Art Auction Sale Reviews

After 2021’s roller derby-like pandemic-induced scramble, 2022 settled into unfamiliar territory: a boom-time pattern. Launching early and finishing late, Deutscher and Hackett devoured more than $52 million dollars of fine art, delivering a coup de grâce to their competitors' ambitions with equanimity, along with a solid haul of new and significant records, including Rosalie Gascoigne’s deserved entry into the million-dollar club.

Australian artist Richard Larter’s (1929-2014) colourful abstracts have always been a favourite for pop art collectors and auction goers will have the opportunity to view and bid for his works at Deutscher and Hackett’s timed online Aboriginal and Contemporary Art auction concluding from 7pm on Tuesday December 13 2022.

Rosalie Gascoigne deservedly reached the million-dollar club when Deutscher and Hackett presented their final sale for 2022, Important Australian and International Fine Art on the first day of summer in Melbourne. As if made by an alchemist, Beaten Track, 1992, (lot 6) was formed from an assemblage of sawn wooden soft drink crate pieces that seemed to glow in a golden light. The gridded arrangement of pieces still felt loose because the familiar text lines of soft drink flavours were disrupted and rearranged; a truly post-modern piece made from humble beginnings.  Placed near the start of the evening sale when enthusiasm and bidder confidence are high, the work immediately drew bids near its low estimate of $400,000. The room was left behind as the bidding intensity increased- this writer counted a flurry of some thirty bids- in a battle between four determined telephone bidders, to settle at a hammer price of $850,000 (and so over $1,000,000 when buyer’s premium is included). This eclipsed the work’s previous sale at $320,000 in the days when Christie’s were presenting Contemporary Art sales in Sydney in 2005 and created a new auction record for the artist.

With three spectacular watercolours by Hermannsburg School Aboriginal artist Albert Namatjira (1902-1959) to help entice buyers to its Important Australian and European Paintings Sunday December 4 sale, South Australian-based Elder Fine Art also has plenty of other works by big name Australian artists to satisfy the current booming interest in art by both first-time purchasers and established collectors.

Menzies’ final major art sale of 2022 comprised a whopping 153 offerings, of which a third – the first 49 lots - came from the extensive collection of the late Millie Phillips, Australia’s first female mining magnate and highly successful businesswoman. The auction held in Menzies’ Kensington, Sydney, premises proved to be just as successful, with 86% sold by number and 102% sold by value. The sale raised $8.46 million including buyer's premium.

Smith & Singer’s final fine art auction of the year with a tight offering of 55 lots provided some spectacular results, including four artist auction records for contemporary artists: Del Kathryn Barton and Julie Rrap, as well as ever popular Albert Namatjira and lesser known artist Gertrude Fenton. They also very nearly set a fifth auction record on the night, for Ireland-based John Kelly represented by Smith & Singer.

Howard Arkley’s (1951-1999) painting High Fenced, 1996 – exhibited in November that year by Tolarno Galleries at the prestigious German art fair Art Cologne – was an important milestone in his efforts to achieve international recognition, culminating in his representation of Australia at the 48th Venice Biennale in 1999, a month before he died.

The painting is lot 5 in Deutscher and Hackett’s forthcoming Melbourne auction of important Australian and international fine art from 7pm Thursday December 1 at 105 Commercial Road, South Yarra and carries a catalogue estimate of $500,000-$700,000.

The number of pre and post- who have built a successful life in Australia could probably fill a book of Who’s Who. Among them is Sydney businesswoman the late Millie Phillips who with her Jewish family in 1938, aged nine, fled Poland and Nazi persecution to emigrate to Sydney.

Like many of her fellow migrants, Millie displayed an indomitable spirit helping her to overcome many near insurmountable challenges, including the loss in 1978 of her eldest daughter Lynette in a very tragic and public death.

It’s almost 2400 kilometres from Melbourne’s Alfred Hospital to the Hermannsburg Mission west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory – but for Melbourne orthopaedic surgeon and collector the late John Hart (1937-2014) it was only a hop, step and a jump.

