Important Works of Art Webb'sMarch 30thThe latest Webb's auction has confirmed that fine art sales are on the road to recovery. The recession caused a blip in sales but prices are returning to the levels they were at two years ago.The March 30th sale saw
Important Works of Art
Webb’s
March 30th
The latest Webb’s auction has confirmed that fine art sales are on the road to recovery. The recession caused a blip in sales but prices are returning to the levels they were at two years ago.
The March 30th sale saw some good solid prices for work by Bill Hammond Shane Cotton and Charles Goldie.
The major sale of the evening was Hammond’s large (3440mm x 920mm) “A Lullaby of Birdland” from 1996 which combines a number of the elements the artist uses sold for $220,000, just below the expected reserve of $230,000 while his “Ancestral E” went for $135,000 ($150.000) and the smaller “Forest, Bird and Sea” of 2004 went for $46,000 ($55,000).
The other major sale was of the large Shane Cotton “Blackout Movement”. It was one of his more complex works which draws together notions about colonialism, the imposition of Christianity, the way in which landscape is imbedded in culture and the idea of tribalism and community. The work sold for $200,000 ($200,000).
Two of the Tony Fomison works sold well with “Hill Top Watcher” selling for $120,000 ($120,000) and “Dan Wilson on his 21st” for $77,500 ($80,000)
Another of the big sales was Dick Frizzell’s impressive landscape, “Ocean Beach” which was expected to sell as $30,000 but sold for $52,000.
The major historical work on offer was the Charles Goldie portrait of "Mihipeka Wairama" who was one of the survivors of the Tarawera eruption of 1886 and one of several that Goldie painted as examples of the dying and displaced race. This work sold for $150,000 ($160,000). Another work which depicted Maori culture was Walter Wright’s “Maori Canoe Race, Lake Rotorua” which went for $16,000 ($15,000).
Two Rita Angus works were for sale including an early “Canterbury Landscape” which was signed by her as Rita Cook. The slightly abstracted work sold for well over the reserve at $30,000 ($15,000) while her “Lilies” sold for $25,000 ($35,000).
One of Milan Mrkusich’s early modernist works “Painting 1 – 50” sold for $36,000 ($25,000), a John Pule work on unstretched canvas “Maholo” went for $30,000 ($30,000) and an Allen Maddox cross-hatched work went for $12,000 ($12,000).
One of Michael Parekowhai's small sculptures “Rainbow Servant Dreaming” based on the iconic figure of the bowler-hatted man much used by the surrealist Rene Magritte expected to sell for $10,000 sold for $16,000.
There were three Peter Stichbury works on sale including the early painting which was similar to the work which won the artist the Wallace Award. “Leer” featuring four figures sold for $20,000 ($20,000). A more recent single portrait, the sepia toned “Preston Proudlove” went for $32,000 ($28,000) while a pastel work of 1997 failed to sell.
Other important sales were an Ann Robinson tall “Spiral Vase” going for $27,000 ($28,000) and a 1957 abstract work by Louise Henderson “Cubist Portrait Study of a Woman” which went for $10,000 ($12,000)
Among some of the lower priced works were some good sales. A Peter Siddell pastel work “Window went for $4000 ($4000), a Don Binney drawing of "Whatipu" went for $3500 ($3000) and a Peter Peryer photograph “ Moeraki Boulder” went for $2500 ($2500)
