IMPORTANT PAINTINGS & CONTEMPORARY ART

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IMPORTANT PAINTINGS &CONTEMPORARYART Wednesday 27 March 6:30pm

COver Lot 24. Bill Hammond Last Night Jar in Congested Sky $250,000 - $300,000

New Zealand’s Premier Auction House 18 Manukau Road Newmarket, Auckland 1149 New Zealand P +649 524 6804 auctions@webbs.co.nz

webbs.co.nz

INSIDE FRONT COVER Lot 26. Ralph Hotere Vidyapati’s Song $210,000 - $270,000 INSIDE BACK COVER Lot 2. Chris Heaphy Untitled $3,000 - $4,000

Modern Design It was the ‘Jet Age’: a burgeoning period of optimism, technological advances and social change. Designers were quick to embrace the American desire for the ‘good life’. Glamorous new materials were underpinned by traditional modernist ideals of form and function. The result was some of the most iconic designs of the mid century and proof that good design wasn’t just a Hollywood dream; good design was for everyone. Mr Bigglesworthy presents The American Collection, a suite of mid-century designs including original pieces by Charles and Ray Eames, George Nelson, Ib Kofod-Larsen, Adrian Pearsall, Knoll, Jens Risom and Broyhill. Prepare for lift-off.

APRIL 10 WEDNESDAY 6:30PM

COME FLY WITH ME MR. BIGGLESWORTHY PRESENTS The American Collection Contact Josh Williams E: jwilliams@webbs.co.nz P: 09 524 6804 T-Handle Desk by Jens Risom Pollock Executive Chair by Knoll Associates Double Cone Desk Lamp attributed to Greta Magnusson Grossman Starburst Clock by Westclox

Oceanic & African Art A sale comprising several significant collections of Maori taonga and artefacts, a word-class collection of African objects and a range of Oceanic material from an array of cultures. A superb collection of Maori and Polynesian weaponry and adornment, and a quality selection of Melanesian shields will be on offer; African highlights include a superb Pende mask and a fine Kuba cup. Also included is a private collection of tribal rugs and jewellery. This auction will be on view with the Important Paintings and Contemporary Art included in this catalogue. Please join us to preview these sales, Tuesday 19 March, 5:30pm - 7:30pm and daily

FINE EARLY WAKA HUIA Estimate $20,000 - $30,000

until the sales.

MARCH 26 TUESDAY 6:00PM Contact Jeff Hobbs E: jhobbs@webbs.co.nz P: 09 524 6804 M: 021 503 251

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When you enjoy a bottle of Peregrine or Saddleback you not only experience a taste of Central Otago, you also directly contribute towards the survival and recovery of our New Zealand’s endemic Falcons and Saddlebacks.

Peregrine is a major sponsor of both the New Zealand Wingspan Trust and the Fiordland Conservation Trust, who are fully committed to the protection and survival of these rare and unique birds. We think this is something worth savouring. To order our wines and to find out more information on these projects – visit our website or call into our cellar door.

www.peregrinewines.co.nz Peregrine Wines, Kawarau Gorge Rd, Gibbston, Queenstown 9

INTRODUCTION

Bill Hammond’s practice is well represented with four major works, each from a different period. The first, which graces the cover of this catalogue, is a monumental triptych on Belgian linen entitled Last Nightjar in Congested Sky, dated 2004. The image relies solely on the use of black pigment and the visible weave of the linen. It exhibits Hammond’s virtuoso technical ability, with finely graded body-colour and miniature filigree patterning. The second work, Wishbone Ash, Cornwall Rd Cave 2, was originally exhibited in the artist’s celebrated exhibition Cornwall Road Cave held at Peter McLeavey Gallery and depicts a dense sky of avian figures surrounding a delicately crafted urn. A further work from Hammond, entitled Art Lover. 3, belongs to the artist’s soughtafter 1990s period. Depicting slender avian silhouettes – which are synonymous with the artist’s early practice – amongst a field of horse-headed and humanoid figures, this work constructs a sophisticated dialogue about the taxonomic structures of everyday life. The final work is of a domestic scale and entitled Walter’s Bird Table, which, as the title suggests, depicts the fictionalised interior of ornithologist Sir Walter Lawry Buller’s workroom. It is an iconic subject that was the genus of his avian figures. Alongside these offerings, the sale will also include works

by Michael Parekowhai, Peter Stichbury, Paul Dibble, Saskia Leek and Tony de Lautour.

Modernist painting practice is well represented with a number of works which are of a quality that is seldom seen on the auction market. Ralph Hotere’s practice is represented by Vidyapati’s Song, a significant Song Cycle banner which measures over three metres in height and is dated 1989. This is the first major Song Cycle painting presented to the auction market in almost a decade and, with its heavy use of dripped white pigment, it is certainly one of the finest works from this series held in private hands. Breakfast at Hobson Street by Evelyn Page is an important, highly personal work which depicts the artist’s husband, musician Frederick Page, reading the newspaper at a breakfast table laden with fruit and a vase of daffodils.

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Dated 1975, the work exhibits the lyrical approach to colour and line that defined her practice. Michael Illingworth’s work is represented with a painting dated 1964, entitled What lies beneath these fragments of reference? which was purchased from a solo exhibition held at Barry Lett Gallery in 1967. The work features Illingworth’s iconic, two-dimensional geometric figures imposed against a coastal New Zealand landscape. In addition to these paintings, rare, accomplished works by Rita Angus, Pat Hanly, Don Binney, Gordon Walters, Frances Hodgkins and Michael Smither are also included.

Following our recent success with Goldie’s practice, which saw Webb’s cement a position as the foremost seller of the artist’s work over 2012 – our results included a new record price for a female subject alongside a number of other significant prices – we are pleased to have the opportunity to present a further important, early depiction of a male subject to the market. The Whitening Snows is dated 1913 and portrays Atama Paparangi, who was chief of Te Rarawa iwi and a subject with whom Goldie had a long association and whom he painted throughout his career.

Notably, it is Atama Paparangi who appears in the well-known photograph (held in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery) that pictures Goldie trimming the moustache of a Maori sitter. Known as a fearsome warrior, Atama Paparangi would, later in his life, adopt the Catholic faith. In The Whitening Snows, he is depicted against the carved panelling of a marae, wearing a kiwi feather cloak and a greenstone hei tiki with his impressive moko visible.

Looking forward into the sale calendar, entries are currently being accepted for our next sale of Important Paintings and Contemporary Art which will be held in July and our next A2 sale, focusing on works that hold values of between $1,000 and $20,000, to be held in May. As all readers of this catalogue will now know, Ralph Hotere, who was arguably New Zealand’s most important living artist, passed away on Sunday 24 February. Having worked in this industry for many years, I have had the rare privilege of seeing many of the artist’s finest works firsthand. The depth, quality and breadth of his practice will ensure that his legacy will forever remain central to our nation’s identity. When looking back over the scope of Hotere’s life’s work, it is clearly apparent that his paintings mirror many events that are significant in New Zealand’s social history.

From the works which recount his brother’s death in World War II, to those engaged with the politics surrounding Treaty of Waitangi settlements, and those which protested against the proposed aluminium smelter at Aramoana and condemned French nuclear testing in the Pacific and the associated sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, Ralph Hotere’s unique narrative is deeply woven into our nation’s cultural fabric.

SOPHIE COUPLAND

Lot 26 Evelyn Page Breakfast at Hobson Street Estimate $150,000 - $200,000

It is a pleasure to introduce Webb’s first catalogue of Important Paintings and Contemporary Art for 2013. The sale comprises a refined selection of rare and sought-after works, many of which have only ever been seen by the public in major publications and touring institutional exhibitions. In the sale are fine works from all periods including contemporary, modern and historical New Zealand practice and selected editions from international practitioners such as Andy Warhol and Jim Dine.

This event follows a successful sale of Important Paintings and Contemporary Art which took place at the end of November last year. With a total turnover in excess of $1.5 million, that was the highest-grossing mixed-vendor sale of artworks held in New Zealand during 2012.

IN FOCUS 11

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IMPORTANT PAINTINGS & CONTEMPORARY ART

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Wednesday 27 March 6:30pm VIEWING EVENING PREVIEW

Tuesday 19 March 5:30pm - 7:30pm

Please join us to view the suite of sales and enjoy a glass of wine

Lot 16 Michael Parekowhai Etaples Estimate $16,500 - $22,000

thanks to Peregrine Wines, Central Otago.

Tuesday 19 March

5:30pm – 7.30pm

Wednesday 20 March

9.00am – 5.30pm

Thursday 21 March

9.00am – 5.30pm

Friday 22 March

9.00am – 5.30pm

Saturday 23 March

11.00am – 3.00pm

Sunday 24 March

11.00am – 3.00pm

Monday 25 March

9.00am – 5.30pm

Tuesday 26 March

9.00am – 5.30pm

Wednesday 27 March

9.00am – 12.00pm

BUYER'S PREMIUM A buyer’s premium of 15% will be charged on all items in the this catalogue. GST (15%) is payable on the buyer’s premium.

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2 1 Saskia Leek Sunset oil on canvas signed S. Leek and dated 2006 in brushpoint verso 300mm x 225mm Estimate $1,500 - $2,500

2 Chris Heaphy Untitled (Butterfly) acrylic on canvas 400mm x 400mm Estimate $3,000 - $4,000

3 Andrew McLeod Silk Road

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digital print, 2/20 signed A. McLeod and dated 2011 and inscribed Silk Road in pencil lower edge 980mm x 580mm Estimate $3,000 - $4,000

4 Dick Frizzell He’s...Gone Again! acrylic on board signed Frizzell and dated 10/77, inscribed ‘Painting Diptych Right Panel’ in brushpoint left edge 525mm x 410mm Estimate $15,000 - $20,000

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5 Peter Stichbury

Untitled

gouache on paper shopping bag signed Stichbury and dated ‘01 in pencil verso 450mm x 430mm

gouache on paper shopping bag signed Stichbury and dated ‘01 in pencil verso 450mm x 430mm

Estimate $2,500 - $3,500

Estimate $2,500 - $3,500

6 Peter Stichbury

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7 Peter Stichbury

Untitled

8 Peter Stichbury

Untitled

Untitled

gouache on paper shopping bag signed Stichbury and dated ‘01 in pencil verso 450mm x 430mm

gouache on paper shopping bag signed Stichbury and dated ‘01 in pencil verso 450mm x 430mm

Estimate $2,500 - $3,500

Estimate $2,500 - $3,500

9 Paul Dibble Study for Little Sister lost wax cast bronze, 3/3 signed Paul Dibble, dated 1998 and inscribed 3/3 on base 540mm x 125mm x 35mm Estimate $9,000 - $12,000

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10 Michael Stevenson

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Michael Stevenson

Harvest Home

Little Cross of Jesus Christ in Neon

oil on board signed M. Stevenson and dated 8.3.88 in brushpoint upper left; signed Michael Stevenson, dated 8 March 1988 and inscribed Harvest Home in brushpoint verso 510mm x 700mm

oil on board signed M. Stevenson and dated 11th April 1989 in brushpoint upper right; signed Michael Stevenson, dated April 1989 and inscribed Little Cross of Jesus Christ in brushpoint verso 490mm x 690mm

Estimate $5,000 - $7,000

Estimate $6,000 - $8,000

12 Tony Fomison Bacchus: Michelangelo pencil on paper signed T. Fomison, dated 9.3.70, 20.8.70 and 10.9-29.10.70 and inscribed Bacchus Michelangelo in pencil lower left 410mm x 300mm Estimate $8,000 - $12,000

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13 Emily Wolfe Untitled Screen oil on 3 fold timber screen construction, double sided 1700mm x 1170mm (overall) EXHIBITED

Screen Show, Vavasour Godkin, 1998 Estimate $12,000 - $18,000

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14 Tony Fomison O le Fa’aluma (The Mad One #3) oil on board signed Fomison, dated 1983, started 5.10.83 and inscribed Tauranga, “O le fa’aluma” (The Mad One #3) on label affixed verso 202mm x 250mm Estimate $20,000 - $30,000

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15 Gordon Walters Claws with Black and Red Ochre 1958 goauche and collaged paper on board 545mm x 435mm ILLUSTRATED

The Invention of New Zealand Art & National Identity 1930 - 1970, Francis Pound, Auckland University Press, 2009, pl 40.

REFERENCE

Ibid p 59.

