Fine art auction season kicks off

Important Paintings and Contemporary Art
Webb’s, Auckland
August 13

Important Photographs Paintings and Contemporary Art
Art + Object, Auckland
August 15

Finer and Applied Art auction
Dunbar Sloane, Wellington
August 21 & 22

Over the next couple of weeks there are several major fine art auctions in Auckland and Wellington which have some big name artists and big prices as well as reasonably priced photographs and artists prints.

At next week's Webb’s auction there are several portrait works of both the traditional and contemporary. One of the major works on offer is a Charles Goldie work of 1915, Memories Wiripine Ninia, A Ngati Awa Chieftainess. It is of one of the artist's regular subjects and is expected to sell for $200,000 to $250,000. 

A similar painting of the Arawa chieftainess Rakapa by Goldie sold last week at the international Arts Centre for $234,500.

A photographic portrait of Ralph Hotere taken in 1978 by Marti Friedlander is expected to fetch $7500, while a small ink portrait by Hotere should sell for $7000.

In the Art + Object sale there is a painting of Hotere by Martin Ball, Carey's Bay IV, which is expected to sell for $18,000.

A large ink drawing of a female face by Colin McCahon is expected to go for $65,000.

One of the other major paintings is Michael Smither’s Portrait of Sarah, which features the artist and his daughter in the garden. This is from his early domestic series and is expected to make $200,000

Among the more contemporary portraits is Liz Maw’s icy blue Aura ($28,000), Peter Stichbury’s Glister ($6000) and Seraphine Pick’s Careworn ($25,000).

There is a nice assortment of landscape paintings, including a Charles Blomfield White Terraces with a price of $35,000 and a John Barr Hoyte of Lion Peak, Milford Sound at $45,000.

There are more recent landscape works, including Toss Woollaston’s Greymouth Landscape ($18,000).

Peter Siddell is represented by several of his works, including Governor’s Rock, Karekare ($90,000), as well as  two large Auckland views – Cloudscape ($65,000) and Mt Eden ($50,000).

Also included is one of his earliest landscapes, Woman Before a House from 1978 ($20,000).

There are several Robert Ellis landscapes from his Cities series of the 1960s, including Entrance to the City on the River Bend from 1984 ($18,000), City With Orange River from 1965 ($15,000) and Near The City Centre, also of 1965 ($12,000).

Art + Object have a number of major photographs including works by Peter Peryer, Laurence Aberhart, Fiona Pardington and Anne Noble.

Several of the Aberhart works are of the facades of Australian houses, most of which are expected to sell for around $3500, while the Pardington work which she exhibited at the Quai Branley Museum in Paris, Portrait of the life Cast of Koe, Timor, is priced at $9000.

There are also a couple of works by Frank Hofman, including his Parnell Baths ($7000) and a Ben Cauchi’s Ghost ($1800).

There is an early Peter Robinson painting 28.125% ($26,000), which was one of the works exploring Maori ancestry, along with a couple of early Shane Cotton works.

Charles Tole, who painted in a modernist Cubist style, has a several of landscape works on offer – Landscape ($18,000) and Road to Quarry ($35,000), while at Webb’s there are another two of his paintings – a still life work for $12,000 and a port scene ($900).

One of the major works at the Dunbar Sloane sale is an early Don Binney early iconic bird paintings, Kereru, which is expected to achieve $90,000. Another seminal work is by Gordon Walters. This koru work on paper could reach $55,000.

There are a number of colonial watercolours in the sale by Hoyte, Blomfield, Fristrom and O’Brien. The Hoytle watercolour of Auckland Harbour from Remuera is expected to sell for $35,000.

The McCahon work in the sale is one of his first severely abstract works produced when he moved to Auckland. French Bay ($70,000) is also interesting as it still bears the original sale price of 10 guineas.

Other works of interest include a Terry Stringer bust of Lois A White ($3500) and a Jude Rae painting, Mnemosyne’s Mirror, ($25,000) which is of hanging pieces of fabric in nine panels.