Only a few days to go until the toy auction of the year. The Ross Sutton Toy Collection will be auctioned at A+O on Saturday the 22nd from 2pm. On view until then are over 200 toys - tinplate, Dinky, Corgi, Matchbox, Hornby, Fun Ho! and heaps more
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
And in More Late Breaking News...
This was a painting which we rated as one of the most important in our country's art history - today, at last, someone agreed with us. We're glad to report that finally Michael Smither's 1978 masterpiece has sold. Congratulations to the new buyer...
Monday, August 17, 2009
More Curiosities
A few more treats from John Perry's collection - whalebone teeth, a signed Pakiriki Harrison incised gouard and a carved post from an unconstructed meeting house first Y registered in 1912
John Perry's Cabinet of Curiosities
On view right now at A+O is John Perry's extraordinary collection of taonga Maori, vintage photographs, White's Aviation photos, Tapa, folk art, natural history and his 'miscellanea'. These images show a few of the 330 treasures which will be auctioned on August 18 at 6.30pm.
Friday, August 7, 2009
A+O Announce Consignment of Unprecedented Collection
ART+OBJECT have been privileged with the consignment of what surely must be one of the most important collections in New Zealand. On September 24th at 6:30pm it will sell sixty works from the late 1950s through to the late 1960s by Ralph Hotere - widely acknowledged as New Zealand's most important living artist. Perhaps what is most staggering about this collection is that it has never been seen by the New Zealand public before and indeed very, very few are even aware of its existance. ART+OBJECT will produce a catalogue to commemorate the event which will feature writing by Kriselle Baker, among other leading authoritites on Hotere's work. The collection will be available for viewing from the 18th of September and viewing is highly recommended.
Sunday 16th, 3:00pm. Meet John Perry!
Next Sunday at 3:00pm John Perry will give a talk on his experiences as a curator and collector of the weird and wonderful. All Welcome!
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
In Late-Breaking News...
Shane Cotton sells for a new record price of $205 000. Good things take time (sometimes)... Congratulations to the collector - a truly magnificient addition to what's shaping as a very impressive collection of Contemporary New Zealand art.
Terry Ingram (Australia's Leading Arts Journalist) Reviews Last Thursday Night's Sale
Boys Fighting Not Contested
By our own corrospondent, on 02-Aug-2009
A painting of two boys fighting over a toy was the catalogue cover illustration for a sale in Auckland last week. However, there was little fighting for the top lots in the room as bidders curbed their aggressive tendences, in the usual recessional way, for any dealings with vendors after the sale.
At its regular seasonal art sale in Auckland on July 30 Art + Object found that even some of the most acclaimed contemporary art can be a hard sell when times are tough.
None of the five lots estimated to make over $NZ100,000 each were sold under the hammer at the mid winter auction Important Paintings including the Odyssey Group Collection.
This sale scenario had not changed late the following afternoon although staff had been "working the phones vigorously," Managing Director Hamish Coney said.
The total value of sales was then still running at around $NZ480,000 compared with total estimates for the 62 lots in the sale of around $NZ1.5 million.
The sale of a single major lot could change the scenario dramatically before a price list was put up on the Art + Object web site, which might not be until Friday August 7.
It was "the nature of the times" that buyers were hesitant to commit themselves fully during the auction itself, Coney added.
Fluent auctioneering by Director - Art, Ben Plumbly, who did not skip a beat throughout the proceedings, made the evening appear relatively painless.
So did the common New Zealand practice of "subjecting" the top bid. Most of the big ticket lots were "sold" to the highest bid, "subject" to the vendor after the sale, agreeing to accept the bid or another higher offer. The nearest Australian equivalent is the referred bid. Some of the subject bids, however, were still well short of estimates.
Plumbly said he was particularly disappointed not to have made progress with two large paintings which he had pursued for sale for years. Michael Smither's 1978 Boys Fighting over Pink Plastic Gun was sold, "subject" at the highest bid of $NZ165,000 against an estimate of $NZ220,000 to $NZ320,000 and Shane Cotton's 1995 oil on canvas Wake was "subject" at $NZ150,000 against estimates of $NZ230,000 to $NZ300,000.
Smither has produced more confrontational images, but boys fighting over toy guns can be off putting at the best of times and these boys, in nappies, had adult heads. It was the catalogue cover illustration and bidders did not put up much of a fight for this or other key lots on offer, preferring to reserve any combatativeness for dealing with vendors later.
Cotton's pixellated rendition of a canoe on faux wood panelling, should have been easier to live with. It was catalogued as "one of the anchor stones from the first mature period" of an artist who has exhibited several times in Australia where he is represented by Sydney's Kaliman Galleries.
Similar fates befell Ralph Hotere's Black Window:Towards Aramoana subject at $NZ170,000 (estimate $NZ225,000 to $NZ300.000) and the two Colin McCahons Buttercup Fields Forever IV at $NZ140,000 ($NZ190,000 to $NZ270,000) and Red Titirangi at $NZ150,000 ($NZ200,000 to $NZ300,000).
Up to $NZ50,000 Plumbly had little difficulty moving the offering with all 12 lots from the Odyssey Group collection selling in the room. The group is one of many buying clubs which have been a feature of the NZ art scene for several decades. Many of the 15 member 10 year old group were present among the 300 or so who attended the sale, helping it open on a lively chirpy note.
