Works of Art, March 2022

The New Bentayga Speed.

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The name ‘Bentley’ and the ‘B’ in wings device are registered trademarks. © 2022 Bentley Motors Limited. Model shown: New Bentayga Speed.

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Veuve Clicquot

La GRANDE DAME

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Dom Pérignon / Krug / Ruinart / Veuve Clicquot La Grande Dame / Maison Vauron / Craggy Range

LA PERLA,

GIVENCHY, LOEWE, ALEXANDRE VAUTHIER,

GIUSEPPE ZANOTTI, & LOVE OBJECT, HERMETICA, DADELSZEN, GINORI 1735, SAVED NY, STORIES OF ITALY, DINA BROADHURST, BORDELLE, GRACE & FLORA, CHRISTIAN ALAÏA, XERJOFF, ROJA DOVE, Z.D.G by ZOË DE GIVENCHY, EMMA LEWISHAM

LOUBOUTIN,

No. 8

Faraday Street Parnell

www.faradays.store

Marac Furniture and Novocuadro art, exclusive to Sarsfield Brooke Showroom open for public viewing Purchasing facilitated through design professionals only Level 2, 155 – 165 The Strand, Parnell, Auckland Phone 09 377 1502 | sarsfieldbrooke.co.nz

Modern, bespoke kitchen design demands the finest appliances. At the UnserHaus showroom and event space you can experience three premium German brands, all under one roof. It’s a place to play, touch, connect and enjoy – you’ll leave feeling inspired.

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Every great city has a great Art Gallery and every great Art Gallery has a strong Foundation

Auckland Art Gallery Foundation is dedicated to helping Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki to be a thriving, thought-provoking visual arts platform for the benefit of generations to come.

To find out more about supporting Auckland Art Gallery Foundation

the Foundation, please contact foundation@aagfoundation.nz

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The Point Pendant, designed by Alex Buckman. cittadesign.com • @citta

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Come and visit our store before, or after, your next Webb’s viewing.

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Collector in Conversation

Murdoch Razmi Managing Partner, Powerhouse

Murdoch Razmi started collecting art quite recently, having been exposed to great pieces by those in his close network.

What do you do?

What’s a work you feel connected to?

I’m Managing Partner at Powerhouse, a digital performance marketing agency based on the North Shore in Auckland.

IO by Wayne Youle. I was introduced to his work by my business partner. This piece hung in his office and is so powerful. It’s command of my attention cemented my desire to own it.

How did you start collecting?

Art was always around me growing up but I never really got drawn in until quite recently. I work in quite a fast paced environment that is very results-driven, so it took me having to really slow down to appreciate great works.

My first was a Mark Cowden piece called Red Cross which we passed by in a Queenstown gallery the day my wife and I got engaged. It blew my mind just how amazing it looked at different angles. I took it to the office with me a week later so I could enjoy it every day.

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March

It only took the better part of a year reminding him that I had an empty wall perfect for this piece in my home office (which was completely intentional) and he finally caved.

Why is art important to you?

Because it’s limitless. It knows no boundaries.

There’s no wrong or right. When my day is full of rigid routine and numbers, art helps me find my zone and think critically and creatively.

30

Lighting and Objects

Ponsonby, Auckland goodform.co.nz

Karimoku Case Study

15 Williamson Ave,

N-SS01 Shelving System

Designed by Norm Architects

Designer Furniture,

Colophon

Publishing Details Printer Crucial Colour 24 Fairfax Avenue Penrose Auckland 1061

Edition of 6,000 Offset printed, 144 pages 120gsm Laser Uncoated 150gsm Matt Art 6 fold-out sections

Freely distributed to subscribers or available at select public art spaces and hospitality venues.

Publishing Contacts Head Office Paul Evans Managing Director paul@webbs.co.nz +64 21 866 000

Christine Kearney General Manager christine@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5604

Advertising + PR

Creative Direction

Holly Hart Jenkins Partnerships Manager holly@webbs.co.nz +64 27 557 5925

Imogen Temm Head of Creative design@webbs.co.nz +64 21 111 9146

Art Department Auckland

Wellington

Charles Ninow Director of Art charles@webbs.co.nz +64 21 053 6504

Adrienne (AD) Schierning Head of Art ad@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5609

Tasha Jenkins Specialist, Art tasha@webbs.co.nz +64 22 595 5610

Carey Young Specialist, Art carey@webbs.co.nz +64 21 368 348

Julian McKinnon Content & Research editor@webbs.co.nz +64 21 113 5001

Charles Tongue Valuations Specialist valuations@webbs.co.nz +64 22 406 5514

Connie Dwyer Administrator, Art connie@webbs.co.nz +64 9 529 5600

David Maskill Specialist, Art david@webbs.co.nz +64 27 256 0900

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March

32

Table of Contents

Journal 34 Foreword 52 Programme 55 List of Essays

56

Plates 57

Webb's

Terms & Conditions

141

Index of Artists

143

2022

33

One of a Kind: The NFT Phenomenon

Rupert Farnall Studios, Charles Frederick Goldie in His Studio price realised. $76,250 (incl. BP).

Webb's

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34

“This is an excellent example of the special qualities of old technology meeting, and being and enhanced by, cutting-edge contemporary technologies and media formats,” — Charles Ninow, Director of Art In early 2022, Webb’s became the first New Zealand auction house to have hosted an NFT sale. Charles Goldie: One of a Kind closed on February 1, and it saw remarkably competitive bidding on the two lots it offered. The auction presented two unique digital tokens derived from vintage glass-plate negatives depicting Charles F. Goldie in his studio. The buyer received the tokens together with the glass plates and photographic prints taken from the plates.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, are a recent phenomenon in the art market. They hit the headlines in March 2021 when an NFT, titled Everydays: the First 5000 Days, by US digital artist Michael Winkelmann (known professionally as Beeple) sold on-line through Christie’s New York for a staggering US$69,400,000. Beeple produces daily digital artworks – his Everydays series. In the case of Everydays: the First 5000 Days, a collage image of the first 5000 of these images, was tokenised and presented for sale. What the buyer acquired was an NFT that captures a snapshot of a 13-year period of the artist’s creative output.

It takes some doing to get one’s head around the NFT phenomenon. On one level, it can be viewed as the inevitable outcome of the Conceptual Art movement that began in the 1970s in the wake of Marcel Duchamp and his readymades from a much earlier period. For conceptual artists, the artwork is the idea not the object. Yet, even the most conceptual artwork, in the traditional sense of the term, leaves a physical trace in the form of an object or documentary evidence.

What makes NFTs different is that they cannot be seen, held, or displayed except in the digital. The human eye cannot “see” a digital code as anything more than a string of numbers and symbols. We rely on our digital devices to render these numbers and symbols and make them visible to us.

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2022

This has enormous implications for the art world and the institutions and individuals that serve it. Public art institutions are already seeing the possibilities of NFTs for commercial gain. The British Museum, Tate Britain, the Hermitage and various Italian museums have already “minted” NFTs of works in their collections to raise much needed revenue in the wake of the pandemic’s impact on visitor numbers. What the buyers get is basically a very expensive postcard, albeit one that they can then sell on. The museums retain ownership of the original and all reproduction rights. This is a model that has parallels to trading cards or collectible prints.

Webb’s foray into the market for NFTs is a bold move, into a new frontier of art and technology. It is our opinion that NFTs need to be underwritten by artistic worth to ensure their continuing market value in the future. auckland Charles Ninow Director of Art charles@webbs.co.nz +64 21 053 6504

Adrienne (AD) Schierning Head of Art ad@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5609

Tasha Jenkins Specialist, Art tasha@webbs.co.nz +64 22 595 5610

Julian McKinnon Content & Research editor@webbs.co.nz +64 21 113 5001

wellington Carey Young Specialist, Art carey@webbs.co.nz +64 21 368 348

David Maskill Specialist, Art david@webbs.co.nz +64 27 256 0900 35

1970 Ford XW Falcon GT-HO Phase II est. $400,000 - $450,000 price eealised $414,000 (incl. BP)

Rise and Rise: Aussie Muscle Cars The late 1960s and 1970s was a time of great economic, political, social and technological change for both sides of the Tasman. In New Zealand, recession loomed, protests were rife and fuel was scarce. In Australia, coalitions ended, scandals were plentiful and oil was on a global embargo.

On the plus side, life was simpler back then. Mullets were a thing of beauty and more importantly, the Aussie Muscle cars era had just begun.

Everyday Australians were starting to take interest in motorsport with the commencement of the Armstrong 500 and the Australian Touring Car Championship. The former introduced the public to the marketing hype around ‘win on Sunday, sell on Monday’. Performance cars like the Ford Cortina GT500 and Holden S4 started popping up on people’s radar, and in many ways these vehicles paved the way for Aussie Muscle cars that followed.

In 1966, two important things happened, there was the launch of the ‘Mustang-bred’ XR Ford Falcon with an optional 289ci Windsor V8, and a Mini won Bathurst. On the face of it they may seem unrelated. However, the Cooper S winning the Bathurst 500 incensed Ford, who then commissioned a civilian version of the Police Interceptor Pack Falcon. Just like that the first Australian muscle car was born - the Falcon XR GT. Webb's

March

1972 Ford Fairmont XYGT Shaker est. $120,000 – $150,000 price realised. $221,375 (incl. BP)

36

“In 1969, when the [Phase I] HO was launched. And I said to the director of marketing at the time, ‘Man, who’s going to pay $4500 for a Falcon?’ And he said, ‘You’ll be surprised, Allan ...’ Unfortunately, I wasn’t surprised enough to go out and purchase one. Or a dozen.”

— Allan Moffat, Ford motorsport legend and Bathurst winner

1966 Ford Falcon XR GT drifting around a corner.

Quality control and assembly at the Ford’s Broadmeadows, Melbourne plant c1969.

Caolán McAleer Head of Collectors’ Cars caolan@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5603

Ian Nott Collectors’ Cars Consultant ian@webbs.co.nz +64 21 610 911

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2022

The XR GT unleashed an intense five years of Aussiemade hero cars, with Holden's 327 and 350 Monaros battling it out with the increasingly-more powerful Falcon GTs. Chrysler's six-cylinder Hemi-engined Valiant Pacers and Chargers threw their hats in the ring too. As a bonus, all this muscle made it onto the Australian roads, thanks to the Hardie-Ferodo 500's homologation requirement that a minimum of 200 examples be built for ‘public sale’.

The trouble was, very few young people could afford a car worth so much and therefore had to settle for posters or die cast models. Fast forward several decades to the early noughties, the baby boomers had grown up, got respectable jobs, and their kids had flown the nest. Most importantly, they now had discretionary dollars to spend.

Arguably, the first big rise in Aussie Muscle car prices came in the early 2000’s. This was driven to a large extent by affluent boomers rekindling their emotional connection with the cars they yearned for in their youth. Generally, buyers were aged 45 – 60. They were not lawyers or doctors, rather they were people who’d done very well in business. They were putting their money into the cars they grew up with, the cars they watched race at Bathurst. However, while it was evidently a passion for many, it was also an investment.

These savvy entrepreneurs were looking to expand their retirement portfolios.

Skip forward another decade or so to the present.

Aussie Muscle Cars have been making the news recently as prices have again begun to surge. This time, it’s believed by many that the driving force is largely related to the global pandemic. People aren’t travelling overseas and spending their money that way, and the virus has made people cautious and insular. The net result is more discretionary dollars to spend ‘locally’. It would appear that Aussie Muscle cars are on the shopping list.

The demand for heavy Aussie metal has grown; price increases over the decades reflect this across the board.

Recent results at Webb’s demonstrate this perfectly. A 1970 Ford XW Falcon GT-HO Phase II was brought to market with an estimate of $400,000 - $450,000, and it realised $414,000; a high original 1972 Ford Fairmont XYGT Shaker found a buyer at $221,375 against a pre-auction estimate of $120,000 - $150,000. These results speak to the strength of the market, and to Webb’s marketing prowess.

On a final note, when Ford motorsport legend and Bathurst winner Allan Moffat first saw the Falcon GT sedan that would take him to victory in the early 1970s, he scoffed at the price.

"In 1969, when the [Phase I] HO was launched, they were $4,500. And the regular Falcon was $2500. And I said to the director of marketing at the time, 'Man, who's going to pay $4500 for a Falcon?' And he said, 'You'll be surprised, Allan ...' Unfortunately, I wasn't surprised enough to go out and purchase one. Or a dozen."

Nowadays, immaculate examples of the Ford Falcon GTHO Phase III can fetch in excess of $1 million. Such are the joys of hindsight.

Webb’s latest Collectors’ Cars, Motorcycles & Automobilia sale will take place Sunday 10 April at ASB Showgrounds, catalogue online soon.

37

Exceptional Form: Material Culture

A 19th Century Fowling Gun with ornate Māori carving.

This early percussion fowling gun has a finely carved buttstock decorated with traditional Māori spiral designs and notching. price realised. $17,775 (incl. BP).

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The scope of culturally significant art forms presented by Webb’s extends beyond the contemporary art championed by the country’s largest auction house. The market for material culture from various regions of the world, including here in Aotearoa, has been one of the fastest growing auction categories over the last 24 months.

Webb’s February Material Culture auction was a tremendous success. Fiercely competitive bidding saw many pieces achieving up to 5 times their high estimate, and total sales more than doubled the total of the previous auction held in 2021. The market shows no sign of slowing down and Webb’s buyers are eager to acquire exceptional cultural art forms.

Opening the auction was part one of the Limm-Strutt Collection. Captivated for over 30 years by the unique harmony of sculptural form and function seen in African art, Steven Lim and Anna Strutt have amassed a collection that tells a story of a lifetime’s passion for ethnographic artefacts. A Nyamwezi Figure, Tanzania, perfectly embodies the philosophy of their collection. Carved from a single piece of wood, these figures were used to encourage fertility.

