New Zealand Art Auction Sale Reviews

Dunbar Sloane is the only auction house in the New Zealand capital of Wellington, in sharp contrast to the crowded field in Auckland, so the auctions are fewer and usually better attended than those in the northern city.

The first evening auction of 80 lots in the two day sale of Fine & Applied Art held on 6 and 7 December, got off to a roaring start with three prints from the Barry Lett Gallery Multiples series from ''Corporate Collection, Wellington'' selling for $8,000 to $9,000, breaking previous records for these unsigned multiples.

They were part of a 12 artist set, originally sold for $36.00 (for the complete set) in 1969 when Auckland's leading contemporary art gallery generated a set of serigraphs to make fine art more accessible to the masses. As a consequence, many sets were produced, and sets were sold to schools and as well as to private collectors and public collections.

The Australian reader of these reports about art auction activity on this side of the Tasman Sea would be inclined to think that the New Zealand art world is dominated exclusively by paintings of Maori people. Well it isn't, but on some levels, it is. Charles Frederick Goldie and his crew certainly seem to get their fair share of media attention and headlines in the popular press.

This week's end-of-year auctions certainly started with a bang and with the recent record breaking sale of a sketch of Maori guide Sophia the other night I thought I had seen it all.... clearly I was deluded ...how could a drawing of a famous Maori woman that measured 24.5 x 19.5 cm that sold for $100,000 hammer be topped?

There were 76 lots in Art + Object's major end of year sale of Important Paintings and Contemporary Art to what has been a very successful year for the auction house.

The year saw them complete their first decade in business, making serious waves as a ''21st Century Auction House'', setting many new art auction records across a range of fronts in various media.

The sale failed to produce any or many auction room records or earth shattering moments: it was just ''steady as she goes''.

When a multi-millionaire who just happens to be a man of letters, art and wine sells a significant portion of his extensive and uncompromising art collection, people in those circles usually sit up and take note, and when that man, Glenn Schaeffer gives a rare public interview the event is guaranteed to draw a good crowd.

Explaining his hard-core position and shedding light on some of his methodologies to a large crowd at the Art + Object rooms in Auckland on the Saturday preceding the sale, Schaeffer spoke quietly and with authority about his position as an art collector, philanthropist and wine maker.

It seemed as though everybody wanted a ''slice of Mike'' so The Michael Illingworth Estate Sale at Art + Object in Auckland on 14 September started with a bang, and with about 150 potential bidders in the room continued apace until the last item in the 72 lot sale, the artist's anthropomorphic pallet... a real trophy which sold at the bargain price of $7,500, surely a record price for an artist's pallet at auction in New Zealand.

When lot 93 was offered for sale by experienced auctioneer Ben Plumbly at the Art + Object sale of Important Photographs & Contemporary Art in Auckland on 11 August, you could sense the excitement when the bidding opened at the upper estimate of $15,000 and quickly doubled.

But it didn't stop there: bidding continued to $45,000, then to $60,000 finally ending at $62,000.

All the action was over a rare and excellent example of Theo Schoon's unique gourd growing and carving. The gourd carved in the early 1960's and entitled Incised Gourd with Kowhaiwhai Motif (lot 93) was decorated with a beautiful restrained Maori inspired design. The gourd had been in the collection of Jim Allen a highly regarded sculptor and art educator on both sides of the Tasman Sea since the mid 1960's.

The second of four sales in a week of high powered auctions was the International Art Centre's Important and Rare sale held in Auckland on 8 August, and it got off to a good start with the first few lots selling well.

A rare and spectacular small bronze sculpture by Paul Beadle (1917 - 1992) of Elam Art School fame, and formerly Professor of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland, entitled Rooms To Let (lot 6) sold for more than double its upper estimate at a whopping $31,000.

Typical of Beadle's lost wax sculptures that were inspired by the figurative Ashanti gold weights from West Africa, of which he held a large collection, Rooms to Let established a record price at auction for the professor.

All four of Auckland's major art auction houses have a sale scheduled this week in a clockwork-coordinated series from Monday to Thursday, .

How do they do it without treading on each other's toes, I wonder?

A year after buying the tattered remains of the Webb's auction empire, Mossgreen have certainly turned around the fortunes of what was once New Zealand's most prestigious auction house, with a number of very successful sales over the last 12 months.

Much loved early Auckland gallerist Denis Cohn gave Anne Coney some good advice that was to become a touchstone early on in her collecting journey. 'Buy the toughest work you think you can manage' was his sound advice back in the early 1980's when his gallery was in full swing.

As a result, the collection assembled over the last 40 years by Anne Coney went up for grabs on 6 July as she put 'it all on the block' at Art + Object in Auckland, with some great results being achieved across the board.

The 121 works that went under the hammer represented a cross section of the 'who's who' of late 20th and early 21st century art, particularly in Auckland.

There must be something special about 21 June in New Zealand as three of the big players in the art world elected to hold their auction sales on that day. Fortunately, the offerings and locations were all slightly different. As one can't be in three places at once I elected to go see what a 350 lot catalogue at Art + Object had to offer the so called 'New Collectors'.

It has been just over six weeks since a daring smash and grab raid in the wee small hours of 1 April took place in Parnell Road while most Aucklanders were sleeping.

The object of the smash and grab was to steal the two magnificent ancestral Maori portraits of the Chief Taiaho Hori Ngatai and his wife Raure Ngatai by Gottfried Lindauer from the window of the International Art Center and prevent them going to auction.

Estimated to be worth around half a million dollars each, the thieves and the two paintings have gone to ground, and although the police originally had more than a dozen people of interest they are still requesting anyone with information to come forward.

With the recent theft of two paintings by Gottfried Lindauer fresh in the minds of those in the art world, Mossgreen-Webb's had two fine paintings by Charles F. Goldie on offer in their sale of Important Paintings and Contemporary Art in Auckland on 11 April, and without a shadow of doubt they certainly stole the show attracting serious bidding from all quarters. Mossgreen-Webb's had compiled an extensive catalogue of 102 works including the sell down of yet another art buying collective, this one the Art Capers Collection.

The Art + Object Auckland sale of 120 lots on 6 April got off to a flying start with a 39 lot consignment representing the decade of art buying by The Paint + Paper Collective. This hardcore modernist group of women collectors dominated the buying of the first 39 lots of the auction purchasing many of the works from the collective for their own collections.

Having purchased an absolute miscellany of ''fresh art by emerging and mid-career artists from the major dealer galleries in Auckland", one of the groups stated aims was ''no nanna art'' and to this end there was very little ''safe'' or ''conservative'' art that made its way into the collection.

Fledgling Auckland auction house and gallery Bowerbank Ninow would have to be very happy with the results from their Auction No 5, their 5th catalogue sale in their short history.

Held in Auckland appropriately on 5th April, the carefully curated auction of historical and contemporary New Zealand photography produced some pleasing results with the 133 lots offering of a broad range of 19th, 20th and 21st century photography.

Two early and rare Maori portraits stolen in a daring 'ram raid' early on Saturday morning on April 1st. was no April Fool's Day prank in the main street of the Auckland suburb of Parnell, casting a rather unfortunate shadow over the first of a series of auctions to be held in New Zealand over the next couple of weeks.

The International Art Centre's 107 lot Important and Rare sale on 4 April was reduced to 105 lots after the large pair of Maori portraits by Gottfried Lindauer from 1884 were stolen from the front window of their new premises..

The husband and wife pair of paintings feature the Chief of the Ngai Te Rangi tribe of the Bay of Plenty area and his wife Ngatai Raure.