Estimate $12,000 - $18,000

Throughout his career, Walters made formal studies in which he aimed to find alternatives for or supplements to the koru motif. Claws with Black and Red Ochre belongs to a series of works made between 1957 and 1961 that was based on both the three-fingered claw motif seen in Marquesan art and the three-fingered hand seen in Maori rock carving.

Developed contemporaneously with the artist’s koru works, the two lines of enquiry were alike in that they were both based on a single repeated form and utilised imagery appropriated from a culture other than his own. In Claws with Black and Red Ochre, the motif is repeated to the point where it loses much of its original meaning. In combination with the pared-back koru studies that Walters was making in the late ’60s (such as Study for Waitara, held in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery), the grids of positive and negative space that emerged from the Claws series directly influenced the minimal, geometric koru paintings made between 1960 and 1966 for which he is best known.

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Walters’ employment of red ochre references its presence as one of the two colours used in Maori rock art. Between 1946 and 1947, Walters studied various sites around the South Canterbury region where rock art was present and, from 1947 onwards, the use of the red ochre had become an important conceptual thread that ran through his practice.

Outside of its employment in early rock art, red ochre has found a great number of applications in Maori art and architecture; it is the colour with which kowhaiwhai panels are painted and, in many cases, it is the colour used to coat carved panelling. Even in works that do not employ Maori motifs, the presence of red ochre, in itself, has a prevailing and persuasive sense of ‘Maoriness’. The fact that Claws with Black and Red Ochre so richly embodies this colour is alone enough to make it a significant work.

CHARLES NINOW

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16 Michael Parekowhai Etaples c-type colour photograph, from an edition of 8 inscribed in printed lettering Michael Parekowhai, Etaples 2001, c-type colour photograph, ed. of 8, 1500 x 1250, image 1550mm x 1250mm Frame on Michael Lett Gallery label affixed verso 1500mm x 1250mm REFERENCE

Michael Parekowhai, Michael Lett Publishing, 2007, p 295.

NOTE

From the series The Consolation of Philosophy Piko nei te matenga, 2001.

Estimate $16,500 - $22,000

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17 Tony Fomison He puhi [o te iwi – A Leading Lady] oil on primed jute on board signed T. Fomison, dated ‘82 and inscribed “He Puki”, started 11.1.82, at Parua Bay, Whangarei on label affixed verso; dated 1982 and inscribed Tony Fomison, Te Puhi o Te Iwi (A Leading Lady), in ink in another hand on label affixed verso; dated 1982 and inscribed Te Puhi o Te Iwi (A Leading Lady), oil on jute board, Private Collection, Wellington in printed lettering on Dowse Art Museum label affixed verso 274mm x 203 mm

PROVENANCE

REFERENCE

Purchased by the current owner from Janne Land Gallery, Wellington, Selected works by gallery artists, 1982.

Clairmont takes pride of place, Elva Bett, review of Janne Land Gallery exhibition 1982, from which the work was purchased.

EXHIBITED

Estimate $28,000 - $28,000

Selected works by gallery artists, Janne Land Gallery, Wellington, 28 September to 15 October 1982 catalogue no. 15, $450.

Tony Fomison, touring survey-exhibition.

Tony Fomison, recent works 1980 – 1985, Dowse Art Museum, Lower Hutt, 7 March – 20 April 1986, curated by James Mac.

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18 Rita Angus Irises watercolour on paper signed Rita Angus and dated 54 in brushpoint lower right 500mm x 700mm PROVENANCE

Thought to have been acquired from Helen Hitchings Gallery, Bond St, Wellington, by Martin and Mary Pharazyn in 1958 and passed by descent to the present owner.

Estimate $30,000 - $40,000

It has been suggested that Angus’ floral still lifes should be considered to be ‘portraits’ of their given subjects.1 Angus herself commented that ‘everything I paint has the sense of being alive’. There is no doubt that, in using the word ‘alive’, she was not referring just to the ability of plants to grow and flower. Rather, she was stating her intention to depict every subject, even those that were inanimate, as though they appeared conscious, aware and receptive. The natural world has a presence in nearly all of Rita Angus’ work. Except for some early portraits and her more austere cubist studies made during in the late 1960s – which do, nonetheless, reference nature – human life is often bookended by the ebb and flow of rolling hills or the encroaching companionship of native flora. Angus painted formal studies of flora and floral still lifes throughout her career and, while the paintings do not picture any human presence, the fact that the works often picture controlled groupings subtly implies the influence of the human hand.

Irises was painted in 1955, when Angus had recently returned to Wellington after spending time in central Otago.

Of Wellington, she remarked that “The light is beautiful” and that “There seems to be a fusion of the colder south and the warmth of the far north of New Zealand to be found in the light and colour about Wellington”. The clear, crisp aesthetic of Irises has clearly been influenced by this light and, with a pictorial strategy that borrows from Cezanne’s turn-of-the-century practice, the subject is both flattened and brightened so that every inch of the visible surface is endowed with the same importance. Cezanne’s practice is said to have bridged the gap between late 18th-century

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expressionism and early 19th-century cubism and, by the same token, in Irises, content is distilled to its bare essentials but also described with tender, feeling line. In Irises, the vulnerability of the flowers has been emphasised.

The length of the stems, the crooked points at which they could easily be snapped and the featherweight softness of the petals are all acutely felt by the viewer. This is not simply a formal study; rather, it is an exploration of the irises’ fragile character.

Complicit in Angus’ sustained fascination with floral subjects was the recognition of their symbolic function in renaissance and medieval art. Still-life paintings from these periods often used various compositional elements to present the viewer with a codified message. Each species of flower carried with it a specific meaning and the iris, in particular, referred to both the Virgin Mary and the holy trinity. Further, the iris was believed to hold healing properties and thus was widely used in early medicines. The iris’ traditional symbolic meanings touch on both maternal and moral functions and thus, in line with Angus’ female portraits which presented women in positions of strength, Irises can be seen to ruminate on the historical and contemporary roles of women in civil society.

CHARLES NINOW

1 - Mackle, Tom, “Everything I Paint has the Sense of Being Alive: From Nature to Abstraction”, in William McAloon & Jill Trevelyan (Eds.) Rita Angus: Life and Vision, Te Papa: Wellington, 2008, p. 131

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19 Bill Hammond Walter’s Bird Table acrylic on canvas laid onto timber panels signed W.D. Hammond and dated 1994 in brushpoint on each panel: panel 1 inscribed Walters Bird Table, 1 in brushpoint lower edge; panel 2 inscribed Bird Table, 2 in brushpoint lower edge; panel 3 inscribed Walters Bird Table, 3 in brushpoint lower edge 260mm x 480mm; 270mm x 450mm; 260mm x 1040mm 260mm x 1970mm (overall) Estimate $55,000 - $75,000

Walter’s Bird Table belongs to an important body of work that was the genus of Bill Hammond’s now-iconic avian figures. His works made between 1993 and 1994 were a turning point that, both stylistically and conceptually, altered the course of the artist’s practice. Hammond’s attention was first turned towards the natural world by a trip that he took to the remote, subantarctic Auckland Islands in 1989.

Barring some unsuccessful attempts at settlement by both Maori and Pakeha, the human hand has never touched the region. Experiencing a landscape that was ‘truly wild’ focused Hammond’s attention on the effect that human habitation had on the natural world.

Appearing as perhaps the secret workshop of some deranged figure that finds enjoyment in the infliction of pain and death, the interior pictured in the first and third panels of Walter’s Bird Table is in fact the fictionalised workspace of

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Sir Walter Lawry Buller (1838–1906), celebrated statesman, ornithologist and author of the seminal A History of the Birds of New Zealand, first published in 1873. In addition to library research, an important aspect of Buller’s practice was capturing and preserving specimens of native bird species.

Over his career, he amassed a considerable collection, some of which were traded to British institutions in exchange for research funding. Other specimens were later gifted to New Zealand public institutions once his research was complete.

During the time in which Buller’s project was in its formative stages, there was a mounting movement toward legislating to protect native wildlife from the ‘native’ population which culminated in the Wild Birds Protection Act of 1864. Thus, the prolific collection practices of Buller – who was also known for ghoulish comments such as stating that the “flesh of the pukeko [is equal] to that of the best English

game” – stood somewhat in contrast to what was expected from society at large. That many of his specimens were not labelled for the use of others, in what was suggested to be an act of professional jealousy,1 somewhat mars the validity of his work as scientific research.

Walter’s Bird Table frames Buller’s work not as science but rather as one man’s vain conquest. To this end, the two upright figures in the first panel, with their delicate gold filigree patterning, present as trophies rather than specimens and the figures slumped on the tables resemble victims of violent crime rather than a line of academic inquiry. The fact that Hammond depicted the birds with human bodies endows his dialogue with a poignant gravity. One is led to consider that each of the birds was perhaps part of a community or population and that their respective lives should not be treated simply as dispensable commodities.

The issues addressed in Walter’s Bird Table have wider relevance that extends beyond a dialogue about Buller’s historical practices. The intention of the work is to address the threat of human settlement to native environments; it posits human life as an invasive force that has the propensity to replace species and override natural controls.

In addition to this, the work also engages with the potential of colonisation to erode indigenous cultures. The trophy-like birds in the first panel recount the collecting and trading of mokomokai (tattooed Maori heads) by colonial European settlers to New Zealand.

CHARLES NINOW 1 - Bartle, J.A. & Alan Tennyson. “History of Walter Buller’s collections of New Zealand birds”, Tuhinga: Records of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa Vol. 20, Te Papa: Wellington, p. 81

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20 Don Binney Te Henga from Man’s Head IV acrylic on board signed Don Binney, dated 1972 and inscribed Te Henga from Man’s Head IV, Te Henga in brushpoint lower right 1255mm x 1255mm Estimate $60,000 - $80,000

The wild and weathered west coast of Auckland, and particularly that of Bethells Beach, has long since occupied a pride of place in Don Binney’s oeuvre, appearing and reappearing throughout the years from a variety of vantage points and in a diverse manner of compositional arrangements. In all of them, though, the specificity of place remains of paramount importance and it is communicated not only through Binney’s realistic style but also through his denotative titling. The present painting Te Henga from Man’s Head IV is one of a series of works that Binney completed in the early 1970s that featured views of Te Henga or Bethells Beach as seen from Old Man’s Head. These paintings are characterised by sharp, clean lines and a flat, even application of paint and, compositionally, by the seemingly endless spread of cloudless sky and smooth, unruffled ocean that appears to embrace a snapshot of land.

In Te Henga from Man’s Head IV from 1972, Binney harnesses a finely nuanced network of pale, muted blues, charcoal greys and dusty whites to translate the rugged coastal beauty of Auckland’s west coast. Under the artist’s hand, however, the renowned roughness of the shoreline is finely tempered into something akin to an untouched Arcadia. This impression is largely due to the distance between the viewer and the headland and Binney’s tightly controlled application of paint, which results in smooth, glassy plains of sea and sky, and bold, confident strokes that delineate rough-hewn rivets in the land. A thin band of bleached sand runs the length of the rocky coastline, dividing the mountainous forms from the rolling expanse

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of beryl-coloured ocean, while above this pared-back structural mass of land hangs an unbroken ashen sky. As such, the wide, polished span of sky and sweep of ocean come to nestle around the headland, offering up an inviting image of a secluded, empty and unmarred environment.

Featuring a hard-edged style with flat passages of paint and sharp, crystalline outlines, Te Henga from Man’s Head IV is firmly located in the distinctively clear and harsh light of the South Pacific. This crispness of approach is indeed unique to Binney as an artist, yet it is also intricately connected to a tradition of New Zealand painting that stems from the work of 19th-century topographical artists. While the point has been made before, it is worth reconnecting Binney to this tradition and aligning him with colonial watercolourists such as John Buchanan, John Hoyte, Alfred Sharpe and John Kinder, who possessed an indefatigable urge to explore the New Zealand countryside and to translate it onto the two-dimensional plane. This is Binney’s artistic ancestry and it runs a very visible streak throughout his oeuvre, which is almost exclusively given over to the New Zealand landscape and its natural inhabitants. Binney was driven by an enduring appreciation for and intricate knowledge of New Zealand and his landscape works, such as Te Henga from Man’s Head IV, have remained as some of the most archetypal representations of New Zealand from the last half-century.