The pregnant stomach implies fertile aspects, bringing abundance to both women and agriculture. We see from the patina of this figure that it was often held, showing the tactile nature and adoration of these objects.

38

An exceptionally rare first edition set of James Cook’s Voyages in stunning condition achieved a record $130,350 (incl. BP).

“Working closely with vendors to repatriate Taonga to Aotearoa is important to Webb’s, and a core aspect of February’s campaign.

Pieces were delivered from all over the world, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, The United States, Great Britain, and Australia.” — Ben Erren, Director of Decorative Arts

An Ornate Kiwi Feather Muka Kete made from robust muka adorned with kiwi and other feathers over the body. price realised $8,887.50 (incl. BP).

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2022

With Part 2 of the Limm-Strutt collection being offered in October, the momentum generated by Part 1 looks set to create another set of superb results.

An exceptionally rare first edition set of Cook’s Voyages in stunning condition offered a glimpse into early mapping and studies of the Pacific. Comprising his three voyages between 1768 and 1779, these books provide incredible insight into the first documentation of the people and lands of the Pacific by British explorers.

James Cook’s Pacific voyages were deeply significant to the history of New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Australia and the broader Pacific. First editions of the documentation of his three Pacific voyages are very rare and highly sought after by collectors in New Zealand and internationally.

Bidding was frenzied, with phones, internet and absentee bids all running hot. The pre-auction estimate of $50,000 $80,000 was easily surpassed, with the hammer eventually falling for a record $130,350 (incl. BP).

Working closely with vendors to repatriate Taonga to Aotearoa is important to Webb’s, and a core aspect of February’s campaign. Pieces were delivered from all over the world, including the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, The United States, Great Britain, and Australia. Y-registering these items to ensure they will remain here in Aotearoa aligns with Webb’s firm belief in cultural responsibility.

These lots were undoubtedly the most hotly contested of the evening, delivering exceptional results. Many sold for over 3 times their top estimate, highlighting the exquisite material culture and master craftsmanship of pre-European Māori in the refined execution of utilitarian pieces.

We now look to October for the next Material Culture auction, and with the explosive results in the February catalogue, the time has never been better to discuss the acquisition or consignment of these stunning art forms. Feel free to get in touch with our specialist team today.

Ben Erren Director of Decorative Arts ben@webbs.co.nz +64 21 191 9660

Leah Morris Specialist, Decorative Arts leah@webbs.co.nz +64 22 574 5699 39

Smashing Success: Rare Whiskies

“With 89% of the lots selling and a final gross of $195k, the benchmark for whisky auctions in New Zealand has been set.”

— Marcus Atkinson, Head of Fine Wines & Whiskies, DipWSET Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve 20 Year Old Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey price realised. $7,110 (incl. BP).

Due to the increased demand for fine whiskies at auction, Webb’s had been planning our first ever live whisky-exclusive auction for over a year. Though our plans were consistently thwarted by multiple lockdowns. The opportunity finally arrived on Wednesday 15 December, and our first-ever Rare Whiskies auction brought down the curtain – Webb’s final sale of 2021. It was a fine evening, with eager-bidders settled down with a dram at home, following closely online. Bidders in the room sipped at Taketsuru 17 Year Old while Head of Fine Wines & Whiskies, Marcus Atkinson called the auction. It was a sensational success.

Rare Whiskies was a fitting way to end what had already been a record-shattering year for Webb’s Fine Wines & Whiskies department. The collection boasted over 100 lots, including 15 spectacular selections of The Macallan. We were honoured to present the premiere of the legendary Karuizawa collection – this was the first time we had offered a significant selection of this, most collectable of Japanese whiskies.

With 89% of the lots selling and a final gross of $195k, the benchmark for whisky auctions in New Zealand has been set.

This followed an incredible price being achieved for a 1940s bottling of Laphroaig in September 2021. The hammer came down at $42,660 for this beauty, setting a new record for the highest price for any single bottle in New Zealand.

In the past ten years, rare whiskies have appreciated by 580%. This far exceeds the returns seen in stock markets and the overwhelming majority of investment products, and demonstrates the remarkable potential value appreciation of rare whisky. In 2021, sales grew significantly at Webb’s, with Scottish and Japanese whisky being particularly favoured.

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March

Laphroaig Distillery D. Johnston and Co 80° Proof circa 1940s price realised. $42,660 (incl. BP).

40

The Cellar, Webb’s Fine Wines & Whiskies In-House Retail Store

Pappy Van Winkle Results at Webb’s: Average Price Per Bottle

$7,000 $6,000 $5,000 $4,000 $3,000 $2,000 $1,000 $0.00 Mar 19

Mar 21

Jul 21

Sept 21

Marcus Atkinson Head of Fine Wines & Whiskies, DipWSET marcus@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5601

Marshell Wan Specialist, Fine Wines & Whiskies marshell@webbs.co.nz +64 22 061 5612

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2022

Amongst the top-ten best-performing Scotch whisky brands, Macallan is firmly at the top of the list with 18.91% in market share, followed by Ardbeg and Springbank. In terms of investment, the rising star, Springbank, retains its leading position – a proven choice of collectors and investors.

As well as the soaring price of Scotch whiskies, trends in Japanese whiskies are worth following. With the implementation of new regulations in Japan and numerous distilleries’ age-statement and limited edition releases discontinued, many bottles have repeatedly broken price records. This trend is reflected in results achieved at Webb’s. Hibiki and Karuizawa have joined Yamazaki and Hakushu as the leading performers, comfortably cementing their future.

One of the most remarkable success stories of the past few years is the Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve 20 Year Old Whiskey, which doubled in price from 2019 to early 2021 and has nearly doubled again since. This was surely assisted by Netflix’s fascinating documentary ‘Heist’ that covered the infamous ‘Pappygate’ theft from the Buffalo Trace Distillery in Kentucky.

To put it succinctly, the pandemic has shown us that physical assets are becoming ever more popular. Whisky is enjoying a moment in the sun, being in fashion at a time when markets everywhere have been red hot. Moving forward, these bottles of rare liquid gold are likely to see ongoing appreciation, irrespective of the global economic outlook. We look forward to carrying on in 2022 as the undisputed number one Fine Wines & Whiskies auction house in New Zealand.

41

A Luxury Icon: Hermès Birkin

The Hermès Birkin bag has been dominating magazine covers and social media for many years, and stands alone as the most collectable, sought after bag ever made. This exceptional bag is only seen on the arms of the fortunate few, with many celebrities still finding themselves on the infamous Birkin wait-list, in the hopes of one day owning the ultimate “It” bag. — Jess Mackenzie, Specialist, Fine Jewels & Watches AJP (GIA) Webb's

March

42

Hermès Birkin 35 in chocolate Fjord leather est. $17,500 - $20,000

The story of the Birkin originates in 1983 on an Air France flight from Paris to London. British actress Jane Birkin had been upgraded to first class, and while placing her then-trademark wicker bag into the overhead locker, all of her contents spilled out onto the aisle and seat below. Jane was unknowingly seated next to the Executive Chairman of Hermès at the time, Jean Louis Dumas. She began to complain to him that it was impossible to find a nicer weekend bag that securely fits all her belongings. Dumas, realising Jane couldn’t be the only lady to encounter this, was inspired to create something unique, fashionable and practical. After introducing himself, the pair spent the rest of the flight discussing and sketching possible handbag designs on the back of an airplane sickness bag.

About a year after their encounter, Jane was presented with the namesake bag; a sturdy rectangular design made of supple leather, featuring a spacious interior with pockets offering utility and seals to prevent anything from spilling out. She was incredibly flattered when Dumas suggested Hermès name the bag after her, and from here, an iconic partnership was formed.

Today, the Birkin is the ultimate symbol of luxury. Made in France using the highest quality materials including calfskin, alligator skin, and even lizard and ostrich skin. Each bag is made entirely by hand by a highly skilled artisan in a process that can take up to 18 hours to complete.

While the handbag market is driven by a large variety of brands, the Hermès Birkin dominates the high end of the market. They are also a favourite amongst collectors as they are considered an investment quality luxury item which will hold or increase it’s value over time. Since it’s launch, these handbags have risen in price by an average of 14.2% per year, which surpasses traditional investments such as gold.

The Birkin is extremely exclusive, and difficult to get a hold of. If you are wanting to invest in a Birkin, there is a waitlist that can stretch up to six years.

Even then, there is no guarantee you’ll get your hands on one. The disparity in demand and access to the Birkin has created a thriving resale market, with many buyers now opting to source their Birkins on the second hand market in order to curb the waitlist.

If you would like to make your own investment into the Hermès brandno waitlist required, Webb’s are featuring several exceptional pieces in our upcoming live auction on Sunday 13 March, and again in our exclusive online only event in collaboration with BrandCo Paris from Friday 25 March. If you would like any more information on the pieces in this sale, don’t hesitate to reach out to one of our specialists who will be delighted to assist.

Marcela Jimenez-Ramirez Specialist, Fine Jewels Watches, AJP (GIA) +64 22 077 5610 marcela@webbs.co.nz Jess Mackenzie Specialist, Fine Jewels & Watches, AJP (GIA) +64 22 096 5610 jess@webbs.co.nz Webb's

2022

43

A Shared History: Don Binney & Webb’s

Don Binney, Mana Island est. $500,000 - $800,000 price realised. $711,000. New Artist Record

Don Binney has long been associated with Webb’s. When his works began to appear regularly on the secondary market in the late 1980s, Webb’s was the natural choice for vendors. Indeed, it is the leading auction house both in terms of volume of sales and prices achieved for Binney’s work. The record hammer price of $600,0000 set in November 2021 for his majestic Mana Island can be seen as the latest in a long line of such successes at Webb’s.

More than two hundred works by Binney have been sold through Webb’s since 1989, and ten have exceeded the $100,000 mark. The first work to do so was Untitled Bird and Hill from 1968, which sold for $170,000 in 2004. Only five years later, Binney’s Kotare over Hikurangi broke the $200,000 barrier, putting Binney in select company among New Zealand artists whose work commands such prices.

Over the last ten years, Binney’s major paintings have continued to command six-figure prices at auction. In 2011, his Kotare over Ratana Church, Te Kao from 1963 which depicts his signature bird motif hovering over the iconic Ratana Church, fetched $270,000. And in 2017, the wonderful Last Flight of the Kokako from the Warwick & Kitty Brown Collection set another milestone record by selling for over $500,000. In each case, these milestone prices were first achieved at Webb’s and set the pattern that others soon followed.

The record set just last year for Mana Island was entirely predictable in light of this sales history. That it is the largest work that Binney ever painted is of course part of its extraordinary appeal. Its sheer scale engulfs the viewer as Binney intended. As he said, “I consider each viewer of any work that I achieve to be an occupant of the painting. Anybody who fronts up to a canvas I have authored is in a sense a figure of that landscape” Webb’s is proud of its long involvement with the work of Don Binney. Together, it has been a journey which has seen Binney established as one of New Zealand’s blue-chip artists. It has been our steadfast belief that the quality of the work is of the highest order, and that it has enduring relevance. This coupled with our unique, high-profile marketing campaigns and showstopping auction strategy has ensured that Binney’s star has continued to rise.

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March

auckland Charles Ninow Director of Art charles@webbs.co.nz +64 21 053 6504 Adrienne (AD) Schierning Head of Art ad@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5609 Tasha Jenkins Specialist, Art tasha@webbs.co.nz +64 22 595 5610 wellington Carey Young Specialist, Art carey@webbs.co.nz +64 21 368 348 David Maskill Specialist, Art david@webbs.co.nz +64 27 256 0900 44

Don Binney: Observer In April, Webb’s will present an extraordinary collection of drawings by Don Binney. They are from the master artist’s family estate, and offer compelling insight into the processes of artistic creation that brought about his brilliant and nationally celebrated paintings. It is an honour for Webb’s to bring these incredible works to market.

Wellington Preview

Wednesday 23 March

Viewing

Thursday 24 – Saturday 26 March

Christchurch Preview Auction & Viewing Locations

Viewing

wellington 23 Marion Street Te Aro Wellington, 6011

Auckland

christchurch 65 Cambridge Terrace Central City Christchurch, 8013 auckland 33a Normanby Rd Mount Eden Auckland, 1024 Webb's

Wednesday 30 March Thursday 31 March – Saturday 2 April

Preview

Thursday 7 April

Viewing

Friday 8 – Monday 11 April

Auction

Tuesday 12 April

2022

45

Making History Since 1976: Major Collections

Webb's has been the heart of the New Zealand art market since 1976.

Naturally, we have a storied history of representing important collections.

Over the past four and a half decades, many key businesses and private collectors have entrusted us with their cultural assets. We have delivered outstanding results at every turn. This is a selection of significant collections that we have represented.