A renowned nature lover, bibliophile, fine wine connoisseur and enthusiastic art and map collector, John headed up the hospital’s orthopaedic unit from 1980 to 2003.

Auction goers will be treated to a plethora of Australian and international art choices on Sunday October 16 in Melbourne when Gibson’s Auctions adds its selection of more than 260 paintings to other art auctions on the day.

Some of the world’s and Australia’s best artists – including Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) and Andy Warhol (1928-1987) – are represented in Menzies forthcoming Prints & Multiples live online auction on  Wednesday October 12 at the company’s Sydney gallery at 12 Todman Avenue, Kensington.

While the Picasso work is a soft ground etching entitled Jeune Femme Surprenant le Reflet d’une Hirondelle dans son Miroir 1936 (lot 32), Warhol’s is a colour screenprint of Rolling Stones lead singer Mick Jagger (lot 15) completed in 1975.

It’s rare to find the weight of a sale’s expectations so early in a catalogue. The first  seven lots represented 65% of the sale’s pre-sale low-end value ($7,819,500). There’s momentum to build, or so the traditional thinking goes … And yet Deutscher and Hackett just gets on with business. No pretences about the need to wait for the room to show up. Especially with the majority of activity on the phones and the internet; auctioneer Roger McIlroy pronouncing a staggering 850 entities online at the sale’s start.

Seven highly valuable paintings from the collections of two icons of Australian media and advertising should really send art collectors and investors into a spin when Deutscher and Hackett holds its important Australian and International Fine Art auction from 7pm September 14 at its Sydney 36 Gosbell Street, Paddington venue.

The paintings – owned by founder of Australia’s largest advertising agency group Clemenger BBDO Peter Clemenger, and his wife Joan, and media mogul the late Reg Grundy (1923-2016) and his actress wife Joy Chambers-Grundy – comprise the first seven lots in a sale of 83 works.

It wasn’t just our Impressionist master Arthur Streeton who was a high achiever at the Smith & Singer Sale in Sydney last night. Prices far exceeded expectations for several other important Australian artists, which also continued the trend of interest in women artists, namely Ethel Carrick Fox, Margaret Olley, Emily Kngwarreye and Cressida Campbell, and also for male painters John Kelly and Lin Onus.  

Deutscher and Hackett recorded another pleasing result of $321,300 including buyers premium (104 per cent by value) for Part III of its Australian superannuation giant Cbus art collection auction on August 16 in Melbourne. All but seven of the 48 paintings on offer sold, with well-known Australian painter and ceramic artist John Perceval’s (1923-2000) – the last surviving member of a self-taught group known as the Angry Penguins – painting entitled The Garden of Eden setting the tone from the opening lot reaching the high catalogue estimate of $24,000.

Australian post World War II and contemporary artist Robert Clinch (born 1957) knocked over his own auction record at Deutscher and Hackett’s Part II sale of superannuation giant Cbus’s art collection on August 9 in Melbourne. His painting Twenty Four Variations on a Theme by Pagan (lot 28) was not only the top selling auction work for $147,273 (including buyer’s premium) – eclipsing the price paid for Memory in 2012 at Menzies Sydney art sale.

The Australian art collection, curated on behalf of superannuation giant Cbus by legendary artworld figure, the late Dr Joseph Brown (1918-2009), continues to entice auction goers, with the first of three timed online August auctions closing from 7pm Tuesday August 9, 2022.

If you have visited the Ian Potter Centre in Melbourne, you will know of the Joseph Brown collection on permanent display on level 2, a veritable mini history of Australian art, well, up to 2004 when it was donated to the gallery. https://www.ngv.vic.gov.au/exhibition/the-joseph-brown-collection/

Deutscher + Hackett’s selection of 100 highlights from the Cbus Collection of Australian Art offered on 27 July 2022 in Melbourne was a reflection of this, as it was none other than the legendary art dealer who advised the superannuation fund in their collecting journey of indigenous, colonial and twentieth century art between 1990 and 2007.