JEMMA FIELD

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21 Pat Hanly Torso A from the Gesture Painting Series enamel on board signed Hanly and dated 77 in brushpoint lower right and inscribed A within the composition in enamel upper left; dated 1977 and inscribed ‘Torso A’, Gesture Painting Series in ink and inscribed Hanly on original artist’s label affixed verso 670mm x 645mm Estimate $65,000 - $85,000

Hanly’s Torso series saw the artist return to depicting the human form after a period of more than five years in which he spiralled away from objective painting, adopting an expressionist model in which he used mark-making to translate his emotional state into a visual language of painterly slurs and gestural lashings. The Condition series found its origins in blindfolded painting experiments which sidestepped any figurative mandate; while the legibility of these works was tied to the somewhat tenuous assumption that images could effectively communicate states of altered human consciousness, the series is important because of the way in which it overhauled Hanly’s approach to laying down paint.

Originally, and somewhat short-sightedly, derided by critic Gordon Brown as “Picasso-esque”,1 the Torso series certainly harks back to Hanly’s early experiments with cubism. However, what was not recognised by Brown at the time was that a key reference point of the Torso works was cubism’s origin in ‘primitive’ art practices. Hanly did not seek to reinvent cubism. Rather, he sought to depict his sitters using a methodology that disregarded classical tropes such as balance and proportion. To Hanly, the cubist schema was simply a set of ready-made conventions.

Each work in the series examined an unknown sitter, identified only by a capitalised letter buried somewhere in the composition – in Torso A, the identifier is applied in teal to the upper-left corner. While the sitter’s identity is a mystery, Hanly’s fluid, unwavering line certainly implies some familiarity with the shape of her body and the painterly remnants of his mannerisms – the way in which lines thicken towards their beginnings and ends, separate to create tandem threads and bleed into one another when separate

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pools of colour meet – form a deeply personal account of the sitter’s character. Torso A is not simply the product of a sitting with a life model; it is a testament to the relationship between artist and subject.

As a whole, the composition makes no attempt at polite flattery. With a triangle and a rectangle serving as the right and the left arm, respectively, a single gratuitously enlarged breast and towering things, Torso A is not intended as physical record. Rather, the sitter’s appearance is akin to the lasting impression left by an old acquaintance whose image has been distorted by the prominence of their most memorable traits. While the image appears obtuse, it has an underlying warmth which ultimately supersedes its jarring appearance.

What is not stated explicitly by the works themselves, but has been mentioned by Hanly in various interviews, is that the works do, in fact, invoke memories of previous lovers: “we all went through that period of sexual liberation in the sixties and seventies”.2 The strength of the Torso paintings is that they synthesise both figurative and abstract approaches.

In this light, Torso A truly is a celebration of the complexities of the human condition. While the work embraces the sitter’s imbalanced and imperfect character, perhaps even more importantly, it also holds a mirror to the artist’s own nature.

In Hanly’s own words, the work would not have the same meaning if you were to “take out the lust”.3 CHARLES NINOW

1 - Haley, Russell, Hanly: A New Zealand Artist, Hodder & Stoughton: Auckland, 1989, p. 201 2 - Ibid.

3 - Ibid.

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22 Michael Illingworth What lies beneath these fragments of reference? oil on canvas signed M.H.I and dated ‘64 in brushpoint lower left 600mm x 755mm EXHIBITED

A new lord demanding much attention: Unpacking Michael Illingworth, Aaron Lister, thesis submission to Victoria University, Wellington, Master of Art History Degree, Victoria University, Wellington, 2003 pg 47. fig 5.

REFERENCE

22 May - 2 June 1967.

Ibid pp 45 - 46.

New Zealand Herald, 23 May, 1967, Collector buys seventeen paintings by one artist.

PROVENANCE

Estimate $120,000 - $160,000

Paintings with no titles to obey, Barry Lett Galleries,

Purchased by the current owner, along with seventeen other paintings comprising the full exhibition of the artist’s work at Barry Lett Galleries, 1967.

Michael Illingworth’s What lies beneath these fragments of reference? was born out of the 1960s’ beat-generation attitude of rebellion and disdain for a ‘phony’, middle-class suburbia. Yet, within the bold lines and rigorous layering of paint resides a calm pensiveness and respect for nature and transcendence, which hark back to more traditional modes of existence.

Illingworth was an artist of English origin and his painterly style sits outside the mainstream canon of New Zealand art history, which was prevalent at the time. While many of his contemporaries were exploring a national identity, Illingworth’s focus resided among the surrealist and abstract expressionist painters to which he was exposed during his early 20s when he was working at Gallery One in London.

Recognised for its role in defining London as a centre for radical artistic expression and celebrated for showing art that was ‘anti-establishment’, Gallery One assimilated itself with the international avant-garde that had settled in different countries in Europe, Latin America and beyond.

It was here that Illingworth discovered works by artists including Klee, Souza, Klein and Michaux.

Illingworth returned to New Zealand in 1961, inspired by the progressive happenings and bohemian lifestyle instilled in him by the poet, dealer and proprietor of Gallery One, Victor Musgrave. However, he was disheartened by the nation’s perceived state of cultural and spiritual xenophobia and soon turned his back on city living in favour of isolation.

The artist identified with revolutionary thinkers including Janet Frame and James K Baxter, who shared his views that the regenerative powers of art must be drawn from the wilderness. Like Baxter’s poetry, Illingworth’s paintings applied emblems for nature’s nurturing influence to a distinctly New Zealand setting. In Baxter’s view, such symbols functioned as “a door opening upon the dark – upon a world of intuitions and associations”.1 Illingworth’s figures reveal a fascination with primitive art forms and primordial beings. In this work, the central motif

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ILLUSTRATED

is a traditional Maori waka set against land, sky and sea.

The waka and the sea together function as a metaphor for rebirth and their presence owes much to the influence of Klee who, in his work, used similar symbols to reference the Old Testament flood.2 The oval heads and pyramidshaped torsos call to mind ancient Egyptian amulets.3 The artist writes, “The shape of my heads I take from that which nature has drafted as the shape strongest for protection (seen in such as an egg). My bodies come from the pyramid.

The head I make is often to act as a canopy against nuclear fallout. The pyramid seems a sensible fallout shelter also. An Egyptian deity lay safely for a long time in such a structure until pillaged by barbarians.”4 Steeped in symbolism, his figures cast a shadow of wry contempt on the conservative and patriarchal views of the period. His figures display men and women devoid of hands, voices or identities. Roles are defined as men dominate, gesticulating with one of their arms, while women remain motionless and expressionless. Illingworth’s conscious integration of the grid formation represents alienation and fragmentation between human culture and spiritual form.

The frames become a key device by which Illingworth indicates the separation of the blank-faced figures from the landscape they inhabit. In the artist’s own words: “The little faces in my paintings with no mouths and with hands waving signify two things: the feeling of a ‘lost quality’ – What am I doing here? Where do I belong? – and the feeling of possibility, purity, an ideal that perhaps might become something but is certainly nothing at the moment”.5 EMILY GARDENER 1 - Lister, Aaron, “A new lord demanding much attention”: Unpacking Michael Illingworth, Master’s thesis, Victoria University: Wellington, p.46 2 - Ibid 3 - www.metmuseum.org/toah/hi/hi_egypt36.htm 4 - “Illingworth, Scraps Book 2, Illingworth Estate Archive”, in Aaron Lister and Damian Skinner, A Tourist in Paradise Lost: The Art of Michael Illingworth, City Gallery Wellington, 2001, p.22

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23 Bill Hammond Last Nightjar in Congested Sky acrylic on three Belgian linen stretched canvases signed Hammond and dated 2004 (right panel) and inscribed Last Night Jar (left panel) and In Congested Sky (middle panel) in brushpoint upper edge 1800mm x 3600mm (overall) Estimate $250,000 - $300,000

Presenting a bravura display of his technique, there can be no doubt that Last Nightjar in Congested Sky is the work of Bill Hammond. Choosing to apply oil directly onto an unforgiving ground of Belgian linen, Hammond has allowed himself no room for error, no chance to second-guess; the resulting composition’s sophisticated balance and intricate detail are fitting testaments to the artist’s impressive command of his medium.

Like many of Hammond’s best-known works, Last Nightjar in Congested Sky combines the narrative complexity of Bruegel with the zoomorphic surrealism of Ernst, transporting these influences to a setting at once local and otherworldly. But in some ways this is not a typical Hammond. Colour, for instance, is frequently a key characteristic of his work, however here it is eschewed almost entirely. Favouring instead a sepia-tinged, dark-on-light effect, Hammond achieves this mythical mise en scène with an elegant clarity and supreme elegance. Sharply outlined forms hover alongside splotches, drips and limbs of varying degrees of opacity, resulting in an image both painterly and linear.

Consequently, Last Nightjar in Congested Sky reproduces remarkably well. Even when shrunken in scale, the painting’s imagery remains crisp and captivating. Witnessing this work in the flesh, however, reminds us it is not only an intricate image but also an impressive object, one addressed to the body as much as to the eye. A triptych comprised of three separately stretched sheets of linen, each measuring 1.8 by 1.2 metres, Last Nightjar in Congested Sky demands close attention. The sheer size of the work requires a physical encounter, a temporal investment. It is, as McCahon might have noted, a picture to walk past. Repaying repeat inspection with interest, this is a painting to be returned to as often as possible.

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Approaching the work, the viewer finds three sets of imposing, twin-headed figures populating its lowest realm. They are strange fauna branded with familiar flora, and might appear to be patrolling like sentries if they weren’t so oblivious to potential intruders. In the sky above them, a host of similar bird-like creatures float and frolic. Some are made to playfully orbit around one another; others appear to evolve before our eyes in a rhythmic, primitive patterning. In the upper-left section of the triptych a diminutive nightjar – one of only two recognisable birds depicted – is pursued by a sinister, serpentine figure. It’s an ill-fated omen: the nightjar was a native owlet rendered extinct sometime around 1200 AD. Centuries later its European cousin was introduced to colonial New Zealand in an attempt to populate the southern sky with familiar sights of ‘home’. As the title suggests, this nightjar inevitably went the way of its predecessor.

The title also indicates it’s a sky we’re looking at, but in many ways this persistently flat image is more reminiscent of a cave painting. Presenting the viewer with a frieze-like surface rather than a theatrical tableau, it brings to mind both Egyptian hieroglyphs and Maori rock art. These prehistoric works often catalogued the natural world by depicting its various elements with symbolic icons, and Last Nightjar in Congested Sky also functions as a kind of painterly portmanteau, a sum of Hammond’s past parts. Indeed, in terms of both iconography and narrative possibility this triptych presents the attentive viewer with an embarrassment of riches.

MATT PLUMMER

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24 Charles Frederick Goldie The Whitening Snow of Venerable Elder Atama Paparangi oil on canvas on board signed C.F. Goldie and dated 1913 in brushpoint lower right 297mm x 215mm (oval) PROVENANCE

Purchased from John Leech Gallery, 1957 and passed by descent to the current owners.

EXHIBITED

Location unknown, 1913, 16 Guineas, one of eight works; John Leech Gallery 1957, 38 Guineas; Auckland Art Gallery, Goldie, 1997, curated by Roger Blackley.

Estimate $190,000 - $250,000

The sitter in this portrait by Charles Fredrick Goldie from 1913 is Atama Paparangi (1817–1917) who was chief of the Taumia hapu of Te Rarawa. A revered warrior, Atama fought against Hone Heke at Kororareka alongside Tamati Waka Nene. Atama was first painted by Goldie in 1912 and that portrait remains in the collection of the Auckland Museum. He later came to be one of Goldie’s favourite sitters and portraits of Atama that Goldie produced throughout the 1930s were submitted to the Paris Salon and the Royal Academy.

In the present portrait, The Whitening Snow of Venerable Elder Atama Paparangi, Goldie depicts Atama in bust-length format and in strict profile pose to the right. Historically, such a configuration was the exclusive domain of the ruling elite, harking back to Roman Emperors who consistently appeared in this manner on coins and medals. By employing such a revered pictorial format, Goldie effectively heightens the dignity and cachet of Atama by casting him as the successor to an illustrious lineage of classical rulers and warriors. This overtly confident posturing is tempered in the portrait, however, by Atama’s down-turned face and halfclosed eyes. The descriptive title of the piece highlights Atama’s idiosyncratic tousled expanse of white hair. More poignantly, it also points to the inevitable passage of time and the elderly stature of the sitter. With age, however, comes wisdom, respect and veneration – qualities that the title of the painting insists are possessed by Atama.