Works from the Kim Wright Collection, 1979

Collection of Kobi & Patricia Bosshard, 1986

The Family Collection of the Late Colin McCahon, 1990

The New Zealand Collections of Doctor Neville Hogg, 1993

The Goodman Fielder Estate, 1995

The Lee Johnson Collection, 1998

The Ida Eise Collection, 1999

The Partington Collection of Photography, 2001

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The DB Breweries Ltd Art Collection, 2003

The Dr Hans and Andrea Haumer Collection, 2004

Contemporary Art, 1960 – 2009, A Private Collection

The Jim Fraser Collection, 2006

The Richard & Rhoda Potton Collection, 2008

The Estate of Giovanni Intra, 2008

The Helene Quilter Collection, 2014

The Collection of Nadene Milne, 2016

The Warwick & Kitty Brown Collection, 2017

Works from the Collection of Pat & Gil Hanly, 2017

The Collection of Peter Jarvis & Helene Phillips, 2017

The Estate of Miss Crabb, 2019

Works from the Collection of Una Platts, 2019

Works from the Collection of Harvey Benge, 2020

Works from the Collection of Tim & Helen Beaglehole, 2020

Melting Moments: A Private Collection, 2021

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A Record Year in 2021: Top Ten Prices 005

Colin McCahon Jump E4 1973 acrylic on jute on canvas 910 × 442mm est 250,000 – 350,000 price $306,219 (incl. BP)

008

Grahame Sydney 2.40 Mailbag (Maniototo Plain, Naseby) 1974 egg tempera on board 440 × 600mm est $80,000 – 160,000 price $254,678 (incl. BP) New Artist Record

001

Bill Hammond Melting Moments II 1999 acrylic on canvas 850 × 2000mm est $350,000 – $550,000 price $939,881 (incl. BP) New Artist Record

003

Bill Hammond Waiting for Buller Bar 1993 acrylic on canvas 1400 × 1000mm est $150,000 – 250,000 price $382,016 (incl. BP)

006

Séraphine Pick Burning The Furniture 2007 oil on linen 1855 × 2600mm est $150,000 – 200,000 price $266,805 (incl. BP) New Artist Record

009

002

004

007

010

Colin McCahon Landscape Theme and Variations (H) c1963 oil on jute 1770 × 830mm est $300,000 – 500,000 price $315,315 (incl. BP)

2021 was an amazing year for art at Webb’s. It was exhilarating and richly rewarding. While navigating challenging conditions, we achieved the best results in our history. This feat was made possible by a dedicated team of professionals, the support of our clients and our unique and innovative approach to marketing.

Much like in 2020, we were in unchartered territory.

This was true for the entire nation. Webb’s found innovative ways of working through the challenges. We adapted to the many shifting parameters of operating and delivered auctions which exceeded our already high standards.

Innovations included delivering entirely virtual live auctions and creating safe, socially distanced exhibition concepts.

We were met with a remarkable response by our clients.

In the midst of this, we achieved all-time price records for a host of artists, including Bill Hammond, Séraphine Pick, Liz Maw, Grahame Sydney, Don Binney, and many others. We also achieved the second highest ever prices for works by Louise Henderson and Fiona Pardington. Overall, the year saw a substantial increase in overall market appreciation of high-quality New Zealand art.

Notable in our top 20 prices of 2021 is the presence of a significant number of works by women artists. Art by women has been historically undervalued relative to men.

A shift in this status quo has been long overdue, and we are thrilled to see it starting to happen. There is still a great deal of room for growth in the prices of works by leading women artists. Webb’s will continue to advocate for value recognition of Aotearoa’s finest in 2022 and beyond.

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March

Michael Smither Three Rock Pools and Lava Flow 2004 oil and sand on board 1260 × 820mm est $250,000 – $350,000 price $264,379 (incl. BP)

Total Market

Robin White Porirua Harbour I 1970 oil on canvas 765mm × 610mm est $200,000 – $300,000 price $194,040 (incl. BP)

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Don Binney Mana Island 1971 oil on canvas on board 2560 × 3490mm est $500,000 – $800,000 price $727,650 (incl. BP) New Artist Record

Robin White Untitled (Porirua Hills) 1970 oil on canvas 920 × 620mm est $220,000 – $360,000 price $230,4223 (incl. BP) New Artist Record

2018

2019

2020

2021

48

Works of Art: Entries Invited

Séraphine Pick, Burning The Furniture est. $150,000 – 200,000 price realised. $266,805 (incl. BP) new artist record

Webb’s is inviting entries for our August 2022 Works of Art auction. This edition of our flagship art sale will see major works by nationally significant artists presented to the highest possible standards. Our last major art auction grossed in excess of $2.5 million, and buyer interest for high quality New Zealand art is stronger than ever. auckland 09 529 5600 33a Normanby Rd Mount Eden Auckland, 1024

Charles Ninow Director of Art charles@webbs.co.nz +64 21 053 6504

wellington 04 555 6001 23 Marion Street Te Aro Wellington, 6011

Adrienne (AD) Schierning Head of Art ad@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5609

Tasha Jenkins Specialist, Art tasha@webbs.co.nz +64 22 595 5610

Carey Young Specialist, Art carey@webbs.co.nz +64 21 368 348

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David Maskill Specialist, Art david@webbs.co.nz +64 27 256 0900 49

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March 2022 wellington 04 555 6001 23 Marion Street Te Aro Wellington, 6011

Carey Young Specialist, Art carey@webbs.co.nz +64 21 368 348

David Maskill Specialist, Art david@webbs.co.nz +64 27 256 0900

auckland 09 529 5600 33a Normanby Rd Mount Eden Auckland, 1024

Charles Ninow Director of Art charles@webbs.co.nz +64 21 053 6504

Adrienne (AD) Schierning Head of Art ad@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5609

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2022

Webb’s Wellington Launch

Webb’s is thrilled to announce the opening of new premises in Wellington from mid-March 2022. Situated at 23 Marion Street, the Wellington premises will feature a 500 meter square state-of-the-art gallery space, along with private meeting and viewing rooms – all fitted out to exacting standards. We look forward to welcoming our Wellington clients and guests to the Webb’s experience.

Cultural Capital

Webb’s Wellington team; Carey Young and David Maskill.

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Foreword

The art department team at Webb's, left to right: Adrienne (AD) Schierning, David Maskill, Tasha Jenkins, Charles Ninow, Carey Young, Julian McKinnon and Connie Dwyer.

Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Welcome to Webb’s first Works of Art catalogue of 2022. Last year was a truly remarkable year for the art market, with record setting auctions and all-time highs for individual artists at every turn.

It was incredible to be a part of. Thank you again to all of our valued vendors and buyers that made it possible. This year is still in its early stages, and it remains full of promise. A range of incredibly exciting opportunities are set to take place this year, and I look forward to sharing them with you as they unfold. The first of them is right here in your hands. This catalogue showcases some extraordinary gems from some of Aotearoa’s best artists, and it has been a joy to compile it.

Charles Ninow Director of Art charles@webbs.co.nz +64 21 053 6504

Suites of work by Bill Hammond and Philip Clairmont are particular highlights. The two artists are both among the all-time greats of New Zealand painting, and it has been fascinating to encounter significant bodies of their work at the same time. They were born within a few years of each other, Hammond in 1947 and Clairmont in 1949, and both studied at Ilam in the late 1960s. Given these connections, it is surprising that more has not been written about the two together. For us, it has been enlightening to explore some of the parallels in their work. A specially commissioned photo shoot of selected works by the two is included in this catalogue. It positions the work in a remarkable setting – a grand old building in a state of entropic dilapidation. It is not dissimilar to some of the studio environments that both artists worked in at times and the photographs present the works beautifully. I am sure that fans of both artists will discover something surprising and new.

A stunning pair of works by Gretchen Albrecht also feature. They are Threefold, a large stained canvas from 1973, and A’Penumbra (In Memory of My Father), a hemisphere from 1996. Each work reveals a key moment in Albrecht’s artistic development, showing why she has sustained a celebrated career over so many decades. Both works are also beautiful and desirable artworks in their own right. Existing Albrecht enthusiasts will find much to admire, as I’m sure will anyone new to her work.

A strong suite of works by Michael Smither is another catalogue highlight. There are four works in total: a stunning landscape titled Rockpools, a maritime scene called Sunbathers Onboard Ship, and two portraits – one of the artist’s mother and the other a self-portrait.

These works present Smither’s unique artistic voice and skill set for all to see. The depth and breadth of his remarkable vision shows up across these four paintings, and they are sure to be the subject of significant interest come auction day.

As always, it is a pleasure and a privilege to work with the finest artworks by this nation’s leading artists. Along with my excellent team, I am thrilled to present you with this sensational catalogue of brilliant artworks. I am sure you will enjoy perusing its pages, and I look forward to assisting you in developing your collection.

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Philip Clairmont in his studio, c1980. Photograph by Marti Friedlander

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53

Webb’s Appoints New Valuations Specialist

Webb’s is New Zealand’s premier auction house. Established in 1976, we have a long and rich history of valuing New Zealand’s finest art and luxury collectibles and bringing them to market. Webb’s is fully diversified, with specialist departments in Art, Decorative & Asian Arts, Fine Wines & Whiskies, Fine Jewels, Watches & Luxury Accessories, along with Collectors’ Cars, Motorcycles & Automobilia.

With premises in Auckland and Wellington, and forthcoming developments in Christchurch, we have national reach. Wherever you are in the country, get in touch with us today for valuations of your cultural assets and collectibles.

We would love to hear from you.

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Webb’s recently welcomed Charles Tongue onboard as our new Valuations Specialist. Charles comes to Webb’s with a wealth of experience and knowledge across multiple aspects of the industry. With a professional background both in New Zealand and abroad, Charles knows all facets of the art and luxury collectibles markets inside out Charles Tongue Valuations Specialist valuations@webbs.co.nz +64 22 406 5514 54

Programme

Wellington Viewing Times Wednesday 16 March

10am – 5pm

Thursday 17 March

10am – 5pm

Friday 18 March

10am – 5pm

Saturday 19 March

10am – 3pm

Auckland Evening Preview Tuesday 22 March

6pm - 8pm

Auckland Viewing Wednesday 23 March

10am - 5pm

Thursday 24 March

10am - 5pm

Friday 25 March

10am - 5pm

Saturday 26 March

10am - 4pm

Auction & Viewing Location

Sunday 27 March

10am - 4pm

wellington 39 Ghuznee St Te Aro Wellington, 6011

Monday 28 March

10am - 5pm

auckland 33a Normanby Rd Mount Eden Auckland, 1024

Auction

Webb's

Monday 28 March 6.30pm 2022

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List of Essays Shane Cotton Hole in the Rock II

by Billy Davis

70

Bill Hammond Another Realm

by Victoria Munn

106

74

Philip Clairmont Notes on Five Works

by Martin Edmond

110

76

Gretchen Albrecht Threefold

by David Maskill

118

78

Ralph Hotere Observation Point, Port Chalmers

by Elizabeth Rankin

122

80

Frances Hodgkins Pansies in a Vase

by Megan Shaw

124

82

Alfred Sharpe View from Shoal Bay, Auckland

by David Maskill

126

Colin McCahon Kauri

by Michael Dunn

84

Michael Smither Two Portraits

by Olivia Taylor

128

Micheal Smither Two Paintings

by Amy Weng

86

Jude Rae Nexus I

by Olivia Taylor

92

Colin McCahon Towards Auckland 2

by Samantha Taylor

94

Andrew McLeod Untitled

by Megan Shaw Max Gimblett Potter to Painter

by Christie Simpson Humphrey Ikin Monument of Design

by Neil Talbot Fiona Pardington Andrew’s Huia Pair

by Samantha Taylor Colin McCahon Near Craigieburn 4

by Neil Talbot

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Plates

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2 1

Don Binney Manunui, Otakamiro 2010 screenprint on paper, printer's proof signed Don Binney, dated 2010 and inscribed P/P Manunui, Otakamiro in graphite lower edge 750 × 560mm

Gordon Walters untitled 1976 gouache on paper signed Gordon Walters and dated '76 in graphite lower left; inscribed 8.10.76 in graphite upper right 185 × 150mm est

est

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, c2015.

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$12,000 — $18,000

$20,000 — $30,000

March

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Contemporary Art 1960 - 2009, Webb's, Auckland, 14 September 2009, lot 36.

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3

André Hemer A Hot Mess #17 2015 acrylic and pigment on canvas signed André Hemer, dated 2013 and inscribed A Hot Mess #17 in ink verso 800 × 600mm est

$12,000 — $22,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Tristian Koenig Gallery, Melbourne, 2017.

Kirstin Carlin Untitled (Still Life) 2013 oil on board signed Carlin, dated 2013 and inscribed Untitled (still life) in ink verso 380 × 300mm est

$3,000 — $6,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Tristian Koenig Gallery, Melbourne, 2017.

Exhibitions André Hemer: Flatbed Plein Air, Tristian Koenig Gallery, Melbourne, 2015.

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5

Séraphine Pick Here’s New Behaviour 2019 oil on canvas signed S. Pick and dated 2019 in brushpoint lower right 500 × 400mm

6

Séraphine Pick Corporeal X 2019 oil on linen signed Séraphine Pick and dated 2017 in brushpoint lower right 605 × 505mm

est

est

$12,000 — $16,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Michael Lett, Auckland, 2019.

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$15,000 — $18,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Michael Lett, Auckland.

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7

Brendon Wilkinson untitled 2003 acrylic on canvas signed Brendon Wilkinson and dated 2003 in brushpoint lower edge 350 × 450mm est

$6,000 — $9,000

Provenance Private collection, Christchurch.

Acquired from Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 2003.

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9

8

Toss Woollaston Woman Reading 1947 ink on paper signed Woollaston and dated 47 in brushpoint lower right; signed M.T. Woollaston, dated 1947 and inscribed Woman Reading in ink and graphite verso 240 × 200mm est

$2,200 — $4,200

est

$3,500 — $5,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 2011.

Exhibitions John Reynolds: Mcleavey Sat Here #1-45, McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 2011.

Provenance Private collection. Acquired c1997.

