In the last three weeks ART+OBJECT has traded over 1.5 million dollars in art across three sales: Important Paintings and Contemporary Art on November 26th, New Collectors' Art on December 10th and The Private Collection Sale onsite at 61 Randolph Street on December 13th. Some outstanding results were acheived across these sales as the market showed more resilience and depth than many of us expected. This is especially true at the top end of the market where previously the air was assumed to be pretty thin. However, there was a string of results which we feel deserve special mention and which highlight the strength of an area of the market which is frequently overlooked and neglected: prints and multiples. Robin White has produced many of this country's most iconic images such as Sam Hunt at the Portobello Pub (1978), yet White was anything but prolific as a painter, often preferring the more democratic print medium. In a wonderful private collection of 31 New Zealand prints, six of her most classic screenprints featured including Florence and Harbour Cone, Mangaweka and White Oystercatcher at Harbour Cone all of which were editions of 50. Carrying estimates of $4000 - $6000 each which may have been on the light side yet nonetheless reinfocred by past results, they sailed beyond these realising unprecedented prices of $13 500, $10 406 and $14 906 respectively. As with the photography market, it seems at long last that collectors are now willing to pay five figure prices for iconic images irregardless of their multiple nature, if the condition is top notch.