In The Whitening Snow of Venerable Elder Atama Paparangi, signs of Atama’s prestige are indelibly marked about his person

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in his cloak, ta moko and his jewelled adornment. Encircled by a kakahu (Maori cloak) that is decorated with fine black hukahuka (tassels), Atama wears a carved pounamu tiki pendant and a whakakai pounamu (greenstone earring) in his left ear. Cloaks were an intrinsic part of everyday wear for Maori and, while fulfilling practical functions such as providing warmth and protection, they played a highly symbolic role as markers of rank and status. While no longer commonly worn, such cloaks still serve as signifiers of honour, cultural pride and ancestral lineage. Similarly, ta moko is not as prevalent among Maori as it once was and one of the most celebrated aspects of Goldie’s portraits is the preservation of notable examples of this traditional face marking. Originally carved into the face with uhi (chisels), ta moko left furrows in the skin, which can be readily seen in the present portrait. Here, the elegant linear patterns of Atama’s ta moko are neatly incised into his face and, in fact, it is known that Atama’s remarkable and dignified ta moko was completed at Pupwai by the famed tattooist Huitara.

The Whitening Snow of Venerable Elder Atama Paparangi is one of a prized number of portraits by Goldie that comprise an unparalleled legacy of invaluable taonga tuku iho (prized heirlooms). These works painstakingly record for posterity the physical identities of some of the most pre-eminent Maori ancestors of Aotearoa New Zealand.

JEMMA FIELD

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25 Ralph Hotere Vidyapati’s Song acrylic on unstretched canvas signed Hotere and dated ‘79 and inscribed Vidyapati’s Song in brushpoint upper edge 3040mm x 912mm ILLUSTRATED

Baker, Kriselle and Vincent O’Sullivan. Hotere, Ron San Publications, 2008, p 145.

Estimate $210,000 - $270,000

Vidyapati’s Song is a seductively sensuous work incorporating a love poem by Bill Manhire based on the writing of the Indian poet Vidyapati c1352–1448. Conceived in a subtle palette of black and grey, the painting is evocative of the moonlight and rain imagery of the poem and intertwines visual and literary aspects with mesmerising effect.

Using his familiar vertical lines and surface divisions, Hotere evokes natural forces such as wind and rain, darkness and light to convey the emotions of the lovers in the poem. The sonorous greys and flickers of white of the Song Cycle series of 1975, to which it relates, have been seen as evoking the climate of Port Chalmers where they were painted.

Vidyapati’s Song incorporates words from the poet Bill Manhire at the base of the work. Hotere has executed the words in a manner somewhat reminiscent of McCahon, using a variety of sizes in the letters and styles of script to give emphases and visual animation to the text. Also, we can feel the emotive force of the text in the way it appears direct and spontaneous. As with the upper part of the canvas, the text is divided into two sections that lie to the left and right of the central axis. Whereas the upper, dominant part of the painting has precise hard-edged lines containing the speckled, splattered areas, the lower zone is loose and irregular. For example, the central bands have runs of paint that seem to drip into the area of the text as if they have been wet by rain. Hotere’s soft, imprecise forms in splatter-like areas suggest the mingling of limbs and voices in the verses.

as it did McCahon, to make large paintings that, like Chinese scroll paintings, can be rolled up and stored easily or unrolled and presented on a wall with minimal trouble. Also, this choice brings a degree of informality and removes the need for a frame. As a result, Vidyapati’s Song can connect with the viewer in a more direct and physical way than had previously been practical for New Zealand painters. At just over three metres high, it has a scale that gives the image a powerful impact on the wall and a sense of grandeur. Together with the Song Cycle banners, Vidyapati’s Song can be seen as an important stage in Hotere’s development as a painter moving from the tighter, strictly geometric, earlier works to a more flexible style where intense emotions and sensuality come to the fore. Of the series, Vidyapati’s Song stands as a triumph where the sustained meter and lyrical sensitivity of Hotere’s imagery connect with the viewer in a manner that is at once deeply considered and unreservedly physical.

MICHAEL DUNN Vidyapati’s Song by Bill Manhire My lover’s limbs are placed as ornaments My lover’s ornaments are eyes

Undoubtedly, there is intended to be some relation between the words of Manhire’s song and Hotere’s imagery. The words “Ah see/ Her single garment is the rain” make it possible to find a connection between the fluid runs of paint and the splashes of pigment and Manhire’s text. Also, the pronounced vertical format of the painting and its directional thrust downwards towards Manhire’s words can evoke the idea of falling water and bring to mind an abstracted version of a waterfall. Then the text can be seen as contained in the ‘pool’ below the fall and replenished by the water – symbolised by the vertical lines and bands that flow down the surface of the work.

House darkened by arrows

Hotere’s choice of unstretched canvas and acrylic paint allowed him,

Darkness goes out with its voices

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Moon darkened by hair Darkness goes out with its voices My lover’s breasts are marked with nails Ah see Her single garment is the rain House darkened by lanterns Moon darkened by song

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26 Evelyn Page Breakfast at Hobson Street oil on canvasboard signed Evelyn Page in brushpoint lower right; signed Evelyn Page and inscribed No. 1, Breakfast Hobson Street and $1200 (struck through) in graphite verso; original Canterbury Art Gallery label affixed upper right verso 600mm x 810mm PROVENANCE

Bought by Mrs M. McAlpine from Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Evelyn Page, New Painting and Weaving, 1975.

Acquired by Canterbury Gallery, 1989.

Purchased by the current owner from Canterbury Gallery, 1989.

Private Collection.

EXHIBITED

Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Evelyn Page, New Painting and Weaving, catalogue no.

109, 1975.

Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Evelyn Page - Seven Decades, 1986, Robert McDougall Art Gallery with Allen and Unwin, 1986, catalogue no. 61.

NZAFA, Selected Work, 1982, catalogue no. 28.

ILLUSTRATED

Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Evelyn Page - Seven Decades, exhibition catalogue, pl 32, pg 48.

Friends of the Robert McDougall Art Gallery postcard.

REFERENCE

Robert McDougall Art Gallery, Evelyn Page - Seven Decades, exhibition catalogue, pp. 49 and 91.

Estimate $150,000 - $200,000

It is hard to believe that this joyous, light-filled painting was made in 1975 by an artist in her late 70s. But, when we know that the painter is Evelyn Page, it comes as less of a surprise. Though troubled with arthritis, she continued to paint in the lively, spontaneous style of post-impressionism that she had developed in Christchurch in the late 1920s. Her work, like that of one of her mentors, Sydney Lough Thompson, remained, until the end, essentially untroubled by passing fashions and continued to be true to a vision shaped by the French painters like Bonnard. The subject matter in this example, as so often is the case with her work, is autobiographical in the sense of being drawn from her own everyday life. This domestic interior, so redolent of Frances Hodgkins among others in its intimacy and familiarity, celebrates the everyday pleasures of taking breakfast at home surrounded by cups and saucers, a coffee pot, a bowl of fruit and that amazing vase of daffodils. It depicts her husband, the noted musician Frederick Page, at their home at 20 Hobson Street, in Thorndon, Wellington, reading the morning newspaper over breakfast. Her biographer, Janet Paul, tells us that this was “one of the painter’s favourite works” (in the catalogue for the retrospective show Evelyn Page: Seven Decades, held in 1986).

The old house at Hobson Street, crammed with books and paintings and filled with the sound of music, was a centre of intellectual life in the capital while Frederick Page was Head of Music at Victoria University. It was a meeting place for writers, composers and artists where good conversation and good food were part of the mix. By the time this picture was painted, Frederick Page had retired and Evelyn was unable to complete more than a few works a year but Breakfast

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at Hobson Street reflects the ongoing energy and creativity of the couple who had formed such a productive partnership.

The painting appears to have been painted quickly and directly. The paint is thick and chunky with forms indicated rather than modelled in depth. Page likes to bring out the patterns on the jug and the background curtain and fill the whole canvas with a feeling of movement and energy. There is plenty of colour as we see with the fruit on the plates and the daffodils. Page allows us to take pleasure in the painting process by leaving traces of the movement of the brush and application of impastoed highlights.

In her early years, Evelyn Page was one of the founders of the Christchurch Group, associated with the Canterbury avant-garde, but later her painting was seen as conservative. However, her work’s liveliness and her joyful involvement with the act of painting have ensured a keen following among collectors in recent years. She is living proof that remaining true to yourself rather than following fashions is a pathway to enduring success. Although she established her reputation in Christchurch, Page spent her last 40 or so years in Wellington, dying there in 1988 at the advanced age of 89. Her painting had an extensive range of subject matter including portraits, landscapes, street scenes and nudes. This fine painting Breakfast at Hobson Street now seems like a piece of social history recording a more genteel time when news came by newspaper not computer or cellphone and there was time to sit, to think and to enjoy the pleasures of everyday life over breakfast.

MICHAEL DUNN

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27 Michael Smither Lava Flow Cave oil on board signed MDS and dated 04 in brushpoint lower left 1130mm x 1100mm Estimate $80,000 - $100,000

Painted in 2004, Lava Flow Cave continues Michael Smither’s focus on the Taranaki landscape and coastline, which has formed a significant body of works in his oeuvre that stretch back to the 1960s. Many of Smither’s mostacclaimed and coveted paintings feature the round stones, rocky shorelines and aquatic environments of the Taranaki region. Smither spent much of his life in New Plymouth and his intimate and extensive knowledge of the district has meant that it repeatedly surfaces as the focal point of his painterly works. Appearing to have been taken directly from nature, these paintings are, in fact, often drawn from memory or based on a combination of drawings and various viewpoints; this results in paintings that are wholly unique and individual.

As one of New Zealand’s most-celebrated, realist painters, Smither has a vision of nature that is highly stylised and personal. Taking nature as his starting point, Smither invariably interprets his chosen scene through unusual, slightly skewed vantage points. Using clear directional lighting, he flattens and simplifies his forms and then translates them onto the canvas through a palette of high-keyed colour that is at once intensely concentrated yet remarkably congruous. Thus, in this manner which has become indelibly associated with Smither, Lava Flow Cave is completed through an unexpected viewpoint with the spectator being positioned in very close proximity to the pool of water and directly over it so that we immediately peer down into its cool, tranquil depths. As a result, the present painting possesses an almost-abstract quality since, by cropping out all contextual information, Smither has ostensibly left us with a patchwork of painterly forms.

Although the forms in Lava Flow Cave are all instantly

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recognisable and familiar, the painting simultaneously maintains a mythical other-worldly element, offering a glimpse into an unparalleled, kaleidoscopic whirlpool of chromatic enchantment.

It is testament to Smither’s controlled aptitude for close observation and his deft handling of paint that such seemingly mundane subject matter as rocks, hardened lava and flat pools of water, can be both a source of enduring inspiration and one that he is able to imbue with a celestial, captivating and almost dream-like quality. Harking back to his earlier rock-pool paintings, Lava Flow Cave offers the viewer an extreme close-up of an intricately detailed, motionless rock pool that is encircled by a halo of solidified lava flow. The array of smooth, round rocks, which are like oversized pebbles, and the rough, textured bands of hardened lava completely dominate the work. The presence and erosion of the lava stream and the lustrous, rounded edges of the stones testify to the energetic dynamism of both land and sea, which is then contrasted against Smither’s painterly technique. Executed in an exceptionally even and polished manner that leaves little trace of the artist’s brush, Lava Flow Cave offers a quiet recess from the tumult of wind, tidal movement and human interference. The glassy body of water is almost imperceptible save for the patch of reflected light, while dappled segments of sapphire, moss-green, indigo and lilac hues provide the painting with an inviting iridescence. The strikingly simple composition in tandem with the confident application of paint produces a work that is principally and fundamentally Smither.

JEMMA FIELD

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28 Bill Hammond Art Lover. 3 acrylic on linen signed W.D. Hammond, dated 1997 and inscribed Art Lover. 3 in brushpoint upper edge 1115mm x 950mm Estimate $100,000 - $150,000

Art Lover. 3 is from a small series belonging to Bill Hammond’s highly celebrated early to mid-career period of 1994 to 1998.

The works were all painted in the same year and include the word Lover in their titles. Invariably, they all deal with the forces of human desire.1 With its complex layering of visual elements, Art Lover 3 sees Hammond cast a matured eye back to some of the themes which held his attention at the very beginning of his career. His early works were complex tableaux in which human forms were wrapped and distorted around oblique objects and architectural features.