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John Reynolds McLeavey Sat Here 2011 oilstick and screenprint on paper signed REYNOLDS, dated 2011 and inscribed #1 in graphite lower edge 700 × 500mm

March

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11

Ans Westra Government Gardens, Rotorua 1963. printed 2015 archival print, 1/5 950 × 950mm

Ian Scott Small Lattice No 171 1988 acrylic on canvas signed Ian Scott and inscribed "Small Lattice 171" ink verso 460 × 460mm

est

est

10

$5,500 — $8,500

Provenance Private collection. Acquired from {Suite} Gallery, Wellington, 2015.

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$15,000 — $20,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from International Art Centre, Auckland, 1999.

2022

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12

Gordon Walters Tamaki 1983 screenprint on paper, 49/50 signed Gordon Walters, dated 1983 and inscribed Tamaki 49/50 in graphite lower edge 760 × 560mm est

$18,000 — $26,000

Provenance Private collection. Acquired c2000.

13

Gordon Walters Kura 1982 screenprint on paper, 40/150 signed Gordon Walters, dated 1982 and inscribed 40/50 Kura in graphite lower edge 600 × 470mm est

$20,000 — $30,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Gifted c2002; Private collection. Acquired c1982.

Literature Leonard Bell, "Putting the record straight: Gordon Walters." Art New Zealand 27 (1983).

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14

Para Matchitt Whakapapa II 1987

wood signed Para Matchitt and dated 1987 with incision lower right 1950 × 1010mm est

$50,000 — $80,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Art Auction, Dunbar Sloane, Wellington, 8 May 2002, lot 29.

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16

Dale Frank Primrose Sands 2005 acrylic and varnish on canvas signed Dale Frank and dated 2005 in ink verso 800 × 1800mm

Tomislav Nikolic Will-Power, Love-wisdom, Active Intelligence, Harmony Through Conflict, Concrete Science, Love-devotion, Ceremonial Order 2011-12 acrylic and marble dust on paper signed Tomislav Nikolic, dated 2011-2012 and inscribed Will-Power, Love-wisdom, Active Intelligence, Harmoney Through Conflict, Concrete Science, Love-devotion, Ceremonial Order in graphite verso 160 × 180mm (each panel)

est

est

15

$30,000 — $40,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, 2006.

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$9,000 — $16,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Fox Jenson Gallery, Auckland, 2012.

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Ralph Hotere Drawing for a Black Window 1982 pastel on paper signed Hotere, dated '82 and inscribed Drawing for a Black Window/ SYDNEY IV in pastel lower edge 565 × 760mm est

$15,000 — $20,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Brooke/Gifford Gallery, Christchurch, 1982.

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19

Michael Parekōwhai Calais 2001 C-type print 1500 × 1200mm 18

Gretchen Albrecht A'Penumbra (In Memory of my Father) 1996 acrylic on canvas signed Albrecht, dated 96 and inscribed A'PENUMBRA (IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER) in brushpoint verso 900 × 1812mm (widest points) est

$30,000 — $50,000

Provenance Private collection, Dunedin. Acquired from Sue Crockford Gallery, Auckland, c2010.

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est

$25,000 — $35,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland.

Exhibitions Michael Parekōwhai: The Promised Land, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, 2015; Michael Parekōwhai, The Consolation of Philosophy: piko nei te matenga, Govett-Brewster, 2004; 2002 Sydney Biennale: (the world may be) fantastic, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 15 May 2002-14 July 2002.

Literature Justin Paton, "Special Agent: Michael Parekowhai's Generous Duplicity." Art New Zealand 103 (2002): 5869; Robert Leonard, "Michael Parekowhai." In Nine Lives ex. cat. (Auckland: Auckland Art Gallery, 2003).

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Shane Cotton – Hole in the Rock II Essay by BILLY DAVIS

20

Shane Cotton Hole in the Rock II 2018 acrylic on canvas signed S. COTTON, dated 2018, and insccribed II. HOLE IN THE ROCK in brushpoint lower right 1500 × 900mm est

$50,000 — $80,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Michael Lett, Auckland, 2019.

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Shane Cotton painted Hole in the Rock II in 2018. In essence, the painting portrays a Northland geological feature – a prominent island with an ocean facing rocky cliff face. A small tunnel runs through the cliff, often filled with churning seawater. The painting employs a range of the artist's signature motifs, particularly in its rock face, atmospheric background, silhouetted bird figures, and in the use of text.

This work is immediately recognisable as Cotton’s, and from a mature stage of his output. It demonstrates both his mastery of the medium, and the particular approach to image making and visual communication that has made him a widely celebrated figure in New Zealand art. The lettering is a biblical quote, evidently Job 1:7, yet it is also interspersed with Māori words and phrases. Cotton’s dual Māori and Pākeha heritage guides his approach to painting, speaking to these deeply interwoven cultures and their complex interactions, past and present. This painting is emblematic of the artist’s examination of cross-cultural exchange between Māori and European cultures, addressing the complexities and contradictions of our postcolonial present.

Prior to landing on his iconic signature style, Cotton had been painting in a more ambiguous and open-ended fashion, reworking biomorphic abstraction in a contemporary context. Later, he moved into the more figurative style for which he is now well known.

Future developments across his substantial body of work included recurring themes, motifs, palette and complex treatment of pictorial space.

What one can see in Hole in the Rock II, along with other works from this era, is the full expression of the artistic vision honed through his earlier developments and explorations. Cotton has mastered contrasting methods of paint application, and this is especially evident in this work. Consider the sky of the background, its brooding atmospheric effect has been established effortlessly, likely with the use of layered airbrushing.

The rock face, conversely, has been beautifully rendered with an entirely different method. Direct brush application, at times almost gestural, has created the impression of a complex, craggy rock face, capturing the weave of light and shadow. The silhouetted birds and the stark red lettering over the surface completes the balance of the painting as a whole.

Cotton is one of New Zealand’s most important living artists. Over the past three decades, he has forged a clear and enduring artistic career, which has contributed significantly to the visual art culture of Aotearoa. His work is highly sought after by private and public collections both here and in Australia. Cotton’s paintings are held in many institutional collections, including Te Papa Tongarewa, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, the Chartwell Collection, the Sydney Museum of Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Australia in Canberra, National Gallery of Victoria, and Queensland Art Gallery.

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Fiona Pardington Portrait of a Male Kiwi/Apteryx Haasti 2004 gelatin silver print, 5/5 signed Fiona Pardington in ink verso 440 × 565mm est

$50,000 — $70,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 2004.

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Tony Fomison My Eyes Are Your Eyes 1989 oil on canvas signed Fomison and dated 1989 in ink verso 455 × 355mm est

$45,000 — $65,000

Provenance Private collection, Christchurch. Acquired directly from the artist, c1989.

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Andrew McLeod – Untitled Essay by MEGAN SHAW

Andrew McLeod’s works attest to painting as a rich and articulate artform. Adept in both abstraction and representation, his paintings converse with generations of painters and reflect on New Zealand’s place in art historical tradition.

In this untitled painting from 2011, the artist works without fear of referencing his predecessors and wider visual culture. Drawing upon textiles and design, Ancient Egypt, the British Arts and Crafts movement and nineteenth to twentieth century art history, we might be viewing an imaginary collaboration between Anni Albers, Gordon Walters and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. McLeod is an advocate for collaborating with the past rather than reacting against it. His collagelike paintings synthesise generations of makers and push the buttons of a modernist myth of originality.

He rearranges his influences from the past in digital collage before painting them anew.

Recalling a 1980s arcade game, a bright geometric background of lucid orange, purple, turquoise and green is muted by moments of deftly layered grey. The ‘wallpaper’ appears to be neatly gridded, although some lines change orientation, creating unique moments of connection and disruption on the canvas. In this period McLeod transfigured Walters’ appropriated Māori koru bars into graphic blocks.1 He initially maintained the rounded style, but ultimately transformed the koru motif with architecturally inspired block–ended bars.

The foreground is further hushed and darkened as we descend back in time. A sun flanked by two birds sets in the centre of the composition. Perhaps the Ancient Egyptian deities Ra and Horace meet in the sky. The long plaits of a kneeling woman trail on the floor like roots, supporting the central foliage in the picture. Disconcertingly, a face appears from within Webb's

March

a tree trunk tied to a decaying flowerpot. A large bee takes an empty seat while blooming flowers shield a Pre-Raphaelite woman. The fireplace is quiet, not yet lit by the candle precariously balanced on the bouquet of flowers. McLeod’s parents were horticulturists which sparked an interest in flowers and botany. The artists’ intuitive understanding of the natural world has no doubt been enhanced by repeated viewing of such subjects painted across time. His motifs are intended to intrigue more than to tell a story.

McLeod studied in Te Toi Hou, the Māori Art Department at Elam School of Fine Arts. He unapologetically riffed off artists like Gordon Walters and Theo Schoon in the postmodern context of appropriation. Such references are and were always deliberate. He has long explored the criticisms, appeal, and cross-cultural tensions of such appropriation in his paintings but also in more public projects including kowhaiwhai carpets made for Auckland Airport and Government House in Wellington.

McLeod’s modern history paintings are distinctive and reflect a generation of New Zealanders who reconcile the cultural offerings of the international and historical art world differently to their mid-century predecessors. Interior with Pink (2011) from the same period as this untitled painting achieved a record price for McLeod’s work at auction last year. His works are found in significant art collections including the Chartwell Collection, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Te Papa Tongarewa, The University of Auckland and the National Gallery of Victoria.

1 Deidre Brown, ‘Pītau, Primitivism and Provocation: Gordon Walters’ Appropriation of Māori Iconography,’ Gordon Walters: New Vision, Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2017, pp. 104-115.

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23

Andrew McLeod untitled 2011 oil on canvas signed A McLeod and dated 2011 in brushpoint lower right 1000 × 1500mm est

$60,000 — $90,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Ivan Anthony, Auckland, c2011.

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Literature Andrew McLeod, Andrew McLeod (North Carolina: lulu, 2013), 154.

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Max Gimblett – Potter to Painter Essay by CHRISTIE SIMPSON

24

Max Gimblett Potter to Painter 2018 acrylic, aquasize, gold leaf and resin on canvas signed MAX GIMBLETT, dated 2018 and inscribed "POTTER TO PAINTER"/MAX 2019. in ink verso 1520 × 1520mm (widest points) est

$50,000 — $70,000

Provenance Private collection, Christchurch.

Acquired from Nadene Milne Gallery, Christchurch, 2019.

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This lustrous painting by Max Gimblett carries a title that is both poetic and biographical. Born in Tāmaki Makaurau in 1935, Gimblett spent some time travelling in Europe in the 1950s before settling in Canada in the early 1960s. There he worked as a potter for two years and also studied drawing. Shortly after this, Gimblett embarked on more travel around America, studying painting at the San Francisco Art Institute in California, before moving to New York in the early 1970s. In New York he met influential artists such as Len Lye and studied psychology at the C.G. Jung Foundation for nearly twenty years. During this time, he made many more trips to countries including India, Japan, Kenya, Israel, Cambodia, Mexico, and yearly trips to Aotearoa.

Gimblett continues to live and work between New York and Auckland.

Although the medium of pottery seems a far cry from Gimblett’s current practice, the emphasis on physicality, instinct and precision is similar. Gimblett appears to have come upon two ways of working that are both greatly influenced by both Eastern and Western religions and philosophies. The first is quick and instinctual, best seen in his Japanese-inspired ink works. These works are created quickly and energetically using a variety of rollers, brushes and even mops. The artist engages his whole body in the process and works intuitively, employing the Buddhist attitude of “no mind.” The second way of working is slower and more thoughtful.

This method is exemplified in Gimblett’s jewel-like layered paintings. The works consist of many carefully applied layers of paint, resin and aquasize. A feeling of dynamism is maintained through their expressive brushstrokes, however the work must be completed in gradual steps rather than all at once. Religion is still referenced in the materials and shapes used: gold and silver leaf are often associated with wisdom, light and spirituality, while his famous quatrefoil shape is found in many religions symbolising such objects as a rose window, cross, and lotus. These references contrast with the bold contemporary colours and mark making to create work that feels both fresh and familiar.

Potter to Painter exemplifies these refined techniques Gimblett is known for. The meticulous brushstrokes, highly lacquered surface and neatly shaped canvas are precisely executed. The strong pinky-red background colour is wonderfully contrasted with the black, gold and silver gestural marks. While many of Gimblett’s works have lyrical titles, it is often unclear what exactly they might be referencing. Here, it seems that Gimblett is referencing his own life and achievements, and his journey as a maker.

It seems only fitting that the artist would speak to these successes with a painting as accomplished as this.

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Humphrey Ikin – Monument of Design Essay by NEIL TALBOT

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Humphrey Ikin is highly distinguished designer and sculptor whose work consistently blurs the line between object design and fine art. He is a New Zealand Arts Foundation Laureate, and has been widely acknowledged for his lasting contribution to design in New Zealand and for pioneering a place for furniture within the arts.

According to the New Zealand Arts Foundation, “Humphrey has been at the forefront of New Zealand's design renaissance since the early 1980s. Dubbed a pioneer of the new Pacific design, he creates pieces that represent a successful blending of South Pacific symbolism and splendour with the functionalism of European modernism.” These dual influences are evident across the range of stunning furniture and sculptural objects that he has produced.

Ikin’s untitled work from 2006 is a towering wood and steel structure. At over 3.5 metres in height, it operates on a monumental scale. The work is comprised of a multiplicitous stack of evenly sized timber squares.

It immediately evokes the rectilinear design aesthetic of Dutch design maestro Gerrit Rietveld. Or perhaps, it speaks to the monumentality of Endless Column, the most famous work by Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi. One could also draw parallels with the structures employed by exemplary American minimalist Donald Judd. But none of these points of reference fully encapsulate the nature of Ikin’s work.