Bidding was fierce for Justin O’Brien’s ‘Madonna’, c1959, (lot 26) painted vividly with an   intoxicating mix of iconic gold leaf and blood-of-Christ red.  At least two telephones, a room bidder, and hidden internet mouse-tappers swept the bidding towards the top of the estimated price range.  It takes more than a lifetime for an artist to be noticed: for O’Brien, it is more than 25 years since his death. Now he is certainly on the radar.  His passion for religious painting and the Renaissance has finally transcended fashion and turned the coloured sound of the madrigal into paint.

The single owner sale of art is held in high esteem, as these collections are often built through a life-long passion and association with art and the artists. A collector might choose to sell their unique group of treasures during their lifetime, or what is more often the case, the collection is sold as works from an estate by the family after their passing.  

On 19 May, Lawsons Auctioneers are offering an unprecedented 27 artworks by Norman Lindsay. Marketed as “A Private Collection, Catalogued in Collaboration with Helen Glad” (the artist’s granddaughter), this surely is one of the biggest tests of his market for some time, with total pre-sale estimates of $599,000 to $863,000.

Internet bidders were out in force at Deutscher and Hackett’s Sydney sale of ‘Important Australian and International Fine Art’ in Sydney on 4 May 2022, but it took a battle between the telephones and a room bidder to secure Hawkes Bay Landscape c1955 (lot 10), a mannered painting of a road and a long white cloud by New Zealand modernist painter Rita Angus. In dramatic fashion it sold for a remarkable record $675,000 at the fall of the hammer, eclipsing her previous hammer price of A$540,000 set for a similar Hawkes Bay landscape at Art + Object’s Wellington sale in 2018. Dramatic, because the reserve seemed to this writer to be high, and perhaps prohibitive for eliciting starting bids. However, bidding opened in the room at $400,000, well above the $350,000 lower estimate and rapidly escalated from there. But, Hawkes Bay Landscape is an icon of Angus’s period style, remaining hidden in private hands from the curatorial analysis of some 600 known works at the time of her death in 1970, and as Damian Hackett pointed out at the Melbourne viewing, a work of this calibre ‘is as scarce as hen’s teeth’.

Scheduled for 7pm Wednesday May 4 at 36 Gosbell Street in Sydney’s Paddington, the sale features 11 paintings with catalogue estimates of more than $100,000 – all featuring artists familiar to investors and collectors alike – and undoubtedly a reflection of the strength of the Australian art market during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pick of the art collection of the late Harry Oviss made up the first 13 lots at Smith & Singer’s Important Australian art sale held in Sydney on 12 April, or about 15% of the 82 artworks on offer. According to Gabriella Coslovich (Australian Financial Review, 30 March), the prodigious collector did not sell a single artwork during his 70 years of amassing treasures, as Gibson's in Melbourne had previously sold thousands of items during a three-day auction marathon.

Australian paintings from iconic artists are continuing to prove popular with buyers and Melbourne-based Gibson’s Auctions Australian & International Art sale on Sunday April 10 proved no exception when the 161 works on offer sold for 110% of their catalogue estimates.

Out in front was Arthur Streeton’s landscape The Stone Bridge circa 1930 (lot 3) which sold for $91,500 (including buyer’s premium) on a $25,000-$35,000 catalogue estimate while buyers also chased Tom Roberts (1856-1931) Drovers Resting Early Morning (lot 8) that changed hands for $52,460.

With a mix of contemporary snap, academic crackle and international pop, Menzies Important Australian and International Art Sydney sale racked up 87% clearance by lot and 114% by value to total $6 million+ (hammer). The top lots were spread across Australian modernists Brack, Smart and Boyd, international icon David Hockney and contemporary queen Cressida Campbell, whose painted woodblock The Verandah (lot 22) claimed a new artist record at $420,000, and by some margin, the previous being $240K (2019).