Prices still tended only to nudge or just cross the lower estimates with the group's star lot Momoko, by 47 year old Nieue born artist John Pule, a large 1998 entanglement of cultural narratives on a tapa influenced work on unstretched canvas, selling for $NZ39,000 against estimates of $NZ38,000 to $NZ50,000. The last work purchased by the group, Heather Straka's Eden Before the Fall - The Banquet, a momento mori portrait of three skeletons sold for $NZ14,000 (estimate $NZ16,000 to $NZ24,000. )
From other vendors, a joyfully colourful abstract Tolaga Bay at Fergusson Wharf by 49 year old Julian Dashper was one of the few to beat the upper estimates when it made $NZ10,000 against $NZ5,000 to $NZ8,000, sadly on the day of the artist's demise at the age of 49.
NZ artists have not made it easy for collectors, not just in subject matter but in hanging and assemblage. Several pieces required dozens of pins (pronounced puns?) to affix to the wall. Centre Piece by Neil Dawson, an acrylic on steel of expanded mesh and brass of 1986 came with a complex set of installation instructions. It still appears to have tempted a buyer as it was hammered at $NZ11,000 against an $NZ11,000 to $NZ16,000 estimate.
All prices are hammer and exclude the 12.5 per cent buyers premium which blows out to 14.06 per cent with sales tax.
By our own corrospondent, on 02-Aug-2009
A painting of two boys fighting over a toy was the catalogue cover illustration for a sale in Auckland last week. However, there was little fighting for the top lots in the room as bidders curbed their aggressive tendences, in the usual recessional way, for any dealings with vendors after the sale.
At its regular seasonal art sale in Auckland on July 30 Art + Object found that even some of the most acclaimed contemporary art can be a hard sell when times are tough.
None of the five lots estimated to make over $NZ100,000 each were sold under the hammer at the mid winter auction Important Paintings including the Odyssey Group Collection.
This sale scenario had not changed late the following afternoon although staff had been "working the phones vigorously," Managing Director Hamish Coney said.
The total value of sales was then still running at around $NZ480,000 compared with total estimates for the 62 lots in the sale of around $NZ1.5 million.
The sale of a single major lot could change the scenario dramatically before a price list was put up on the Art + Object web site, which might not be until Friday August 7.
It was "the nature of the times" that buyers were hesitant to commit themselves fully during the auction itself, Coney added.
Fluent auctioneering by Director - Art, Ben Plumbly, who did not skip a beat throughout the proceedings, made the evening appear relatively painless.
So did the common New Zealand practice of "subjecting" the top bid. Most of the big ticket lots were "sold" to the highest bid, "subject" to the vendor after the sale, agreeing to accept the bid or another higher offer. The nearest Australian equivalent is the referred bid. Some of the subject bids, however, were still well short of estimates.
Plumbly said he was particularly disappointed not to have made progress with two large paintings which he had pursued for sale for years. Michael Smither's 1978 Boys Fighting over Pink Plastic Gun was sold, "subject" at the highest bid of $NZ165,000 against an estimate of $NZ220,000 to $NZ320,000 and Shane Cotton's 1995 oil on canvas Wake was "subject" at $NZ150,000 against estimates of $NZ230,000 to $NZ300,000.
Smither has produced more confrontational images, but boys fighting over toy guns can be off putting at the best of times and these boys, in nappies, had adult heads. It was the catalogue cover illustration and bidders did not put up much of a fight for this or other key lots on offer, preferring to reserve any combatativeness for dealing with vendors later.
Cotton's pixellated rendition of a canoe on faux wood panelling, should have been easier to live with. It was catalogued as "one of the anchor stones from the first mature period" of an artist who has exhibited several times in Australia where he is represented by Sydney's Kaliman Galleries.
Similar fates befell Ralph Hotere's Black Window:Towards Aramoana subject at $NZ170,000 (estimate $NZ225,000 to $NZ300.000) and the two Colin McCahons Buttercup Fields Forever IV at $NZ140,000 ($NZ190,000 to $NZ270,000) and Red Titirangi at $NZ150,000 ($NZ200,000 to $NZ300,000).
Up to $NZ50,000 Plumbly had little difficulty moving the offering with all 12 lots from the Odyssey Group collection selling in the room. The group is one of many buying clubs which have been a feature of the NZ art scene for several decades. Many of the 15 member 10 year old group were present among the 300 or so who attended the sale, helping it open on a lively chirpy note.
Prices still tended only to nudge or just cross the lower estimates with the group's star lot Momoko, by 47 year old Nieue born artist John Pule, a large 1998 entanglement of cultural narratives on a tapa influenced work on unstretched canvas, selling for $NZ39,000 against estimates of $NZ38,000 to $NZ50,000. The last work purchased by the group, Heather Straka's Eden Before the Fall - The Banquet, a momento mori portrait of three skeletons sold for $NZ14,000 (estimate $NZ16,000 to $NZ24,000. )
From other vendors, a joyfully colourful abstract Tolaga Bay at Fergusson Wharf by 49 year old Julian Dashper was one of the few to beat the upper estimates when it made $NZ10,000 against $NZ5,000 to $NZ8,000, sadly on the day of the artist's demise at the age of 49.
NZ artists have not made it easy for collectors, not just in subject matter but in hanging and assemblage. Several pieces required dozens of pins (pronounced puns?) to affix to the wall. Centre Piece by Neil Dawson, an acrylic on steel of expanded mesh and brass of 1986 came with a complex set of installation instructions. It still appears to have tempted a buyer as it was hammered at $NZ11,000 against an $NZ11,000 to $NZ16,000 estimate.
All prices are hammer and exclude the 12.5 per cent buyers premium which blows out to 14.06 per cent with sales tax.
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