Initially, this work appears as a singular structure, towering, the wood treated with a dark stain. On closer inspection, the stack reveals a subtle yet mesmerising visual effect through repetition of form. The grooves between the individual pieces and the lines that run through them add a sense of teeming multiplicity that sits in contrast to the singular monumentality first encountered. This contrast allows the work to operate in a deeply satisfying space where it is both one and many.

With this work, Ikin has cleverly adopted a methodology that creates a powerful and deliberate aesthetic effect from the constrained material form of wooden squares. As this work demonstrates, all kinds of possibilities are opened up within this simple set of conditions. One could make comparisons to the use of the grid in painting, where a simple restraint creates space for endless experimentation.

Ikin’s sculptural work, and his furniture design, have seen him included in conversations about leading creators at the highest levels. In 1998, Ikin was listed as one of the top forty designers in the world by New York's I.D. Magazine. His piece Red Stave Chair was featured alongside work by the highly regarded French designer Philippe Starck, and internationally renowned Italian architect and designer Antonio Citterio. On these shores, he has been hailed as one of our finest ever designers. These accolades are testament to Ikin’s remarkable abilities and aesthetic sense.

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Humphrey Ikin untitled 2006 wood and steel 3550 × 800 × 800mm (widest points) est

$10,000 — $18,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Sculpture on the Shore, Auckland 2006.

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Fiona Pardington – Andrew's Huia Pair Essay by SAMANTHA TAYLOR The white tipped huia feather is iconic. Traditionally worn in the hair by high ranking chiefs and people of mana, these taonga are sacred to Māori, symbolising wisdom, nobility and leadership. The feathers are so precious that they are often stored in special, intricately carved waka huia and the birds themselves are tapu.

Colonisation and the resulting introduction of foreign predators, loss of habitat and an appetite for mounted specimens by overseas collectors and museums spelt the end of the huia. The use of the feathers as fashion accessories for pākehā also played a part. This trend was cemented in Britain when the Duke of York was photographed wearing one tucked into his hat during a visit to New Zealand in 1901. The last confirmed sighting of a huia was in 1907.

Dr Fiona Pardington (Ngāi Tahu, Kati Mamoe and Ngāti Kahungunu) feels their loss acutely. Known for her photographic still lifes, particularly of taonga (most notably of hei tiki), the artist is drawn to photographing cultural objects. She delves into museum collections to reveal sacred objects stripped of their contexts of time and place, reviving and honouring them through her camera lens.

Pardington’s huia photographs treat the subject with pathos and respect. In this work, the two birds are photographed side by side, allowing us to see the full beauty of this now extinct species. Renowned for employing a range of diverse photographic techniques, Pardington’s image seems to breathe life into the creatures. One can almost imagine them resurrected and returning to the forest. There is a tenderness here.

‘I’ve personalised them, made portraits of them and just treated them like they were individuals’ says Pardington.1 Viewing Andrew’s Huia Pair is revealing of the poignant nature of the Huia. One can marvel at the wonder of an animal renowned for its sheer beauty, yet also grieve its loss. It, perhaps more than any other extinct species, encapsulates the staggering devastation and loss of Aotearoa’s native flora and fauna.

There were in fact attempts to preserve the huia.

However protection measures introduced in the 1890s - including plans to transfer birds to Kapiti and Little Barrier island - were poorly enforced. Accordingly, Pardington’s work points discreetly to the importance of conservation. Resonant with deep personal and cultural meanings, Andrew’s Huia Pair is a warning, bridging past and present to remind us of what we have lost.

It is also an exquisite image by the nation’s foremost contemporary photographer.

1 Fiona Pardington. Art Gallery of New South Wales website, artgallery.nsw.gov.au accessed 23 July 2020

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Fiona Pardington Andrew's Huia Pair 2019 archival inkjet print on Hahnemuhle paper, 9/10 signed Fiona Pardington in ink verso 1090 × 1588mm est

$60,000 — $90,000

Provenance Private collection.

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Colin McCahon – Near Craigieburn 4 Essay by NEIL TALBOT

In 1968, Colin McCahon put up an industrial shed on a property recently acquired by his wife Anne in Muriwai, on Auckland’s west coast. This became his studio. By then, McCahon was in the full swing of his symbolist phase – where landscape was metaphor – and the textbased paintings in his immediately recognisable hand, white on black like the blackboard sign of a roadside fruit stand or a country church. The painting Near Craigieburn 4 was produced in the following – and his most prolific – year, one of a series of minimalist landscapes in grey and sepia tones, with sand incorporated into their acrylic polymer paint. They are highly significant: 1969 was the year McCahon began experimenting with acrylic paint.

The sand was collected from Muriwai Beach while the artist was on his rambles from his studio.

Craigieburn is a mountainous region on the south banks of the Waimakariri River, south of Arthur's Pass and about an hour-and-a-half’s drive from Christchurch.

The landscape is dominated by the Craigieburn Range, rocky scree and alpine tussock. The sparseness of the composition recalls the wild, empty spaces and atmospheric solitude of the place as he remembered it.

The gritty texture and tawny palette accurately capture

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Colin McCahon Near Craigieburn 4 1969 acrylic and sand on board signed McCahon and dated March '69 in brushpoint upper right; signed Colin McCahon, dated March 69 and inscribed NEAR CRAIGIEBURN 4 in brushpoint verso 300 × 300mm est

$70,000 — $140,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Contemporary & Modern Art, International Art Centre, Auckland, 24 May 2016, lot 23.

Notes Colin McCahon Online Catalogue (www.mccahon.co.nz) number: cm000349.

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the experience of the north-west South Island. North Island sand and South Island imagery. The result is an odd hybrid of his past and present, something very much in keeping with McCahon’s process. It was less about the landscape he was remembering, and even less about the landscape he was inhabiting, than it was about his inscape, the distinctive intellectual, psychological and spiritual pattern making up individual identity.

“My painting is almost entirely autobiographical,” he wrote. “It tells you where I am at any given point in time, where I am living and the direction I am pointing in. In this present time it is very difficult to paint for other people – to paint beyond your own ends and point directions as painters once did.”

McCahon was hardly the first artist to mix sand in his paint. Everyone from Picasso to Pollock has used it as a filler in their pigments, but one gets the impression that for McCahon it was more than just added texture; something almost talismanic, a literalisation of landscape by including some of the land itself. This painting captures so much potency and, to borrow a term from Heidegger, Dasein (is-ness, existence) within a modest square, no frills (like a Byzantine ikon), tactile, devotional and present in dialogue with landscape and memory. Even in what appears to be a straight landscape, the religious impulse is unavoidable. McCahon is searching for God in the land, trying to explain the existential joy and pain he finds there.

“I imagine people looking at [the paintings],” he said, “and then looking at the landscape and for once really seeing it and being happier for it and believing in God and… in the impossibility of people owning and having more rights to a piece of land and air than anybody else.”

Strangely enough, for one who so often circled and thought about religion, McCahon was never formally a member of any church.

It is his humanist side that provides the generosity (or is it noblesse oblige?) to leave space in it for us, his audience, so we can be amazed at how much is done with so very little. That holds true for Near Craigieburn 4; so much is accomplished with nuance of shade and dark lines against a light background. It says all he wanted it to say and all it needed to say. There is no excess, nothing unessential, not a spare gesture or mark.

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Colin McCahon – Kauri Essay by MICHAEL DUNN

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Colin McCahon Kauri 1965 acrylic on board signed McCahon dated 14.9.65 and inscribed Kauri in brushpoint lower left 750 × 510mm est

$80,000 — $160,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Barry Lett Galleries, Auckland, c1968.

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Conceived with the utmost economy in white on black, Kauri (1965) is an elegant and minimalist rendering of a subject Colin McCahon loved and had often depicted when he lived in Titirangi. Painted after he moved into the city, away from the motif, this kauri is stripped of colour and stripped of ornament. McCahon has reduced it to the platonic idea of a kauri, with two white brushstrokes making a trunk, one scroll-like brushstroke forming a branch, and a hand-drawn circle indicating the crown with its foliage. This is not a specific tree; rather, it stands as a symbol of many kauri, and gains majesty from its skeletal form standing out against the darkness of the background. A scumble of grey paint in the lower left corner indicates perhaps the surrounding bush and vegetation lying below the height of this forest giant.

Here McCahon, with the most frugal means, delivers the most memorable impact.

As one of three versions, Kauri is comparable to other small landscapes painted in acrylic on board during 1965. The paint allows McCahon to achieve a flat, unmodulated background on which the image of the kauri stands out in almost neon brightness.

The surface of the board appears flat and devoid of the conventional picture space that is found in landscapes such as McCahon's own Titirangi works of ten years or so earlier. Rather, Kauri can be compared to McCahon's Dark Landscapes of 1965-66, painted small and almost entirely in black and grey. These almost abstract works recall Ad Reinhardt's black paintings, as Gordon Brown has noted, and also have affinities with Ralph Hotere. McCahon kept in touch with developments in American painting through magazines and the reproductions of artwork found in the art gallery and art school libraries.

The white form of the kauri against the dark background has an affinity with another motif of that period as well: the waterfall found in paintings from 1964-65 that was loosely based on the works of William Hodges, then on loan to the Auckland Art Gallery from the Admiralty in London. McCahon saw the waterfall as symbolic, evoking the spiritual enlightenment of Christianity piercing the darkness of a sinful world and giving hope of salvation. His conservationist concerns from around this period, when he painted his Keep New Zealand Green series, allow speculation that Kauri, too, has a symbolic meaning in referencing the native trees and forest under threat from urbanisation and commerce.

The brightly lit tree has an almost spectral form which is conducive to a reading that goes beyond formal painterly values and draws attention to the plight of the kauri and its need for protection in a hostile climate.

Kauri is a work that reveals many of McCahon's concerns and shows his artistic evolution at this important time when he was teaching at Elam. In beautiful condition, it is a painting of high quality that appears to have been effortlessly and spontaneously created.

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Micheal Smither – Two Paintings Essay by AMY WENG Michael Smither is an artist who responds intensely to his environment. His home in Taranaki, the natural environment and the people close to him often provide the inspiration for his hard-edge paintings and abstracted prints. Smither began drawing the ocean in 1962, and completed his first rockpool painting in 1964, coinciding with the birth of his daughter, Sarah. Smither went down to the seaside to distract himself from toothaches, filling sketchbooks with the arrested motion of waves and rock formations. In these early sketches, the immutable presence of stone and surging waves appears deeply incised, almost abstract meditations of undulating crests and jagged lines.

These concentrated studies gained new meaning during a year-long visit to Melbourne. When he returned in 1967, Smither came back with a renewed sense of direction and confidence in his uniquely local subject matter. “New Plymouth’s isolation is an advantage for me,” he noted. “Here I am forced to find things out entirely for myself, away from artistic groups or trends. I wouldn’t want to be away from the sea. And here I am left alone to get on with painting without too many interruptions.”

During this period, Smither became popularly known as the ‘rock painter from Taranaki’. His iconic works depicting the dramatic land and sea views that dominated the region, yet he was also attempting to reconcile his faith with his everyday environment.

For Smither, water was a symbol of purity. His Roman Catholic upbringing had galvanised him with a concern for its teachings and imagery. Water was often used to personify the Virgin Mary, and rocks the solidity and firmness of the Lord. Smithers also undertook a number of religious commissions as well as directly placing the image of the baptism of Christ in Taranaki waters. Like Giotto, Colin McCahon and many painters before him, Smither wanted to create an immediate connection between religious narratives and the local landscape.

The sharply-outlined rocks in Rockpools, 1973, invites comparison to early works by Charles Heaphy and Christopher Perkins. It also bears a relationship to Japanese woodblock prints with its steep point of view and reductive quality. A strong diagonal leads the eye from the veined rocks in the foreground into a still pool of blue water dissolving into solid colour. The contrast of surfaces, of glass-like preternaturally clear water and alternating geological peaks and troughs creates a dazzling interplay of form and luminous colour. As the rocks recede into water, they create gnarled, earthen fingers that break across surface of reflected sky, both substantial and eerily weightless.

In Rockpools, the horizon is hidden giving the effect of an ethereal, internal light source. The small jewellike rocks within the water appear to radiate. His early sojourn in Central Otago had revealed to him the sublime

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Michael Smither Rockpools 1973 oil on board signed MDS and dated 73 in brushpoint lower left 890 × 675mm est

$120,000 — $180,000

Provenance The Estate of Maurice Shadbolt, Auckland. Acquired c1973.

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light-saturated hills that Rita Angus and McCahon had painted. In Rockpools, Smither applies this to full effect, suffusing this banal geographic feature with a divine countenance. Of his rock paintings, Smither noted, “I came to realise that the light was coming out of [the rocks] - as though they were light bulbs, or like egg-shells leaning up against one another.”

Smither’s reverence for the Ngāmotu/New Plymouth environment is not just spiritual. He is deeply interested in marine biology and is an active conservationist. Rockpools gains a new meaning with the current conversations around intensive dairy farming and fossil fuel exploration, and its striving to remain as an untouched, primordial landscape.

Rockpools sits in an interesting tension with Smither’s 1968 painting Sunbathers Onboard Ship. This painting shows a group of relaxed individuals taking sun on the deck of a ship – perhaps a vessel built specifically for leisure. It has a relaxed feeling to it, suggesting easy enjoyment of summer sunshine. It relates to Rockpools, somewhat laterally, through the maritime theme.

However, this painting seems less connected to the bigger picture of environmental concerns, and more concerned with day to day human experience. It also shows another side to Smither’s artistic output, featuring his stylised approach to figurative painting.

Many of Smither’s figurative works employ an approach that is in some ways distinct from his hyperrealist renderings of rocks and landscapes. This almost cartoonish approach gives the figures a sense of levity, yet they grapple deeply with the artist’s own lived experience and engagement with the human condition.

