pleased with the results. But the sale did not draw a line under Art + Object's sales for the year. As the auction concluded and the tired punters were leaving the rooms, they were presented with a bulky catalogue for Art + Object's New Collectors Art sale on the 7th December, comprising 295 lots of art ranging in price from just a few hundred dollars to twenty thousand dollars. So the end-of-year madness isn't over just yet.