I’m not a mathematician or scientist, but I deeply appreciate the value of statistics in bringing order and clarity to the world, especially in the face of data cacophony and wordy spin. The stats for the Deutscher and Hackett Melbourne auction of Important Australian Aboriginal Art reveal a highly successful sale, with 87% clearance by lot and 127% by value. Better still, the deeper the dive shows over 40% of sold lots soaring over estimate – many by a three and fourfold margin – to secure a total of $2.1 million (hammer). The auction’s swag of works by Emily Kame Kngwarreye found their rightful place in the top lots, but the apex was claimed by Rover Thomas, whose canonical revered figure of an owl, Tumbi, 1989 (Lot 9) made $210,000 (est. $200-300K).

Big name indigenous artists from several collections are the hallmark of Australian art auction house Deutscher and Hackett’s forthcoming Important Australian Aboriginal Art sale from 7pm Wednesday March 30 at 105 Commercial Road, South Yarra.

An “auction first” – in the form of John Brack’s (1920-199) The Wedding Breakfast 1960 (lot 30) – will be the focus of attention at Menzies March 31, 2022 Important Australian & International Art sale in Sydney, beginning at 6.30pm at 12 Todman Avenue, Kingston.

Martin Sachs migrated to Australia in 1948 and became a successful builder and developer with evidence of his innovative designs still seen around Melbourne. He had many friends in the art community including Elenberg (who tragically died of cancer aged 33) and Brett Whiteley.

Auctioneer Anita Archer was so chipper, one wouldn’t have known there was a brutal blustering east-coast-low keeping the streets mostly deserted outside Cooee Art’s bright new Redfern gallery showroom. Inside, the myriad of sunny pictures lining the walls dazzled with echoes of Country bathed in sunshine; mesmerising in contrast to the wet tempest lashing about in the dark outdoors.

Collections by two stalwarts of Melbourne’s art and fashion scene – the late Claude Ullin and Sally Robertson (nee Bloomfield) will be part of Gibson’s Auctions forthcoming Interiors auction from 11am Sunday March 6 at 885-889 High Street, Armadale.  Founder of the Gallery Art Naïve and mayor on several occasions of Stonnington City, Claude Ullin was born in 1937 in Milan, the descendant of German Jewish art collectors.

Toward the end of Leonard Joel’s auction on 23 February 2022 in Mebourne, Greg Johns’ mandala circle, a corten steel sculpture of Australian toughness and spiritual vulnerability brought the online and assembled audience to life when At the Centre (There is Nothing), 2009, (above) sold for a new artist record of $75,000 on an estimated range of $6,000-$8,000 eclipsing his previous record of $20,000 set in 2004.

The Deutscher and Hackett auction was akin to opening up a time capsule of curated paintings from the 1970s. Sharp’s pop art reworking of Van Gogh’s famous pulsating self-portrait sent the internet into a competitive bidding meltdown of one internetter against another. This was a painting using synthetic polymer paint on plastic sheet, yet it still looked as fresh as the day it was painted over fifty years ago. On a $15,000-$20,000 estimate, those online had mercilessly pushed the bidding so that it opened to the room at $160,000.  The surprised room bidders didn’t stand a chance and no further bids were recorded until the hammer fell, eclipsing Sharp’s previous record of $25,000 by an order of magnitude. In a sense this is a recognition thank-you to Sharp for the enriched counter cultural life that he brought to the Sydney art scene in the 1970s. His wide-ranging activities included designing posters for Jimi Hendrix and record covers for the iconic rock group Cream. On his death, William Yardley writing in the New York Times eulogised that Sharp was ‘the artist that shaped the imagery of rock’.

Buyers wanting to dabble in art for the first time should head to Melbourne-based Gibson’s Auctions Summer Art sale – its first online auction for the year – for an affordable start to their collections.

Australian artworks acquired over the past 50 years by the National Australia Bank (NAB) will be auctioned from 7pm February 22 by Deutscher and Hackett at 105 Commercial Road, Prahran. The full collection, features more than 2000 works, the collection includes examples from some of Australia’s most recognised artists such as Sidney Nolan, John Brack, Jeffrey Smart, Fred Williams, John Olsen, Arthur Streeton and Frederick McCubbin.