In essence, they were ruminations on the complexities of modern life that sought to capture and expose its pressures, mechanisms of control and underlying brutality.

With architectural forms excluded, Art Lover is a refined composition depicting a variety of humanoid forms, all presumably of different species. The absence of additional compositional elements prompts to the viewer to consider how these figures might correlate. In this work, Hammond’s focus is not on the figures themselves but, rather, on their relationships with one another.

Most striking of all three species are the slender, precise silhouettes of the avian-headed figures. While they bear human arms and legs, the appearance of their heads, with long, slightly curved beaks, relates strongly to that of the heads of the native female huia. Once prized by Maori for its elegant plumage, the huia population declined to extinction after the arrival of European settlers in the 1840s; the last confirmed sighting took place in 1910. The huia figures loom in the composition with a piercing, almost ethereal quality. In the artist’s monograph, Jingle Jangle Morning, Ron Brownson remarked on Hammond’s use of bygone species: “To perceive oneself standing parallel to an extinct bird, albeit in the form of its articulated skeleton, employs death as a formidable symbol for past life”.2 The presence of the

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huia figures calls to mind not only the demise of the species but also the way in which it came about: at the hand of humanity’s overzealous lust for trophies that pay testament to its dominance over the natural world.

Other than the huia figures, the composition is cohabited by two further species. One, like the aforementioned huia figures, has a human body but bears the head of a horse.

The other bears a head and body that are both human-like; however, aside from differing hair styles, the faces lack any defining features. For the most part, these figures are uniform. Horses have been domesticated by humans for many thousands of years and, thus, by placing a horse’s head on one of the species, Hammond is suggesting that they are a subservient race. The title – Art Lover – indicates that the work references the structures of the ‘art world’.

With the presence of a dominant and subservient race, Hammond is surely making a pointed statement about the exploitative relationship between artists and those who inhabit the cultural landscape such as dealers, curators and collectors and, yes, auction houses. At the time when this work was painted, Hammond had only recently struck both commercial and critical success with his new fixation on native birdlife. Using the extinct huia as an omen, Art Lover.

3 is a backlash against the perceived philanthropic nature of cultural investment. The work both recognises his newfound success and condemns the predatory side of human nature that has driven it.

CHARLES NINOW

1 - Another work from this period, Jealous Lover, is held in the collection of J B Gibbs Trust and illustrated on page 167 of the publication cited below.

2 - Hammond, Bill, Jingle Jangle Morning, Christchurch Art Gallery: Christchurch, 2007, p. 59

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29 Philip Clairmont Untitled oil on board 490mm x 520mm PROVENANCE

Purchased by the original owner in 1974 directly from the artist whilst visiting their home, Hereford Street, Christchurch.

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REFERENCE

This work references Robert Crumb’s Head Comix, published during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Founder of the underground comics movement, Robert Crumb is an American artist, illustrator and musician recognised for his satirical and subversive view of American mainstream culture.

Estimate $17,000 - $24,000

30 Colin McCahon Northland ink wash on paper signed McCahon, dated April ‘59 and inscribed Northland in ink lower right 620mm x 500mm EXHIBITED

Colin McCahon: Gates and Journeys, Auckland City Art Gallery, 11 November 1988 - 26 February 1989, Cat. No. J6 REFERENCE

Colin McCahon database reference number cm000505 Estimate $35,000 - $45,000

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31 Ralph Hotere Black Window; Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro acrylic, lacquer and gold leaf on glass in colonial window frame signed Hotere and dated ‘92 in brushpoint lower left; inscribed First Exhibited Aero Club Gallery, Port Chalmers in printed lettering and 30/8/92 to 12/9/92 in the artist’s hand on label affixed upper left verso 800mm x 710mm PROVENANCE

Purchased by the current owner from Aero Club Gallery, 1992.

EXHIBITED

Aero Club Gallery, Port Chalmers 30 August 1992 to 12 September 1992.

Estimate $70,000 - $90,000

Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro belongs to a series of works that was started in 1991; all of the paintings share the same title. From Spanish, the title translates to ‘Black over the Gold’ and it has been suggested that the works were strongly influenced by the Roman Catholic decorative art and architecture that Hotere saw during his time in Spain.1 While the work at hand features a small, easily recognisable crucifix form, the series as a whole is considered to be a retreat from Hotere’s politically motivated work of the 1980s.

The Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro series is typified by a refined use of common materials: gold leaf, black lacquer, glass and recycled window frames. While they contain markings that are clearly informed by the skill set that Hotere developed whilst working with stainless steel, they also demonstrate a sophisticated formal understanding that is reminiscent of his pared-back work of the 1970s. In the Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro series, Hotere uses gold leaf in a manner that contrasts starkly to the way in which he saw it used in Spanish cathedrals. Traditionally, gold leaf is used to gild or entirely cover surfaces, as if to suggest that they are made from gold. In the Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro works, he has taken individual sheets of gold leaf and used them as ready-mades; rather than deny its presence, he has used each sheet’s square shape as a structural device. With this in mind, the series can be viewed as an attempt to break down, demystify and understand larger foreign structures.

Reflective surfaces have had a recurring presence in Hotere’s practice. In order to highlight the sparse qualities of his linear abstraction of the 1970s, Hotere embraced the

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use of lacquers and, in his work of the 1980s, he burnished and cut away from stainless-steel surfaces. However, in the 1990s, his decision to work behind glass positions the Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro series as a significant departure from his previous work where glossy surfaces were deeply integrated into the painting process. The glass surfaces serve to separate the paintings from the outside world.

Further, their reflective surfaces ensure that the viewer is not confronted just by the painted content but also by a mirror image of themselves and their immediate physical environment. To Hotere, the relationship between the viewer and the work was integral to its overall meaning.

While these works are not protest paintings, they were not made with purely formal motivations either. In the Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro works, we see a subversive Hotere working through a set of adopted aesthetic parameters in order to further a dialogue about belief systems and societal controls. Lo Negro Sobre Lo Oro pares back the lush veneer of the Catholic Church in order to raise questions about its historic accumulation of wealth. Further, by confronting the viewer with the innately personal experience of observing their own reflection, he extends the work’s mandate to question the role of organised religion in our everyday lives.

CHARLES NINOW

1 - Mane-Wheoki, Jonathan, “The Black Light Paradox: The Sumptuous Austerity of Ralph Hotere’s Art”, Art New Zealand, Issue 98, Autumn 2001, p 74.

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32 Charles Blomfield

33 Frances Hodgkins

The Pink Terraces

Mother and Child

oil on canvas signed C. Blomfield and dated 1913 in brushpoint lower left 420mm x 590mm

watercolour on paper, circa 1909 signed Frances Hodgkins in brushpoint lower right 270mm x 255mm

PROVENANCE

PROVENANCE

Passed by descent from the artist to the present owner.

Passed by descent to the former owner, Mrs J. T. Harding, Wellington.

Sold at Dunbar Sloane, Wellington, 8 April 1987.

Purchased by Ferner Fine Arts and acquired by the current owner, 1987.

Estimate $25,000 - $35,000

REFERENCE

Works of Frances Hodgkins in New Zealand, E. H. McCormick, Auckland City Art Gallery, 1954, catalogue no. 238, pp.187 - 188.

Estimate $35,000 - $55,000

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34 Bill Hammond Wishbone Ash, Cornwall Rd Cave 2 oil on canvas in original artist selected gilt frame signed W.D. Hammond, dated 2011 and inscribed Wishbone Ash, Cornwall Rd Cave 2 in brushpoint upper left 1110mm x 850mm Estimate $145,000 - $165,000

Within the depths of a cave, at the summit of Lyttelton’s Cornwall Road, a cohort of bird-like creatures has gathered, bringing with them three urns. The largest of these, in a bright daredevil orange, has been placed at the cave’s mouth, attracting the admiration and reverence of those who surround it. Deeper within the space are the smaller urns, rendered in softer tones of deep blue and magenta red. Perched atop the urns are the muscular frames of birdpeople, holding themselves in dance-like poses with grace and delicacy. The bird-people have decorated the vessels with representations of their kin and, though they may be funerary, Wishbone Ash Cornwall Road Cave 2 is hardly grave or sombre.

Created in Hammond’s home town of Lyttelton, an outlying port suburb of Christchurch, Wishbone Ash marks a shift in the artist’s practice. As has been the case for many Cantabrians, Hammond’s life was dramatically altered following the devastating series of earthquakes that hit Christchurch in 2010 and 2011, and which particularly impacted residents of Lyttelton. Such events understandably affected his practice and, in Wishbone Ash, Hammond does not depict an imagined past in grandiose dimensions but an intimately scaled possible future. By expanding the view from the cave to encompass an expanse of aquamarine sky, Hammond here creates both a tribute to those who went before and an expression of hope for that which is to come.

Within the sky, more of Hammond’s trademark bird-people hover, holding what appear to be offerings in their hands.

On the right, one strikes a flaming finger upwards; in the centre, a skirted bird-woman reaches out with an offering, from which an ash plume snakes, rising to meet the base of

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a wishbone. As the opaque ash ascends, the surrounding clouds evaporate in transparent drips to the land below.

Amidst the scene, three recognisable birds – perhaps from our world – dart and flit around, subtly melding themselves into the painting’s clouds. In the middle of the canvas is a crescent moon; on the left, a shimmering golden sun creeps in. Is this dawn, dusk or another time altogether? What are the birds wishing for and which way will the wishbone snap?

In addition to these allusions to Christchurch’s hope for the future, Hammond has imbued the painting with another, more tangible connection to the city. In the 1920s, the ornate golden frame which surrounds the canvas was created for a work by A Elizabeth Kelly, a Christchurchbased artist who painted mostly portraits of women. Some of these, such as Youth (1927), have subsequently become synonymous with the collection of the Christchurch Art Gallery. When Hammond came across this particular frame, he was inspired to create a painting especially for it, along with a sister work, Wishbone Ash Stash Cornwall Road.

This results in Wishbone Ash being not just a flat painting, but a three-dimensional object. Interestingly, Kelly’s own predisposition to feminine portraiture seems to have affected Hammond’s rendering of his bird-people. Note the luminosity of the yellow-skirted creatures, their elegant, graceful bodies, the light pink of the nightjar that sweeps through the sky and the ornate, glistening gold of the frame.

Wishbone Ash is light, airy, joyful and euphoric; after a long night, this is a new day.

ALICE TAPPENDEN

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35 John Barr Clarke Hoyte Lion Peak, Milford Sound watercolour on paper signed J.C. Hoyte in brushpoint lower right 565mm x 955mm Estimate $50,000 - $70,000

Lion Peak, Milford Sound would have been executed following Hoyte’s sketching tour of the South Island in 1877.

During this trip, he devoted particular attention to capturing the lakes and fiords of the Milford region. An impressive, larger-scale watercolour, this work aptly demonstrates Hoyte’s eye for topographical detail and draws comparison with his view of Milford Sound currently in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki (accession number 1968/31).

As a colonial landscape painter, Hoyte was, in part, driven by a desire to document the New Zealand countryside – a process closely associated with the English tradition of topographical draughtsmanship. That this methodical approach was adopted by Hoyte is evidenced by the minute detail and clarity afforded to every aspect of the present work; the form of Mitre Peak dominating the very depths of the picture plane is no less carefully constructed or detailed than are the trees and vegetation framing the immediate foreground of the picture. Such a degree of exactitude would have been achieved through the use of underdrawings, with each zone of the landscape being carefully planned and constructed by Hoyte in advance. The final result is a crisp, stunning likeness of the Fiordland scene.

Though Hoyte was concerned with the documentary function of his landscapes, the present work should also be recognised as distinct from many of the other watercolours and aquatints being produced in 19th-century New Zealand.

Hoyte sought to go beyond a purely topographical function and manipulate the treatment of depth and perspective through experimenting with the use of colour and light.

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As the viewer’s eye is drawn across the lake towards the distant Mitre Peak, a sense of atmospheric depth is subtly enhanced through the gradual introduction of bluish hues.

This ability to experiment with tonal effects is a further indicator of Hoyte’s adroitness in dealing with the medium of watercolour.

