Important Paintings and Contemporary Art
emblematic engagement with New Zealand topography, the terrain having been deconstructed and stacked horizontally. A number of the sale’s standout works also provide insight into the diverse role of portraiture in the production of New Zealand contemporary art. An important early work by Liz Maw, Aura, is an alluring portrait which encompasses Maw’s postmodern/ post-feminist discourse in the form of a modern-day cerulean goddess, whilst Rohan Wealleans’ brilliant local Mondrian adaptation, Grey Lynn Boogie Woogie, offers a tantalisingly tactile local geographic portrait. The parameters of portraiture are boldly grappled with in Michael Parekowhai’s Elmer Keith photograph from the celebrated series The Beverly Hills Gun Club, whilst the dreamlike magnificence of Seraphine Pick’s 1950s’ portrait, Careworn, represents the profound potential for psychological depth within the tradition of contemporary portraiture in New Zealand.
Lot 38. Liz Maw, Aura
presented in a villa sash window frame which comes from the family of the late Rodney Kirk-Smith, director of Auckland’s RKS Art gallery and the artist’s dealer and friend; and a pair of Hotere Song Cycle banners bearing Hone Tuwhare’s poem No Ordinary Sun alongside works by Dick Frizzell, Milan Mrkusich, Allen Maddox and Don Binney. We are also delighted to present a strong body of early-20th-century New Zealand practice, including a superb work by Charles Frederick Goldie, dated 1915, and depicting one of his favoured subjects: Wiripine Ninia, a Ngati Awa chieftainess. Further significant historical works in the sale include an important 1913 Charles Blomfield painting, White Terraces, and a majestic watercolour by John Barr Clarke Hoyte.
32
CATALOGUE 357
Contemporary Curatorship The analytical eye for, and the continual rediscovery of, the New Zealand landscape by contemporary artists is manifested in a number of the highcalibre works in this sale. Take, for example, the two striking works by the ever-diverse Andrew McLeod; the magnificent Seascape is a sublime expression of his artistic splendour on a large scale, whilst Golden Landscape, a 2009 work, combines the enigmatic and the romantic in a quintessentially McLeodian juxtaposition of the New Zealand landscape. A Bill Hammond painting, Moa Hunter Cave (2009), further engages with this theme, imagining a gorgeously dark and gold-illuminated New Zealand wilderness in a predatory narrative. Meanwhile, Shane Cotton’s Kiddy Kiddy offers a densely intricate and
Included amongst the sale’s numerous other standout contemporary works are John Pule’s Tau Malal, an untitled work by Peter Robinson, and a largescale work by Bill Hammond which has an emerald-green palette and is from the highly regarded Zoomorphic series. Two dynamic works comprise the sculptural constituent of this sale: a significant installation work by Greer Twiss, consisting of seven lead and timber components, which will be the
Lot 42. Charles F Goldie, Memories, Wiripine Ninia, a Ngati Awa Chieftainess