While the relaxed ease of the subjects in Sunbathers Onboard Ship could lend this painting a sense of casualness, this belies the fact that this is a serious work by a master painter. The artist’s skill in creating visual depth through light and shade, and the immediacy of the characterisation of the figures is demonstrative of his consummate abilities as a painter and creator of images.

Smither is rightly recognised as one of New Zealand’s greatest living painters. These two excellent paintings offer yet more evidence in testament to that notion.

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Michael Smither Sunbathers on Board Ship c1968 oil on board signed MDS and dated '68 in brushpoint upper left 800 × 600mm est

$60,000 — $80,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired directly from the artist, 1968.

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Bill Hammond Song Book 4 1987 oil on copper signed W Hammond and dated 1987 in brushpoint lower right; inscribed Song Book 4 and dated 1987 in ink verso 380 × 440mm est

$35,000 — $50,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Peter Webb Galleries, Auckland, 1998.

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Bill Hammond Song Book 3 1987 oil on copper signed WD Hammond and dated 1987 in brushpoint lower left; inscribed Song Book 3 in brushpoint upper edge; inscribed Song Book 3 and dated 1987 in ink verso 380 × 440mm est

$35,000 — $50,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Peter Webb Galleries, Auckland, 1998.

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Jude Rae – Nexus II Essay by OLIVIA TAYLOR

When observing the palpable body of swallowing curves in Nexus II, 1997, there is a chilling, but calm sense of melancholy and stillness to the monochromatic oil rendering of crushed cloth. In this work, Sydney-based artist and writer Jude Rae has taken the rudimentary painting exercise of reproducing drapery to a higher, critical level. Although Rae has reproduced the subject with impressive accuracy that grants her audience the pleasure of surveying the sumptuous ripples she has created, she is asking the viewer to delve deeper, pushing us and herself further than simply analysing the tonal values of light across contours. Rae is enticing the audience to re-evaluate the significance of vision.

She provokes introspective consideration of our visceral response to what is seen and unseen, instigating inquiry of how we process visual information.

In her 2017 essay, In Plain Sight, Rae states that, ‘[a] painting can recall not only the look of things, but also the feel of that seeing. It reminds us that vision is primary because it is not just visual. The eye brings together a complex interweaving of the senses so that vision registers as both spatial and tactile.’1 Throughout the loose and tight folds of Nexus II, Rae is investigating and reflecting on the complex interrelation of the senses. Her approach to painting results in the display of recognisable subject matter of which our eye convinces us to be heavy-weight fabric, plush to caressing fingertips, that would undoubtedly sink and swell with the pressure of a firm grip, in turn causing incidental capsules of air and cushioning obtrusions.

Rae is insinuating and igniting our memory of tactility.

Rae’s painterly investigation is of memory, constructed from both visual stimulus and connections of other bodily senses, as well as how we culturally favour the optical. However, her work is also inadvertently commenting on the constraint of the painting itself. When a painting is detached from the artist’s hand – an organic, physical connection – it is eventually hung and displayed, then the haptic is discouraged. We may look but cannot 1 2

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Jude Rae, ‘In Plain Sight’. 2017. juderae.com Biography – Jude Rae. juderae.com

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touch. The painting discipline holds the optic as paramount, championing our ability to draw connections between what is immediately viewed with what has been previously experienced, thereby enhancing our construction of meaning and comprehension. Rae is playing with this, toying with our memory of touch and teasing our understanding of the subject through only a micro lens of what she has presented for us to see.

Rae’s drapery body of works from the 1990s such as, Nexus II (1997), Clerambault’s Dream (1994), and Virago (1994) have explored the value attributed to vision and are significant as they are a tipping point of Rae’s practice. The rumpled cloth images cemented the course of Rae’s critical investigations of her later still life works. In these works she antagonises the soft oil paint into forms of hard steel canisters, lpg bottles and plastic containers against William Morris-esque backgrounds, again cultivating the memory of how the industrial materiality would feel to touch.

Rae is a decorated artist who received the Bulgari Award in 2016 and has been awarded residencies in France, Italy and New Zealand. In 1989 Rae moved to New Zealand where she was the first Director of the South Island Arts Project, now existing as The Physics Room Contemporary Art Space. Her work is now held in major collections in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.2

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Jude Rae Nexus II 1997 oil on canvas signed J Rae, dated '94 and inscribed Nexus I in brushpoint verso 1820 × 1220mm est

$40,000 — $60,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland.

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Colin McCahon – Towards Auckland 2 Essay by SAMANTHA TAYLOR

In May 1953, Colin McCahon moved north to Auckland’s west coast and was immediately struck by the damp climate and moody light compared with Canterbury.

Towards Auckland 2 belongs to the series of landscapes inspired by the artist’s response to his new surroundings, in French Bay on the Manukau Harbour.

McCahon recalled: “At this time the bush and the harbour were of prime importance as subjects… the November light for that first year was a miracle. It remains an obsession and is still a miracle.”1 Painted in acrylic on paper in 1953, Towards Auckland 2 is a work of rhythmic abstraction. It engages motifs that recurred often in the artist’s work at the time. The composition is animated, and the scene plays out in perfect compositional balance with the suggestion of the deep bush around French Bay and Titirangi.

It may be simplistic to read the painting purely for its balanced and ethereal depiction of a West Auckland landscape. The land of McCahon’s painting is a vessel for his interest in the formal structures of modernism. The composition and imagery are broken and reconnected through a series of curved and straight lines. These divisions work with the naturally occurring forms of nature to create a composition that addresses pictorial concerns. The linear elements divide the surface into planes that merge into one another by the technique of passage, a technique first introduced into painting

by Cézanne and the analytic Cubists. In this technique an opening, allowing one form to be merged with another, facilitates the transition between them and allows foreground and background to be interlocked.

Cubism, and especially the work of Georges Braque, was influential on the works of McCahon at this time.

McCahon was especially concerned with making the painting appear as something solid and permanent rather than illusory. He felt that all space was a relevant and important part of the composition.

In this painting we can see this principle in action as the positive and negative areas of the composition are both equally important. One can also note that the palette is relatively subdued. Blues, greens, ochre tints and a hint of yellow make up the entirety of the colour range. Rather than imitating the palette of the vista he is depicting, McCahon creates an image based on the contrast between cold and warm hues. In doing so he once more follows the example of Braque and Picasso before him, who found a restricted palette enhanced the objectivity of their Cubist works and drew attention to the forms they were depicting.

The use of multiple viewpoints is evident in Towards Auckland 2; at times we seem to be looking at the forms of the land at eye level, while it could equally be as if viewed from above. The artist is freed from the constraints of conventional one-point perspective and invites the elements of both time and movement into the work. Towards Auckland 2 displays concepts that continue to feature in McCahon’s later paintings.

1 Gordon H. Brown, “Colin McCahon: A Basis for Understanding,” Art New Zealand 8 (November/December/January 1977-8): 26.

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Colin McCahon Towards Auckland 2 1953 acrylic on paper signed McCahon and dated DEC '53 in brushpoint lower left 740 × 540mm est

$65,000 — $85,000

Provenance Private collection, Hamilton. Acquired from Waikato Society of Arts, Hamilton.

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Exhibitions The 54 Group Show, Durham Street Art Gallery, Christchurch, 1954.

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Fiona Pardington Tiki 2019 pigment inks on Hahnemühle photo rag paper signed Fiona Pardington in ink verso 1100 × 1460mm est

$30,000 — $40,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland.

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While much has been published on the work of Philip Clairmont and Bill Hammond individually, surprisingly little has been written about the parallels between the two. They were born two years apart, Hammond in 1947 and Clairmont in 1949, and grew up within the same cultural zeitgeist. Both artists were consummate painters, and both went through Ilam in the late 1960s – Hammond finishing in 1969, and Clairmont a year later in 1970. They were taught by the same teachers, and their early work explored some similar themes.

The comparison between the two is obvious when considering two of the works in this catalogue, Clairmont’s Portrait of an Unhappy Masochist and Hammond’s The Strength to Carry on. Clairmont’s work predates Hammond’s by around eight years, though the contortionist figures and compositional arrangements of the two works are striking in their similarities. Beyond this, the two artists shared rock-music inspiration and countercultural influences, and both made idiosyncratic references to art history in many of their works.

It is intriguing to compare the Clairmont masterpiece Fireplace held in the collection of Auckland Art Gallery, Toi o Tāmaki to Hammond’s exquisite Jingle Jangle Morning.

Fireplace incorporates lyrics from two late 1960s Jimi Hendrix songs, Hear My Train A Comin' and Room Full of Mirrors. Meanwhile, Jingle Jangle Morning explicitly references Bob Dylan’s 1965 song Mr Tambourine Man. These remarkable works showcase the best of the exceptional abilities of the two artists, and both have drawn on the work of leading musicians to great effect.

Comparison can also be drawn between Hammond’s And the Seven Seas and Clairmont’s Country Carnival Carnivore, as featured in this catalogue. The works are clearly visually different, though they present the artistic visions of their respective creators in compelling fashion. Clairmont’s work features expressive application of paint, a tight visual depth, and the curved lines of distorted perspective that the artist is known for. And the Seven Seas, conversely, features the paint runs, deep spatial field, and classical perspectival devices often seen in Hammond’s work. It features a host of bird figures, as opposed to Clairmont’s human figure with an animal skull for a face.

Despite their differences, these works reveal that the two artists were great exponents of expressionistic and imaginative representational painting.

Clairmont and Hammond are two luminaries of New Zealand painting whose works enjoy pride of place in the collections they grace. The paintings in this catalogue present discerning collectors with a rare opportunity to secure works by these sublime artists.

For the sake of aesthetic character, selected works by Clairmont and Hammond have been photographed in an environment akin to studios that both artists worked in at times over their careers. Images from that photoshoot appear in the following pages.

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Bill Hammond Study 1998 acrylic on paper signed WD Hammond and dated 1998 and inscribed Study in graphite upper left 950 × 750mm est

$25,000 — $35,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 1998.

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Exhibitions Hokey Pokey, Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 1998.

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Bill Hammond – Another Realm Essay by VICTORIA MUNN

No bird is bound by gravity - all float among the clouds, both vertically and horizontally, surrounded by long drips of paint. Although Hammond was interested in primordial nature, the universe he creates in And the Seven Seas has a clear human presence.

Besides the figures' toned limbs and modern clothing, they adopt human-like poses, exemplified by the form flanking the right of the canvas, kneeling on a cloud, and disinterestedly reading a broadsheet of symbols.

Bill Hammond's The Strength to Carry On (1985) and And the Seven Seas (2015) were produced thirty years apart. They are separated in Hammond's oeuvre by an expedition to the Auckland Islands, which has been labelled by historians and writers as the artist's 'epiphany' moment. However, both artworks exhibit a pictorial style that is decisively unique to Hammond.

They are united by their biomorphic forms, their varying background tones, and the visual smorgasbord they offer the viewer, drawing us into a completely new realm.

Inside the monumental composition of The Strength to Carry On, we encounter an anthropomorphic form, shirt-clad with grimaced teeth, staring up at a bone held by a similarly unfamiliar shape, whose human head, arms and torso are being drawn back into a vortex.

We find a gun highlighted by a background of red brushstrokes, an aggressive combatant with fist at the ready. Hanging from the top of the picture plane, one can see a mask surrounded by a golden glow, looking downwards to come face-to-face with another peculiar figure. In the bottom-right pocket of the composition, a planter box housing upright single roses creates a sense of depth, and the varying tones of the black background, with patches of grey and subtle texture, prevent complete flatness. The Strength to Carry On reads like an encyclopaedia of Hammond's imagination.

There are more anomalous than recognisable forms, meaning each viewer's response to the composition is unique, discerning different forms and drawing unique Webb's

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Bill Hammond And the Seven Seas 2015 acrylic on canvas signed W D Hammond, dated 2015 and inscribed And the Seven Seas in brushpoint upper right 910 × 1510mm est

$400,000 — $600,000

Provenance Private collection, Christchurch. Acquired from PG Gallery, Christchurch, 2017.

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Exhibitions LAUNCH, PG Gallery, Christchurch, 2015 Literature Maguire, Marian. "LAUNCH - opening exhibition," PG gallery192, March 31, 2015.

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meaning from the work. This multiplicity of readings is encouraged by Hammond's refusal to explain his works.

During his education at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts, Hammond's tutor Don Peebles encouraged the young artist to experiment, and challenge himself in his artistic practice. Hammond's compositions began to pose problems of pictorial balance for him to solve. Indeed, The Strength to Carry On achieves a delicate balance, like a hanging mobile suspended in mid-air, wherein removing one element would skew the entire composition. The forms' varying angles encourage the eye to dance around the picture plane, as if directing us to the next pocket of imagery, and consequently imbuing the work with a sense of movement and energy.

The sense of balance, created by carefully spaced forms, is combined with a limited colour palette of skin-tones, yellow, red and black, creating a sense of tonal unity within the composition. As a result, The Strength to Carry On is a more polished, calmer artwork when compared with Hammond's expressionistic, chaotic 1980s works, which earned him the unique title of 'Hieronymus Bosch of Lyttleton'.

In And the Seven Seas, the bird-human motif that has become synonymous with Hammond's name is on display. These forms were introduced into Hammond's work following his 1989 visit to the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands as part of an artists' expedition.

Hammond believed that places such as Enderby Island offered a sense of what the Aotearoa landscape was like before human habitation. 'You feel like a timetraveller, as if you have just stumbled upon it - primeval forests, ratas like Walt Disney would make', he recalled.