At the same time, unlike some of his international and New Zealand contemporaries such as J M W Turner and John Gully, Hoyte avoided the temptation to imbue his landscapes with romantic sentiment and notions of the sublime. This view of Lion Peak, whilst exuding a sense of serenity and repose (enforced by the oft-used motif of a single sailing boat on the lake), is careful not to allow atmospheric effects and lighting to dominate and, in doing so, does not give way to any sense of overpowering sentimentality or romanticism.

One of New Zealand’s pre-eminent 19th-century artists, John Barr Clarke Hoyte (22 December 1835–21 February 1913) is celebrated for his watercolours which depict magnificent views of the New Zealand landscape. One critic who attended an 1871 exhibition featuring Hoyte’s work in Auckland described his paintings as “masterly, truthful views of a beautiful country”,1 and this is a sentiment which certainly resonates when considering the splendour of Lion Peak.

RACHEL KLEIMSMAN 1 - Auckland City Art Gallery, J C Hoyte, 1957: p. 11

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36 Charles Frederick Goldie Ngatirea (Day Dreams), Natarua Hangapa - Arawa Tribe oil on canvas signed C. F. Goldie, inscribed N. Z., and dated 1938 in brushpoint upper left; original John Leech Gallery label affixed verso 300mm x 245mm Estimate $100,000 - $150,000

Painted by Charles Frederick Goldie in 1938, Ngatirea (Daydreams), Natarua Hangapa – Arawa Tribe is a prime example of the artist’s unparalleled ability to weave together historical fact with an elegance and integrity through his painstakingly mimetic technique. This combination of elements is to some extent responsible for earning Goldie a place as New Zealand’s most-celebrated and esteemed painter of the 20th century. Ngatirea (Daydreams) is an excellent example of Goldie’s late phase of works that were completed throughout the 1930s. Characterised by a thinner application of paint, a looser handling of the brush and comparatively richer tonalities, these works were a departure from the rigid compositions of his earlier career and each imbues the sitter with a romantic light. Thus, in this later work, we see Goldie return to and further develop the approach that he had successfully honed at the Académie Julian in Paris during the 1890s.

Executed in bust-length format, the present painting depicts a relatively young Maori woman positioned front on to the viewer with her head inclined to the left and eyes downcast.

Loose hair cascades over her shoulders and is delicately pinned back by a cluster of scarlet kaka beak (Clianthus puniceus) flowers. Performing a purely decorative function in the portrait, the flowers of the kaka beak traditionally served a specific function for Maori. Containing a large amount of nectar, the flowers from the two endemic species of kaka beak were used to feed tui that were kept in cages in order to attract other birds that could then be trapped. While the majority of Goldie’s portraits of Maori woman depict them with unadorned hair, an earlier work from 1932 entitled Reverie – Hinemoa, Te Arawa also depicts a young woman with untied long hair that is adorned by a bunch of the highly distinctive kaka beak flowers. Further similarities are seen

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between the two works in terms of format, pose, costume and accoutrements and it is notable that, presumably due to the youth of the two sitters, they have not yet received kauae moko (chin tattoo).

The focus in Ngatirea (Daydreams) has been placed on the subject and her material taonga. She is shown wearing a korowai (cloak) that is decorated with fine black hukahuka (tassels) along with a pounamu tiki pendant and two whakakai pounamu (greenstone earrings). Although this issue has been repeatedly noted in discussions of Goldie’s paintings, it is still worth contextualising his work by recapitulating the prevailing Pakeha view at the turn of the 20th century that New Zealand’s indigenous people were destined for extinction or assimilation. Despite evidence of Maori regeneration, these beliefs were still prevalent in 1935 when the Auckland Star claimed that Goldie’s portraits “of Maori men and women will be ‘Old Masters’ – and connoisseurs will fight for them… when none of the race he perpetuates are here”. While Goldie’s personal position on the matter remains unknown, his portraits of Maori sitters in varying states of solemn contemplation like Ngatirea (Daydreams) did serve to illustrate the contemporary opinion that the Maori was an ill-fated race. Somewhat ironically, however, Goldie’s exacting approach to documenting what he likely thought were the last members of a ‘noble race’ has bequeathed New Zealand invaluable taonga tuku iho (prized heirlooms) that serve to record the people, material appearances and attitudes of a specific time in this country’s past.

JEMMA FIELD

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37 Brent Wong Primary Differential acrylic on board signed B Wong and dated 79 in graphite lower left; dated 1970 and inscribed ‘Primary Differential’ verso 630mm x 1087mm Estimate $70,000 - $90,000

Painted in 1970, Primary Differential is an early example of Brent Wong’s foray into a painterly world that is dominated by defiant incongruities and neatly subversive pairings, which came to characterise his style. In the present work, the viewer is calmly coaxed into the painted scene via a gently sloping array of sandy dunes in the immediate foreground. Sparsely coated with wisps of tussock grass, these sandy forms extend into the picture plane where they level out before rising steeply into sharply incised hummocks. Here, however, the everyday familiar world ends and the unexpected begins. Lying flush along the horizon line, a dilapidated concrete structure rises out of the ocean only to partly dissolve back into the sea as quietly as it emerged. Lacking the palpable solidity of the dunes or any contextual rationale, the building appears as an other-worldly, whimsical mirage. Wong’s proclivity for such chimerical pairings has much in common with the poetic, visionary works of the early 20th-century painter Giorgio de Chirico, whose works are defined by an overarching, eerie stillness. The oeuvres of both artists testify to their respective ability to weave together odd, contrary items in such an agreeable, intriguing manner that the painting is never jarring, unpleasant or wholly discordant.

Characteristically, Primary Differential is devoid of any people, yet humanity is something that Wong repeatedly insists on as he retains telling markers of human presence, progress and development. In the present work, this is provided by the architectural concrete mass. In addition to endowing Primary Differential with a lyrical dream-like quality

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and a recognisably human aspect, the building also provides an element of melancholic reflectivity as its weathered crumbling walls and rickety, decayed roof acutely highlight the immutable passage of time. Conversely though, in this visionary world of dismembered objects, it appears that time is completely absent from this motionless and silent scene. There is no indication of natural or human movement and the careful, measured strokes of paint combined with a strong, crisp, clear light convey an impression of composed tranquillity. The cloudless, azure-blue sky and the parched dunes are fixed and quiet while even the small, swelling waves appear to be momentarily suspended. Like all of Wong’s paintings from this period, the technical virtuosity in Primary Differential is impressive and serves to eloquently heighten the already-majestic sense of stationary quietude.

This hushed serenity casts Wong’s Primary Differential as a resting place for the eye, yet it simultaneously manages to be an intriguing puzzle for the mind. The disintegrating and intersecting walls and planes of the building tempt and enchant in the manner of M C Escher’s labyrinthine works.

Further enticement is found in the shaft of sunlight that extends through the domed doorway, glancing over a set of three steps as it gathers in a pool on the sandy ground.

At this point, too, Wong beckons to the spectator to take a step forward and enter into his richly coloured, powerfully pristine yet classically enigmatic world.

JEMMA FIELD

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38 Toss Woollaston Tasman Bay oil on canvas signed Woollaston and dated ‘86 in brushpoint lower right; Vavasour/Godkin Gallery label affixed verso 900mm x 1200mm Estimate $35,000 - $45,000

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39 Frances Hodgkins Sleeping Infant watercolour on paper signed Frances Hodgkins in brushpoint lower right 180mm x 260mm Estimate $15,000 - $17,000

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40 Mario CarreÑo Cielos del Sur (Southern Skies) oil on canvas signed Carreño and dated ‘50 in brushpoint upper left; Christie’s label affixed verso 863mm x 610mm PROVENANCE

Private collection, Caracas. Anon. sale, Christie’s, New York, 17 November 1994, lot 249 (illustrated in color). Acquired by the former owner from the above.

Private collection, Auckland.

REFERENCE

New York, Perls Gallery, Carreño - Recent Paintings, 2-27 January 1951, no. 2 (illustrated; also illustrated on the cover).

Havana, Lyceum, Carreño, 25 May- 4 June 1951, no. 4 (illustrated).

Havana, Instituto Nacional de Cultura, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Exposición Carreño Pinturas 1950-1957, 20 February- 17 March 1957, no. 1 (illustrated).

Estimate $70,000 - $90,000

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Mario Carreño was born in Havana in 1913 and surviving examples of the artist’s practice date back to the mid1930s. During the artist’s early adult life, he travelled extensively, living variously between Cuba and Europe until relocating to New York in 1945, where he would stay for the following five years. Throughout his life, the artist was associated with leftist politics and his early work, made prior to 1945, mirrored the concerns of prominent Mexican painter Diego Rivera. In contrast to Rivera’s murals, in which the subjects were armed with tools used for manual labour, firearms and red flags bearing the interlocked hammerand-sickle motif, Carreño approached Marxist principles in a somewhat subtler manner, simply choosing to paint scenes that depicted a traditional Cuban way of life. Without evoking revolutionary fervour, his works spoke of the importance of self-governance.

Cielos del Sur (Southern Skies) was painted after Carreño returned to Cuba in 1951. Carreño would live predominantly in South America for the remainder of his life and the works made during the 1950s, upon his return to the region, are now regarded as some of his most important. Unlike the artist’s previous works, which were burdened by his desire to conform to the ideals of European modernism, the works from the 1950s saw Carreño distil his concerns into a key set of invented signifiers. The stemmed vessels included in the lower half of Cielos del Sur appear throughout his practice of this era and endow the Cuban landscape with nurturing, life-giving properties. The constellations painted over the field of deep, ink-blue sky in the upper half of the picture plane refer both to the star formations which can be seen from Cuba and, no doubt, to the fact that the star serves of a symbol of enduring freedom in Cuban culture.

While Carreño was clearly informed by the rounded, almost rudimentary approach to figurative painting championed

by Rivera, his early practice bore the distinct influence of cubism. Throughout the 1940s, his practice would continue in its adoption of a cubist schema and, just prior to his departure for New York, he was painting with crisp, clean outlines that were akin to Picasso’s practice of the time (see Dora Maar au Chat, 1941). New York was a turning point for Carreño. The formidable legacy of resident abstractionists such as Piet Mondrian and László MoholyNagy, heralded a new era in Carreño’s practice where he moved away from reacting to three-dimensional space and increasingly relied on flat colour and geometric form.

While, at the time of his death in 1999, Carreño was a little-known figure in his native Cuba, his work is held in a number of significant public collections including: Museum of Modern Art, New York; Metropolitan Museum and Art Center, Florida; Museo Nacional de Ballas Artes, Chile; and Museo de Bellas Artes de la Habana, Cuba. In addition to this, Carreño was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1956 and exhibited in the first São Paulo Biennial in 1951 and the 26th Venice Biennale in 1952.

CHARLES NINOW

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41 Peter Robinson Marriage Vows acrylic and oil stick on paper signed Peter Robinson and dated 2002 in pencil lower right 1360mm x 1000mm Estimate $18,000 - $25,000

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42 Milan Mrkusich Achromatic, Dark I acrylic and canvas signed Mrkusich, dated ‘77 and inscribed Acromatic, Dark I in brushpoint verso; inscribed Show Bg, One Man Show 1980, View 5 21st April - 1st May on label affixed verso 1760mm x 1430mm Estimate $55,000 - $75,000

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43 Richard Killeen

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44 Bill Hammond

Ladybird Question

Show Business

pigment ink, turps based acrylic and resin varnish on canvas signed Killeen, dated 2004 and inscribed Ladybird Question in ink lower right; printed artist’s label affixed verso reads Richard Killeen, catalogue number 3740, Ladybird Question 2004, pigment ink, turps based acrylic, resin varnish on canvas, 708mm x 708mm 708mm x 708mm

oil on canvas signed W.D. Hammond, dated 1990 and inscribed Show Business in brushpoint, upper edge; inscribed Bill Hammond contemporary painting masterpeice, 1990 private collection in another hand verso 593mm x 493mm

Estimate $10,000 - $15,000

Estimate $12,000 - $18,000

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45 Max Gimblett Transcending The Dust Of The World - After Shih T’ao! gesso, acrylic, vinyl polymers, epoxy and Swiss gold leaf on canvas signed © Max Gimblett, dated 2008 and inscribed “Transcending The Dust Of The World - After Shih-Tao!”. Water Is Never Clumsy.

Palladium - P5635 in brushpoint on stretcher verso 1775mm x 1775mm Estimate $50,000 - $70,000

Based in New York for the past 40 years, Max Gimblett has established himself as New Zealand’s premier expat expressionist. He has earned this reputation by diligently exploring the possibilities of a streamlined formal vocabulary in which Eastern mysticism and Western abstraction intersect, often with eye-catching results.

Transcending The Dust Of The World - After Shih-Tao! is an excellent example of the artist’s distinctive style.

Painted in 2008, its lineage lies in a series of works Gimblett displayed in the Guggenheim Museum’s exhibition The Third Mind: American Artists Contemplate Asia. The piece is achieved with a typically stripped-back palette of subtle greys and dense blacks, with flourishes of Swiss gold leaf floating atop an epoxied surface. Like all great abstract paintings, Transcending The Dust Of The World evokes rather than represents its subject matter. Its title refers to the 17th-century landscape painter and poet Shih-Tao, and the abstracted forms within it follow the traditions of the Chinese master to whom it is dedicated. Black ribbons of paint snake across a gesso ground, approximating the mountain ranges that frequently populate the work of Gimblett’s artistic forebear. A Zen Buddhist, Gimblett’s belief in reincarnation is well known, and here he presents in paint a conversation that spans the centuries.

Equally, the work’s origins might be traced to the abstract expressionists who dominated American art in the middle of the 20th century. Like the paintings of Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell and Clyfford Still, Gimblett’s piece is gestural, viscerally evoking the artist’s act of creation. The

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work also makes manifest Gimblett’s long-standing interest in calligraphy, first piqued in childhood and later developed with an eye to the masters of the East. Here his forms weave across the surface like curious characters: the result of an assured hand capable of both fluidity and power.

Perhaps due to Gimblett’s background in pottery, Transcending The Dust Of The World is as sculptural as it is painterly. No reproduction can adequately simulate the way that light animates the work – to obtain its full effect, viewers must approach the painting and absorb themselves in its presence. They will then notice that the Swiss gold leaf shifts in hue from silver, to green, to gold, as the eye traces its textured surface. All the while, black swathes of acrylic paint twist and turn below: free-floating forms locked in suspended animation. Transcending The Dust Of The World presents an ambiguous pictorial space, an untethered perspective in which its composite elements move forward or back at the mercy of the viewer’s perception, creating a dynamic relationship between figure and ground.

Indeed, this is a painting of and about relationships: not only between figure and ground, but between tradition and change, forebear and follower and, most especially, between artwork and viewer. Like all good art Transcending The Dust Of The World is a work which encourages the development of a relationship over time. Like all good art, it doesn’t reveal itself at once but slowly, seductively, layer by layer.

MATT PLUMMER

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46 Bill Hammond Bobby’s Alright oil on aluminium signed W. Hammond, dated 1986 and inscribed Bobby’s Alright in brushpoint lower edge 480mm x 780mm Estimate $13,000 - $18,000

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47 Bill Hammond Knocking on the Locker 3, Sea Bird pencil, ink and acrylic on paper signed W.D. Hammond and dated 1990 and inscribed Knocking on the Locker 3. Sea Bird in pencil upper left 710mm x 1500mm Estimate $10,000 - $15,000

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48 Toss Woollaston Mapua oil on board signed Woollaston in brushpoint lower left; signed Woollaston and inscribed 66/178 in brushpoint and III Ex 3 $84 in pencil verso 610mm x 632mm Estimate $20,000 - $30,000

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49 Karl Maughan Green Road oil on canvas signed K.M, dated 12th Sept 2007 and inscribed “Green Road” in brushpoint verso 1065mm x 1065mm Estimate $13,000 - $16,000

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50 Ralph Hotere

51 Ralph Hotere

Song Cycle

Test Piece

watercolour and acrylic on paper signed Hotere and dated ‘75 in ink lower edge 375mm x 277mm

brolite enamel on hardboard signed Ralph Hotere, dated ‘77 and inscribed Port Chalmers, ‘Test Piece’ and BLG Cat. No. 3 in brushpoint verso 760mm x 575mm

Estimate $10,000 - $15,000

PROVENANCE

Purchased by the current owner from Barry Lett Gallery, circa 1977.

Estimate $35,000 - $45,000

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75

52 Jeffrey Harris

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53 Nigel Brown

War

XVII Table Series

acrylic and water based media on board signed Jeffrey Harris, dated April-June 1970 and inscribed War, No. 11, $60, 48x48 in marker pen verso 1200mm x 1200mm

oil on board signed Nigel Brown, dated ‘75 and inscribed XVII Table Series Auck in brushpoint verso 1190mm x 760mm

Estimate $30,000 - $40,000

Estimate $12,000 - $18,000

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54 Ralph Hotere Red Over Brown brolite lacquer on board signed Hotere and dated ‘69 and inscribed Red Over Brown in brushpoint verso 1200mm x 603mm Estimate $60,000 - $80,000

Painted with meticulous precision, Ralph Hotere’s Red Over Brown from 1969 resonates with a richness of potential symbolism, association and allegory. The compositional simplicity of the piece channels the viewer’s focus to the materiality of the work and the delicate balance that Hotere weaves between the sleek, glossy fragments and the two areas of scumbled, painterly marks. Executed with silky swathes of brolite lacquer on hardboard, Red Over Brown is punctuated by two thinly incised circles that extend to the outer reaches of the work before coming together to briefly touch at the mid-point of the painting. Featuring a soft shade of burnished auburn, the background plane is finished with a highly polished, seductive surface that is completely devoid of any textural or figurative detailing.

This is not an empty void, however; as in Hotere’s other lacquer works, part of the enticing beauty of the present painting is that it interacts with its immediate environment.

Registering shifts in light and changes in time, and reflecting the presence of objects that are in close proximity to it, the surface of Red Over Brown is constantly changing as it forms and reforms a fragile and transient dialogue with the world beyond.

Hotere’s use of the circle furnishes the painting with a host of possible significance and meanings. As a timehonoured symbol of unity, new life, regeneration, wholeness and infinity, the circle is a potent motif that crosses the boundaries of culture, geography and even time. It seems to have held a personal significance for Hotere as it has repeatedly punctuated his oeuvre, appearing in the Black Paintings of the late 1960s, dominating the entire series of the Malady paintings from the early 1970s and reappearing

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in such monumental pieces as The Flight of the Godwit from 1977. In all of these works and in Red Over Brown, Hotere’s use of the circle remains elusive and enigmatic. It functions as a visually and symbolically compelling motif and yet without prescription; it serves to open Hotere’s paintings to a host of discursive nexus and personal interpretations.

Perhaps that is part of their lyrical charm.

On a formal level, the two circles serve to energise and illuminate the painting as their mottled interiors contain an embedded lustre. In this manner, while the smooth, glassy portion of Red Over Brown successfully elicits a level of dynamism from the external world, the two orbs, by contrast, demarcate sections of robust internal activity.

The top sphere is almost completely engulfed by a flurry of burnt-umber marks, which are then repeated in a central band that branches across the lower circle. The raw vitality of these dappled segments strikes a discreet and restorative balance with the elegant and glossy surround.

As such, like all of Hotere’s lacquer paintings, the graceful honeyed depths of Red Over Brown visually accommodate and reflect the spectator while the inclusion of shadowy passages encourages metaphorical considerations. The divergence in treatment and the layers of meaning that are present in Red Over Brown, speak volumes about Hotere’s mastery of formalist elements such as paint and compositional structure, while also underscoring his unique ability to understand and communicate the beauty and importance of silence, intrigue and individual contemplation.

JEMMA FIELD

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55 Milan Mrkusich Themes and Variations II oil on canvas signed M. Mrkusich, dated 1966 in brushpoint and inscribed Themes and Variations II in pencil and (5) in brushpoint; Peter Webb Galleries Label affixed verso 1165mm x 1165mm Estimate $30,000 - $50,000

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56 Gordon Walters Rauponga acrylic on canvas signed G. Walters, dated ‘84 and inscribed No.1 in ink on canvas upper edge verso 910mm x 690mm Estimate $35,000 - $45,000

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57

58

59

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57 Jim Dine Red Robe (A Pure Self Portrait) lithograph on paper, state proof signed Jim Dine and dated 1969 in pencil lower left 1340mm x 970mm Estimate $6,000 - $8,000

58 Jim Dine Bathrobe etching on paper, 17/60 signed Jim Dine and dated 1975 in pencil lower edge 890mm x 610mm Estimate $5,500 - $7,000

59 Jim Dine Souvenir etching on handmade paper, 12/75 signed Jim Dine, dated 1979 in pencil lower edge and inscribed Souvenir on plate 780mm x 570mm Estimate $2,000 - $3,000

60 Jim Dine Begonia etching on paper, 12/55 signed Jim Dine, dated 1975 and inscribed Begonia in pencil upper right 900mm x 600mm Estimate $2,000 - $3,000

61 Andy Warhol Campbell’s Soup Can II - Hot Dog Bean screenprint on paper, 1969 signed Andy Warhol in ink verso, Christie’s and Martin Lawrence limited editions inc. labels affixed verso 885mm x 580mm PROVENANCE

Christie’s Sale 7419, 19 September 2007, Old Master, 19th Century, Modern and Contemporary Prints.

REFERENCE

II.59, Feldman & Schellmann Estimate $18,000 - $25,000

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62 Tony de Lautour Trance acrylic on unstretched canvas signed, Tony de Lautour, dated 2007 in brush point lower right, and inscribed Trance within the composition in acrylic upper left 2000mm x 2830mm Estimate $40,000 - $50,000

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63 Jeffery Harris Three Figures in a Landscape oil on board signed Jeffrey Harris, dated November 1971 and inscribed Three Figures in a Landscape, oil on board, Interior for Joanna in ink, upper edge verso; signed Jeffrey Harris, dated November 1971 and inscribed Sea Cliff on label affixed verso 750mm x 1210mm Estimate $18,000 - $25,000

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64

65

64 Jude Rae

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65 Robert Ellis

Untitled

No.14 Motorway/City

acrylic on 3 stretched canvases together with applied cotton thread on stretched brocade fabric circa 1990 325mm x 270mm each (4)

oil on board signed Robert Ellis and dated 1968 in brushpoint lower left; signed Robert Ellis, dated 1969 ‘Auckland Festival’ and inscribed No. 14, Motorway/City 59 x 59cms and P.O. 2175, Auckland N.Z in brushpoint verso 570mm x 570mm

Estimate $6,000 - $9,000

Estimate $6,000 - $8,000

66 Dick Frizzell All Is Number oil on 6 stretched canvases signed Frizzell, dated 29/9/98 and inscribed All is Number in brushpoint lower left 1830mm x 1210mm (overall) ILLUSTRATED

Frizzell, Dick. Dick Frizzell - The Painter. Godwit/Random House: Auckland, 2009, p 195.

Estimate $15,000 - $20,000

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67 Laurence William Wilson Mt Avalanche, Matukituki River, Otago oil on canvas signed L. W. Wilson and inscribed Mt Avalanche, Matukituki River, Otago in brushpoint lower left 480mm x 740mm Estimate $10,000 - $15,000

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68 Laurence William Wilson Lake Pukahi and Mount Cook, Mackenzie Country oil on canvas signed L. W. Wilson, dated 1903 and inscribed Lake Pukahi and Mount Cook, Mackenzie Country in brushpoint lower left 500mm x 750mm Estimate $7,000 - $10,000

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69 Petrus van der Velden

70 Petrus van der Velden

Church is Out

Peasant Girl with Her Suitor (Sweethearts)

oil on canvas signed P van der Velden in brushpoint lower right 870mm x 1120mm

oil on canvas on board inscribed Farmhand Courting the Kitchen Maid in pen in another hand verso 1090mm x 705mm

PROVENANCE

PROVENANCE

Formerly in the collections of Mr & Mrs R. G. Ingham, Kaiapoi, Mrs A. Reeves, Nelson, Mrs A. Fisher and Mr G. van Asch, Christchurch.

Formerly in the collections of Mrs N. N. Downes, Christchurch, Mr W. S. Blaikie, Timaru.

ILLUSTRATED

South Canterbury Art Loan Exhibition, November 9 - 19 1961, catalogue no. 62.

Auckland Art Gallery, 1947, catalogue no. 47.

Petrus van der Velden (1837 - 1913), A Catalogue Raisonné, T. L. Rodney Wilson, Chancery Chambers, 1979, Volume II, catalouge no. 1.2.2.36, pg 40.