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Bill Hammond The Strength to Carry On 1985 acrylic on linen signed W D Hammond, dated 1985 and inscribed THE STRENGTH TO CARRY ON in brushpoint lower right 1925 × 1830mm est

Fascinated by these predator-free lands in which bird species could thrive, he dubbed them 'birdlands' and, several years later, began incorporating bird-people into his artistic vocabulary. Sparked by this 1989 trip, Hammond's artistic practice began to engage with a whole host of related themes and ideas, including environmental concerns such as the conservation of endangered species, the rapacious exploitation of birds

by Victorian ornithologist Walter Buller, broader colonial practices and visions of primordial order. Whatever they might represent to the viewer, these Birdman forms are now deeply rooted in New Zealand's public consciousness, and a short-hand for Bill Hammond's pictorial language.

In And the Seven Seas, we encounter Hammond's bird-people in their natural habitat. They are situated in an ethereal landscape, which functions as a backdrop for the action on stage. The eye is drawn to the long, sharp beak and proudly raised wing of the central figure, and the figure atop the canvas, flying horizontally. No bird is bound by gravity - all float among the clouds, both vertically and horizontally, surrounded by long drips of paint. Although Hammond was interested in primordial nature, the universe he creates in And the Seven Seas has a clear human presence. Besides the figures' toned limbs and modern clothing, they adopt human-like poses, exemplified by the form flanking the right of the canvas, kneeling on a cloud, and disinterestedly reading a broadsheet of symbols.

The landscape setting and hazy atmosphere of Pink Lady- and Jazz Apple- reds feel infinite. By contrast, although the anthropomorphic figures vary in scale, they are presented with equal clarity, as if pushed up towards the picture plane rather than receding into the distance.

Hammond cleverly manages to concurrently suggest a flat picture plane and the sense of infinite space, a dualism he incorporated into his later work, disrupting any potential sense of spatial logic.

Writers responding to Hammond's work seem to particularly enjoy highlighting his visual quotations - intended or not - of art history. The artist himself acknowledged the influences of other times, other stories and other artworks on his practice. 'I don't have a tight brief,' he explained, 'I fumble around history, picking up bits and pieces.' Indeed, with the select few trees, and varied positioning of the forms within a landscape setting, And the Seven Seas is reminiscent of Renaissance artists' depictions of the gods on Mount Parnassus. Yet it is still Hammond's unique paradisical realm. He has created another world, and the viewer can't help but be drawn in.

$70,000 — $90,000

Provenance Private collection, Canterbury.

1 Jennifer Hay, Bill Hammond: Jingle Jangle Morning (Christchurch: Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, 2007), 21.

2 Gregory O'Brien, Lands and Deeds: Profiles of Contemporary New Zealand Painters (Auckland: Godwit Publishing, 1996), 58.

Exhibitions Red Metro, Dunedin, 1985.

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Philip Clairmont – Notes on Five Works Essay by MARTIN EDMOND

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Philip Clairmont Country Carnival Carnivore 1981 oil on jute 1445 × 915mm est

$200,000 — $300,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Important, Early & Rare, International Art Centre, Auckland, 29 October 2014, lot 23.

Literature Martin Edmond, The Resurrection of Philip Clairmont (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999), 213-14.

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Untitled (Chair) (lot 41) was made at Waikanae in 1976.

It’s a painting of an actual chair, an ordinary open-backed kitchen chair which Clairmont altered, painted and decorated: he added wings on either side of the square back, giving it the characteristic oval mirror shape that can be seen in the painting. Then he improvised, sculpturally, using cloth and rope and other things, an image within the chair-back, suggesting at once mammalian viscera, a skull with horns and flowers in a vase. He painted over that in decorative patterns, the canvas seat and the wooden surrounds as well.

This painting of that chair seems backed into a corner, jammed up in a space that is collapsing into the vortex made by two receding walls inscribed with flame-like hieroglyphs which cannot be deciphered.

Most Clairmont chairs are portraits, or self-portraits; if this one represents a real person, no-one now knows who it is. It looks like somebody who won’t accept their fate and sets themselves against the claustrophobia of the times. Or maybe it’s just a portrait of a chair: an obdurate, eclectic, electric chair. Something about it also suggests a throne ― in both the scatological and the regal senses of that word.

Still Life with Jug & Paint Brushes (lot 42) is one of a series of kidney table paintings Clairmont made between 1975 and 1982. "I banged that thing together about six years ago," he said in 1981. "Made up of one table leg and three unknown pieces of wood, one of which is kidney shaped." He would place objects on the table, like a vase of flowers, a clock housing or, in this case, a jug with brushes in it, and paint the result. Often he ended up painting the actual table as well, which became “coated with paint from various painting bouts”. The distinction between the real and the painted object was an enduring preoccupation.

The kidney tables are all altarpieces. This one, from early 1977, uses soft colours against a background of white to make a work which, while seemingly calm and ordered, inhabits a fractured space: the altar after an incident. Following a blow between the eyes from a heavy object, Clairmont temporarily lost his sight. I Cannot See the Illusive Image (1977), in Te Papa, was painted as he began to be able to see again; like this work, it uses a lot of creamy white to ground the blues and pinks and greens.

The palette also remembers a work, Boats at Kaikoura (1960), by Clairmont’s teacher, Rudi Gopas. Still Life with Jug & Paint Brushes is Matisse-like in its tenderness towards the visual world as it returns, miraculously, before the eyes of a blinded man learning to see again.

Portrait of an Unhappy Masochist (lot 43) was shown at Peter Webb Galleries in Auckland in November 1977 in an exhibition called Operation Steinbach ― after the brand of quality German paper upon which the works were made. An inscription records that it was ‘based on 110

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One of the striking things about Country Carnival Carnivore is the incredible downward vortex of energy that Clairmont channels through the lowered head; down through the seated figure’s arms; and finally through the hand which grips a pencil with vehement force like he would a wood-cutting blade.

Bosch with a dedication to Tony Fomison’. An examination of the works of Hieronymus Bosch has not yet disclosed the model for the unhappy masochist. On the right is a Bacon-esque newspaper image of a man-beast collaged inside the head of a dog or bird-like creature, voyeuristically watching the action. This is most likely a Japanese shape-shifting spirit called yokai, based upon the native tanuki, in English a badger or a raccoon dog.

If so, it connects the work with Shunga, Japanese erotic art, which Clairmont collected; as does the white space within a black frame which seems to be pulling itself apart. The central figure, notionally male, contorted, bent over backwards, is about to stab himself with two pins like giant acupuncture needles, while ulcerous yellow shapes fester upon his neck and the buttons on his shirt pop into eyes. The figure on the left may be read as female. Another contortionist: apart from the ghost of her head beneath the other’s arched body, there’s only her backward bending legs to see, and, between them, evidence of an ambiguous sexuality. The words ‘Bloodsuckers Everywhere’ appear above.

The drawing recalls the black and white grotesqueries of Clairmont’s Christchurch period, which include works that are more Bosch-like than this one, and others that are more recognisably portraits of Tony Fomison. Nevertheless, it remains a compassionate insight into the vagaries of the pleasure arrived at through pain, and looks forward to a series of works on paper, not well known, brilliantly coloured, which ‘draw’ in paint over Webb's

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large expanses of white paper. They were made in the late 1970s and culminate in Departure in Search of Spiritual Knowledge (1979) in the Wallace Collection.

They were followed by the black paintings, of which Paul is an example. He’s sitting in a chair reading a book that has an ‘X’ on the front and an ‘O’ on the back ― binary code, or a nod to Clairmont’s confrères, Maddox and Fomison? They also recall Colin McCahon’s 1976 series Noughts and Crosses. Paul’s face is obscured by deep blacks, with only green and red highlights showing; behind are pictographic and numeric inscriptions. At the back, on the right, is a version of Max Beckmann’s Self Portrait with Horn. Made in Amsterdam in 1938, immediately after he had escaped from Germany under the Third Reich, it is a testament to his survival, a blast at that diabolical regime and a promise of future works.

The reds and yellows and blacks of the Beckmann are echoed, with the addition of an acid green, in the palette of this work. The horn, which resembles an ear trumpet, has another meaning. Paul was a deaf mute, aged nineteen or twenty, who used to visit Clairmont at Edenvale Road in Auckland in the early 1980s. He liked to watch him paint and to look through his library of art books ― as he is doing here. He was fascinated, as Clairmont was, by the historical graffiti on the walls of the house, which was riotous, layered, anarchic and very funny. Paul was a seer rather than a listener. He and Clairmont communicated using written notes; records of some of these survive.

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Philip Clairmont Paul c1980 acrylic, ink, watercolour on paper inscribed PAUL in brushpoint upper right 1210 × 800mm est

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Philip Clairmont Untitled (Chair) 1976 watercolour and gouache on card signed Clairmont and dated 76 in brushpoint lower right 600 × 460mm

$20,000 — $30,000 est

Provenance Private collection, London. Acquired Important Paintings + Contemporary Art, Webb's, Auckland, 31 July 2014, lot 45.

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$12,000 — $18,000

Provenance Private collection, London. Acquired New Collectors Art, Art + Object, Auckland, 7 October 2014, lot 14.

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Philip Clairmont Still Life with Jug & Paint Brushes 1977 oil on jute 1400 × 930mm est

$70,000 — $120,000

Country Carnival Carnivore (lot 39) is a work with complex antecedents. It was made at the Flying Hotel in Mangamahu, on the Whangaehu River north and east of Whanganui, where Clairmont lived during the racially segregated Springbok rugby tour of 1981; and exhibited in a show called Amandla! at the Janne Land Gallery in Wellington. ‘Amandla’ is a Nguni word meaning ‘power’. It was a rallying cry during the black resistance to apartheid rule in South Africa; and used at the No Tour demonstrations, many of which Clairmont attended. The response is ‘Ngawethu!’ and together they mean ‘Power: to the People!’.

Rob Garrett said: "One of the striking things about Country Carnival Carnivore is the incredible downward vortex of energy that Clairmont channels through the lowered head, down through the seated figure’s arms, and finally through the hand which grips a pencil with vehement force like he would a wood-cutting blade. Also striking is the bleached sheep’s skull ― that stands in for the person’s face ― which seems to be spitting white phlegm or snorting shards of bone across the lower half of the painting." The skull was most likely picked up in a paddock near The Flying Hotel; it appears in several other paintings of the period and also in the photographs.

Amongst the other works from Mangamahu, which tend towards the lyric and the elegiac, Country Carnival Carnivore is an anomaly: grimly festive, calling to mind one of the more outré entertainments you might find in the carnie section at an A & P Show. The words ‘carnival’ and ‘carnivore’ in fact share a root: Latin ‘carn’, meaning ‘flesh’. A carnivore is a flesh-eater; ‘carnival’ comes from ‘carn’ plus ‘levare’, to put away, referring to those periods, like Lent, when certain foods are proscribed. A carnival was a feast preceding a fast. Here we see an entity with the head of a herbivore, stripped of flesh, in the enigmatic act of making her mark.

Skulls recur throughout the oeuvre. The motif is old; memento mori (‘remember you must die’), go as far back as Classical Greece and probably much further and were central to Christian iconography from the Dark Ages onwards. This skull looks archaic, however, like something from the palaeolithic era. There are intimations of the cave paintings at Lascaux in the horse-like form slung around the chair back. Another paradox: this is a death’s head full of barbarous life, before a bright orange canvas and a blazing yellow light-bulb; while the tabletop seems to float in space. The plate-like support for the blood red circle being inscribed upon it repeats the blues and whites of the skull. Maybe it is a zero. Or an ouroboros, a snake eating its own tail. It is as if a spirit has been conjured up from some unknown realm and is making self-creating ― or self-negating ― magic before our very eyes.

Provenance Private collection, London. Acquired from Selected Works from the Fletcher Trust Collection, International Art Centre, Auckland, 10 September 2014, lot 33.

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Philip Clairmont Portrait of an Unhappy Masochist (Homage to Bosch and Tony F) c1977 pencil and ink on paper signed P. Clairmont and inscribed "Portrait of an Unhappy Masochist" in brushpoint lower edge; inscribed Based on Bosch & with a dedication to Tony Fomison. NFS in ink verso 715 × 1080mm est

$20,000 — $30,000

Provenance Private collection, London. Acquired Important Paintings + Contemporary Art, Webb's, Auckland, 27 March 2013, lot 74.

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Exhibitions Philip Clairmont Operation Steinbeck, Peter Webb Galleries, Auckland, 1977.

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Tony de Lautour Road of Hate 1996 oil on canvas signed Tony de Lautour and dated 1996 in brushpoint lower right; inscribed Road of Hate in brushpoint upper left 1370 × 1825mm est

$30,000 — $60,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington; Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Brooke/ Gifford Gallery, Christchurch, c1996.

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Exhibitions End of Year, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington, 2007.

Tony de Lautour Inventory, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington, 2018.

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Gretchen Albrecht – Threefold Essay by DAVID MASKILL

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Gretchen Albrecht Threefold 1973 acrylic on canvas signed Albrecht and dated 73 in brushpoint lower right; inscribed CAT NO 4 in ink verso 1820 × 1210mm est

This is a key work from Albrecht’s series of stained canvases made in the early 1970s that established her reputation as a leading New Zealand abstract painter.

Following on from the Tablecloth and Garden series of the late 1960s and early 1970s, the stained canvases series abandoned all conventionally recognisable forms for apparently pure abstraction. But, Albrecht’s abstraction was not of the Greenbergian variety which eschewed any reference to the world outside of the painting. Instead, Albrecht’s abstraction was always firmly rooted and referenced in her beloved landscape of the Auckland coastal regions.