REFERENCE

ibid, Volume I, pg 19.

Estimate $35,000 - $55,000

EXHIBITED

ILLUSTRATED

Petrus van der Velden (1837 - 1913) A Catalogue Raisonné, T. L. Rodney Wilson, Chancery Chambers, 1979, Volume II, catalogue no. 1.4.2.15, pg 80. Auckland Art Gallery, 1959 exhibition catalogue, pg 25, not exhibited.

Estimate $12,000 - $18,000

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71 Peter McIntyre

73 Petrus van der Velden

Ahuriri River

Double Blank

watercolour on paper signed Peter McIntyre in brushpoint, lower right 710mm x 520mm

oil on canvas signed P. d. v. Velden lower left 700mm x 930mm

Estimate $12,000 - $18,000

PROVENANCE

72 Petrus van der Velden Dutch Interior watercolour on paper certificate of authenticity from H. Fisher and Son affixed verso, signed by J.R. Fisher 355mm x 520mm Estimate $5,000 - $7,000

“Double Blank is a painting from van der Velden’s series of Marken subjects, first painted during the 1870s under the influence of Josef Israels. The subject is identical to another paintings of the same subject referenced in the catalogue raisonné on the artist’s work, catalogue no. 1.2.2.22. The paintings are virtually identical although this work is smaller than the work illustrated in the catalogue and differently signed. The painting exhibits all the traits of van der Velden in the 1870s both in terms of facial characteristics of the two principal figures, and in the choice of palette and paint application. The signature is of a type frequently encountered in works from the mid and late 70s. I am satisfied that the painting Double Blank is a second version of 1.2.2.22 in my book and is an original work by Petrus van der Velden”.

Extract from a letter of authenticity by Dr. T. L. Rodney Wilson affixed verso.

Dr. Wilson author of Petrus van der Velden (1837 - 1913) A Catalogue Raisonné, 1979) ESTIMATE $20,000 - $30,000

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72

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74 Philip Clairmont Portrait of an Unhealthy Masochist pencil and indian ink on paper signed P. Clairmont, inscribed Portrait of an Unhealthy Masochist and Based on Bosch & with a dedication to Tony Fomison in pencil upper edge 715mm x 1080mm Estimate $15,000 - $20,000

75 Tony Fomison Untitled oil on canvas board FHE Gallery label affixed verso 400mm x 300mm Estimate $12,000 - $18,000

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95

76

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76 John Walsh

Untitled (Inanga)

oil on board signed J. Walsh dated 2002 and inscribed Too Much Culture, Can’t Hear in pencil verso 830mm x 1230mm

oil on canvas signed Walsh and dated 2005 in pencil, lower right verso 800mm x 1800mm

Estimate $14,000 - $18,000

96

77 John Walsh

Too Much Culture, Can’t Hear

Estimate $14,000 - $18,000

78 Jeffrey Harris Standing Figure pastel on paper signed Jeffrey Harris and dated ‘83 in pencil lower right 1120mm x 800mm Estimate $6,000 - $9,000

97

79 Jane Evans Three Men at a Bar oil on board signed Jane Evans and dated ‘74 in brushpoint lower right 1055mm x 905mm Estimate $8,000 - $10,000

98

80

81

80 Lawrence Aberhart

81 Martin Ball

Taranaki (Afterglow into the Night)

Carey’s Bay 2000 VI

gelatin silver print signed Laurence Aberhart, dated 19 November 2002 and inscribed Taranaki (Afterglow into the Night) in ink lower edge 190mm x 240mm

oil on canvas signed Martin Ball, dated ‘08 and inscribed Carey’s Bay 2000 VI in brushpoint verso 510mm x 610mm

Estimate $4,000 - $6,000

Estimate $5,000 - $6,000

99

82 Greer Twiss Acrobat lost wax cast bronze dated 1963 and inscribed Acrobat in brushpoint underside of base 345mm x 310mm x 140mm Estimate $2,000 - $4,000

83 Max Gimblett Chorus water gilded itali gold and lacquer on shaped timber support signed Max Gimblett, dated 1994 and inscribed “Chorus”, 9/94 water gilded 23 3/4 Ital. gold/ lacquer in brushpoint verso 500mm x 310mm Estimate $9,000 - $12,000

84 Philip Clairmont Untitled oil on board signed PST with artist’s initials and dated 1975 in oil pastel lower right 370mm x 220mm Estimate $4,500 - $6,500

85 Jeffrey Harris Two Figures in a Landscape 82

oil on board 640mm x 770mm Estimate $3,000 - $5,000

100

83

84

85

101

CONDITIONS of sale for buyers

1. Bidding. The highest bidder shall be the purchaser subject to the auctioneer having the right to refuse the bid of any person.

Should any dispute arise as to the bidding, the lot in dispute will be immediately put up for sale again at the preceding bid, or the auctioneer may declare the purchaser, which declaration shall be conclusive. No person shall advance less at a bid than the sum nominated by the auctioneer, and no bid may be retracted.

at the same or any other auction.

2. Reserves. All lots are sold subject to the right of the seller or her/his agent to impose a reserve.

C. To resell the lot by public or private sale. Any deficiency resulting from such resale, after giving credit to the purchaser for any part payment, together with all costs incurred in connection with the lot shall be paid to Webb’s by the purchaser. Any surplus over the proceeds of sale shall belong to the seller and in this condition the expression ‘proceeds of sale’ shall have the same meaning in relation to a sale by private treaty as it has in relation to a sale by auction.

3. Registration. Purchasers shall complete a bidding card before the sale giving their own correct name, address and telephone number. It is accepted by bidders that the supply of false information on a bidding card shall be interpreted as deliberate fraud.

D. To store the lot whether at Webb’s own premises or elsewhere at the sole expense of the purchaser and to release the lot only after the purchase price has been paid in full plus the accrued cost of removal storage and all other costs connected to the lot.

4. Buyer’s Premium. The purchaser accepts that in addition to the hammer or selling price Webb’s will apply a buyer’s premium of 15% for the Important Paintings and Contemporary Art sale, (unless otherwise stated), together with GST on such premiums.

E. To charge interest on the purchase price at a rate 2% above Webb’s bankers’ then current rate for commercial overdraft facilities, to the extent that the price or any part of it remains unpaid for more than seven days from the date of the sale.

5. Payment. Payment for all items purchased is due on the day of sale immediately following completion of the sale.

F. To retain possession of that or any other lot purchased by the purchaser at that or any other auction and to release the same only after payment of money due.

If full payment cannot be made on the day of sale a deposit of 10% of the total sum due must be made on the day of sale and the balance must be paid within 5 working days.

Payment is by cash, bank cheque or Eftpos. Personal and private cheques will be accepted but must be cleared before goods will be released. Credit cards are not accepted.

6. Lots sold as Viewed. All lots are sold as viewed and with all erros in description, faults and imperfections whether visible or not. Neither Webb’s nor its vendor are responsible for errors in description or for the genuineness or authenticity of any lot or for any fault or defect in it. No warranty whatsoever is made. Buyers proceed upon their own judgement.

Buyers shall be deemed to have inspected the lots, or to have made enquiries to their complete satisfaction, prior to sale and by the act of bidding shall be deemed to be satisfied with the lots in all respects.

7. Webb’s Act as Agents. They have full discretion to conduct all aspects of the sale and to withdraw any lot from the sale without giving any reason.

8. Collection. Purchases are to be taken away at the buyer’s expense immediately after the sale except where a cheque remains uncleared. If this is not done Webb’s will not be responsible if the lot is lost, stolen, damaged or destroyed.

Any items not collected within seven days of the auction may be subject to a storage and insurance fee. A receipted invoice must be produced prior to removal of any lot.

9. Licences. Buyers who purchase an item which falls within the provisions of the Protected Objects Act 1975 or the Arms Act 1958 cannot take possession of that item until they have shown to Webb’s a license under the appropriate Act. 10. Failure to make Payment. If a purchaser fails either to pay for or take away any lot, Webb’s shall without further notice to the purchaser, at its absolute discretion and without prejudice to any other rights or remedies it may have, be entitled to exercise one or more of the following rights or remedies: A. To issue proceeding against the purchaser for damages for breach of contract.

B. To rescind the sale of that or any other lot sold to the purchaser

102 102

G. To apply the proceeds of sale of any lot then or subsequently due to the purchaser towards settlement of money due to Webb’s or its vendor. Webb’s shall be entitled to a possessory lien on any property of the purchaser for any purpose while any monies remain unpaid under this contract.

H. To apply any payment made by the purchaser to Webb’s towards any money owing to Webb’s in respect of any thing whatsoever irrespective of any directive given in respect of, or restriction placed upon, such payment by the purchaser whether expressed or implied.

I. Title and right of disposal of the goods shall not pass to the purchaser until payment has been made in full by cleared funds.

Where any lot purchased is held by Webb’s pending i. clearance of funds by the purchaser or ii. completion of payment after receipt of a deposit, the lot will be held by Webb’s as bailee for the vendor, risk and title passing to the purchaser immediately upon notification of clearance of funds or upon completion of purchase. In the event that a lot is lost, stolen, damaged or destroyed before title is transferred to the purchaser, the purchaser shall be entitled to a refund of all monies paid to Webb’s in respect of that lot, but shall not be entitled to any compensation for any consequent losses howsoever arising.

11. Bidders deemed Principals. All bidders shall be held personally and solely liable for all obligations arising from any bid, including both ‘telephone’ and ‘absentee’ bids. Any person wishing to bid as agent for a third party must obtain written authority to do so from Webb’s prior to bidding.

12. ‘Subject Bids’. Where the highest bid is below the reserve and the auctioneer declares a sale to be ‘subject to vendor’s consent’ or words to that effect, the highest bid remains binding upon the bidder until the vendor accepts or rejects it. If the bid is accepted there is a contractual obligation upon the bidder to pay for the lot.

13. SALES POST AUCTION OR BY PRIVATE TREATY. The above conditions shall apply to all buyers of goods from Webb’s irrespective of the circumstances under which the sale is negotiated.

14. condition of Items. Condition of items is not detailed in this catalogue. Buyers must satisfy themselves as to the condition of lots they bid on and should refer to clause six. Webb’s are pleased to provide intending buyers with condition reports on any lots.

A2 ART This sale will present the market with a quality offering of artworks that hold values of between $1,000 and $20,000.

With a focus on contemporary graphics and smaller format works by leading modern and contemporary artists, there has been a significant rise in collectors’ interest in these sales. Entries are

CONSIGN NOW Contact Charles Ninow E: cninow@webbs.co.nz P: 09 529 5601 M: 029 770 4767

Bill Hammond Singer Songwriter II, lithograph. Estimate $3,500 - $4,500

currently invited for the forthcoming auction to be held on 15 May.

MAY 15

103

INDEX OF ARTISTS

Aberhart, Lawrence Angus, Rita

80 18

Ball, Martin Binney, Don Blomfield, Charles Brown, Nigel

81 20 32 53

Killeen, Richard Leek, Saskia

Carre単o, Mario Clairmont, Philip

40 29, 74, 84

de Lautour, Tony Dibble, Paul Dine, Jim

62 9 57, 58, 59, 60

Ellis, Robert Evans, Jane Fomison , Tony Frizzell, Dick Gimblett, Max Goldie, Charles Frederick

65 79 12, 17, 14, 75, 4, 66 45, 83 24, 36

Maughan, Karl McCahon, Colin McIntyre, Peter McLeod, Andrew Mrkusich, Milan

Hanly, Pat Harris, Jeffery Heaphy, Chris Hodgkins, Frances Hotere, Ralph Hoyte, John Barr Clarke Illingworth, Michael

104

19, 23, 28, 34, 44, 46, 47 21 52, 63, 78, 85 2 33, 39 25, 31, 50, 51, 54 35 22

1 49 30 71 3 42, 55

Page, Evelyn Parekowhai, Michael

26 16

Rae, Jude Robinson, Peter

64 41

Smither, Michael Stevenson, Michael Stichbury, Peter Twiss, Greer van der Velden, Petrus

Hammond, Bill

43

Walsh, John Walters, Gordon Warhol, Andy Wilson, Laurence William Wolfe, Emily Wong, Brent Woollaston, Toss

27 10, 11 5, 6, 7, 8 82 69, 70, 72, 73 76, 77 15, 56 61 67, 68 13 37 38, 48

105

IMPORTANT PAINTINGS &CONTEMPORARYART