On a superficial level, Albrecht’s stained canvases resemble the earlier paintings of American Abstract Expressionist artists such as Helen Frankenthaler (19282011). However, Albrecht was unfamiliar with American High Modernism at this stage in her career except in reproduction in art magazines. But, in 1971, she saw the work of the American Abstract Expressionist painter Morris Louis (1912-1962) at an exhibition of his paintings at the Auckland Art Gallery. What Albrecht took from this encounter was the large scale and the need to paint the canvas on the floor rather than on the conventional easel. To work on this large scale, she adopted the use of a speedbrush (suggested to her by none other than Gordon Walters) which allowed her to charge the brush with sufficient diluted acrylic paint to physically stain the broad expanse of the unprimed canvas. In this respect, Albrecht was, perhaps unwittingly, merging the American traditions of ‘action’ and ‘colour field’ painting popularized by artists such as Jackson Pollock (19121956) and Barnett Newman (1905-1970).

Threefold has all the hallmarks of Albrecht’s mature style. The large scale allows the viewer to become almost enveloped by the saturated colours.

There is a clear colour progession from the luscious greens at the bottom of the canvas, through bright yellow, purply-red to the joyous blues at the top which evoke bush and sky. The broad bands of modulated colour throb and pulsate with vitality and movement.

Albrecht displays here her complete mastery of the medium without it appearing forced or over controlled.

Threefold was one of the eighteen stained canvas works that Albrecht exhibited at Barry Lett Galleries in March 1974 for the Auckland Festival.

$90,000 — $120,000

Provenance Private collection, Tauranga. Acquired from Nadene Milne Gallery, Arrowtown, c2004.

Exhibitions Gretchen Albrecht 1974 Auckland Festival Exhibition, Barry Lett Galleries, Auckland, 1974.

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Terry Stringer Men to Me 2018 bronze signed Terry Stringer, dated 2018 and inscribed 10/20 with incision lower edge 130 × 60 × 60mm (widest points) est

$2,000 — $4,000

Provenance Private collection. Acquired from Bowen Galleries, Wellington, 2018.

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Russell Clarke Abstract Figurative Composition ceramic and wood 220 × 220 × 151mm (widest points) est

$5,000 — $10,000

Paul Dibble The Devil and the Big Bang 2007 bronze signed Paul Dibble and dated 2007 in incision on base 390 × 365 × 95mm (widest points) est

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Affordable Art, Webb's, Auckland, 4 November 2003, lot 38.

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$10,500 — $17,500

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington, 2007.

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John Armleder NUTNAABUL 2002 mirrored Plexiglass, 16/20 signed John Armleder and inscribed 16/20 in graphite verso 1200 × 995mm (widest points) est

$15,000 — $20,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, 2005.

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David McCracken untitled c2006 stainless steel 1400mm (diameter) est

$28,000 — $36,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired privately, 2019; Digipost Collection, Auckland.

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Ralph Hotere – Observation Point, Port Chalmers Essay by ELIZABETH RANKIN Long-time printer of Ralph Hotere’s lithographs, Marian Maguire, recalls that, when she was first working with him in 1984 in the print studios at the University of Canterbury, he “took advantage of the art school’s sculpture workshop, borrowing the grinder and acetylene torch and producing some beautiful stainless steel paintings".1 The early 1980s was a period of high experimentation for Hotere, whose work had habitually engaged with unusual materials and techniques, such as his use of spray-painted car duco. He now shifted from those insistently flat planes into using found materials with more three-dimensional potential, such as corrugated iron or window frames, and the abraded and burnt stainless steel of Observation Point Port Chalmers, also referred to as Oputae. Hotere achieves extraordinary visual effects with his unconventional tools – texture and chiaroscuro emerge in grinding, cutting into and buckling the metal surface, with lines and edges scorched and burnished gold and purplish blue with an acetylene torch. There are also further colours reflected in the polished stainless steel, as the warped surface affords fleeting glimpses of the viewer and the environment.

The work was produced at a time when Hotere was (unsuccessfully) resisting the reclamation of part of Observation Point, where his studio stood and which had also been a pā and burial site, for facilities for the harbour board. It shows a profile of the headland brutally cut off and scored out with vehement parallel lines. A favoured Hotere symbol of heart and cross, referring back to his Catholic upbringing, streams liquid – tears or even blood – at the desecration. And, beyond the diagonal slash and the unrelenting line of dots piercing the surface, an inscription is ground delicately into the metal – “and daisies falling” – the wild flowers exterminated together with the ravaged ground.

But they also suggest the hope of regeneration; in the words of poet Cilla McQueen, Hotere’s wife: “Tough white daisies cover scars eventually”. 2

1 Maguire in Empty of shadows and making a shadow: Lithographs by Ralph Hotere, Christchurch Art Gallery, 2005, p. 9.

2 McQueen, ‘Dark Matter’, in Ian Wedde (ed.), Ralph Hotere, Black Light, Te Papa Press, 2000, p. 46.

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Ralph Hotere Observation Point, Port Chalmers 1989 burnished steel signed Hotere and dated 89 with incision lower right 1060 × 1210mm est

$60,000 — $90,000

Provenance Private collection, Christchurch. Acquired from The Warwick & Kitty Brown Collection, Webb's, Auckland, 17 May 2017, lot 51.

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Exhibitions Goodman Suter Biennale, The Suter Art Gallery, Te Aratoi o Whakatu, Nelson, 1990 Literature Kriselle Baker and Vincent O'Sullivan, Ralph Hotere. (Auckland: Ron Sang Publications, 2008), 270; Elizabeth Rankin. "Ralph Hotere: Observation Point Port Chalmers," The Warwick & Kitty Brown Collection, Webb's, 2017.

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Frances Hodgkins – Pansies in a Vase Essay by MEGAN SHAW

Catherine Hammond and Mary Kisler, Frances Hodgkins: European Journeys (Chicago: Auckland University Press, 2019), p.55.

2 Letter from Frances Hodgkins to Rachel Hodgkins, 15 June 1908. MS-Papers-0085-20.

Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. completefranceshodgkins.com 1

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Frances Mary Hodgkins (1869-1947) is considered to be New Zealand’s finest expatriate artist and an important painter of the modern British school in the 1930s and 1940s.

Pansies in a Vase from c.1908, is a precursor to her oeuvre of modernist still lifes that she is best known for. Originating from the French pensée or thought, the pansy flower is often read symbolically to mean thoughtfulness. This thoughtful and sophisticated watercolour is from a significant moment in Hodgkins’ stylistic progression just before she began experimenting with oil paint in Paris in December 1908.

Hodgkins was highly skilled in traditional watercolour techniques thanks to early training by her father the watercolourist William Matthew Hodgkins, Girolamo Nerli with whom she studied more expressive painting in 1893, and the Dunedin School of Art. She left New Zealand in 1901 for Europe and by 1907 had a growing reputation, receiving invitations to contribute to exhibitions across England.1 Like many modernist artists, she favoured seasonal and peripatetic movement to ensure fresh artistic inspiration. Her four sporadic years in Paris between 19081912 gave her exposure to the latest exhibitions and attuned her to the discourse on modern art. By 1910 she had been appointed the first female watercolour instructor at the Académie Colarossi and the following year established her own atelier. Pansies in a Vase was probably purchased directly from the artist by a friend or student of her atelier to support her work given its absence from any exhibition catalogues.

In June 1908 she wrote to her mother from Rijsoord in Holland that her “set of flower pictures is growing steadily.”2 Pansies in a Vase may have been among them.

Flower paintings and still life subjects continue to be accompanied by sentiments of the overtly feminine, private, or even amateur. However, the Victorians had a genuine appreciation for the aesthetics and language of these pictures and were admired for their opportunity to showcase the virtuoso or skill of an artist. Hodgkins’ work is no exception. This luxurious and intimate still life of velvet petalled pansies exemplifies her excellence and specialty in watercolour. Her refined brushwork captures the essence, the faces, of each flower.

She closely observes texture and light, ruminating on the passing of time – several flowers fade and droop, another has snapped from its stem and rests on the tabletop.

A similar narrative with blooms strewn beside a half-full (or is it half-empty?) vase was presented by Henri Matisse in his Pansies c.1903 (Metropolitan Museum of Art).

Hodgkins’ vase works harder. She cleverly reflects an interior flooded with light from a triple-paned window, although we are not invited to see more. The flower stems and the delicate browning of fallen pansies within the vase are painted with a fluid, sophisticated hand that obstructs the rest of our potential reflection. Frances Hodgkins’ soft focus, excellence in the elements of pigment and water, proximity to the subject and early favouring of cooler blue and purple tones lays the foundation for the iconic aspects of her later modernist work.

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Frances Hodgkins Pansies in a Vase c1908 watercolour on paper signed FH in brushpoint lower left 229 × 279mm est

$40,000 — $60,000

Provenance Private collection, Palmerston North.

Acquired from Ferner Galleries, Auckland, c1984; Private collection. Acquired from Christies, London, June 1976.

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Notes The Complete Frances Hodgkins Online Catalogue (www.completefranceshodgkins.com) number: FH1198.

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Alfred Sharpe – View from Shoal Bay, Auckland Essay by DAVID MASKILL

The artist has depicted himself seated behind the wooden fence on the right sketching the scene before us. While the watercolour would have been painted in the artist’s studio, Sharpe based his finished works on sketches done on the spot.

Alfred Sharpe (1836-1908) was born in Birkenhead, Cheshire, the son of a local merchant. At the age of fifteen, he went to London to see the Great Exhibition of 1851 at the Crystal Palace where he was impressed by the displays of the colonial courts which included New Zealand. He attended Birkenhead Art School where he learned draughtsmanship. Taking advantage of the land grants being offered to settlers, Sharpe arrived in Auckland in 1859 and took possession of farm land at Mangapai in Northland. The enterprise was not a success and Sharpe supplemented his meagre income by serving as the local undertaker. He was appalled by the devastation wrought by settlers on the orchards and forests maintained by local Māori and this was to become a recurring theme in his paintings of the felling of the kauri forests of Northland.

Following the failure of his farming venture, Sharpe moved to Auckland in 1871 and settled in Grafton Road.

He supported himself and his new wife by working as an architectural draughtsman. That year, he showed his first works at the inaugural exhibition of the short-lived Auckland Society of Artists – a drawing, Gate of St Mary’s Church, Oxford and a sketch, Edinburgh Castle from the Auld Town. The reviewer in the Herald praised them as the works of an accomplished amateur – an epithet that was to haunt Sharpe’s subsequent appearances at public exhibitions in Auckland. With no specialist art galleries available to display his works, Sharpe was obliged to show his paintings in shop windows such as Mr Wayte’s stationery store in Queen Street. Other opportunities to display and sell works came in the form of art unions, effectively lotteries.

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In 1880, Sharpe was a founding member of the Auckland Society of Arts and over the next six years he exhibited regularly with the society. It was at the 1883 exhibition that Sharpe showed View from Shoal Bay, Auckland, priced at eight guineas, from where the work was likely purchased by John McKail Geddes, a partner in the Auckland foodstuffs import company Brown, Barrett and Co. and ancestor of the current owners.

View from Shoal Bay, Auckland depicts the view from what us now Little Shoal Bay in Northcote looking across the harbour to the central Auckland of 1883.

The scene is framed by two great Pohutukawa trees captured with their bright red summer foliage. The artist has depicted himself seated behind the wooden fence on the right sketching the scene before us. While the watercolour would have been painted in the artist’s studio, Sharpe based his finished works on sketches done on the spot. These sketches, sadly, were later destroyed. In the distance we can see two tall ships in the harbour servicing the bustling metropolis. In centre of the painting, a lone kingfisher perches on a branch and is framed against the sky.

This is without doubt one of the most important Alfred Sharpe paintings still in private hands. It is in superb condition and the colours are as bright and fresh as they were when it was painted. Although, at the time, Sharpe’s watercolour views of Auckland were criticised for being too topographical, they are now prized for the extraordinary record they provide of the city and its environs.

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Alfred Sharpe View from Shoal Bay, Auckland 1883 watercolour on paper signed Alfred Sharpe, dated 1883 and inscribed Shoal Bay, Auckland NZ in brushpoint lower left 416 × 657mm est

$40,000 — $60,000

Exhibitions Auckland Society of Arts, Auckland, 1883; The Art of Alfred Sharpe, Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, 1992.

Provenance Private collection, Wellington.

Passed by bequest, 2020.

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Michael Smither – Two Portraits Essay by OLIVIA TAYLOR

1 NZONSCREEN – ‘A Portrait of Michael Smither’ 2007. Ngā Taonga Sound & Vision – TVNZ Collection.

Retrieved from, nzonscreen.com 2 Ibid.

The works Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, 1975 and Self Portrait, 1984, by painter and composer Michael Smither (CNZM) are best complemented by biographical commentary to contextualise the paintings. This can also leave room for nuance that can only be found in the works themselves. The images of Smither and his mother are both insightful lenses into Smither’s life. Smither’s story is of the constrained Catholic boy, then liberated bohemian rural artist whose practice flourished within the 20th century Pākehā New Zealand art context.

Smither was born and raised in New Plymouth in 1939. He spoke in 2007 of his love for his parents during his retrospective documentary aptly named, A Portrait of Michael Smither, stating that, ‘hardly a day goes by when I don’t think about my parents. I was brought up to believe in my talents. I had a loving mother and father who encouraged my abilities’. His father, Bill Smither, was a screen printer who, along with his mother Mary and her connection to the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, acknowledged and fostered his fine art and musical talents. As an only child, Smither talks of spending a ‘tremendous amount of time on my own and [where] I just looked at things’. This time of deep uninterrupted observation and time with his nurturing parents were catalysts for Smither’s uncanny and outré ways of illustrating his subjects.

In Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, 1975, the viewer can see the love and appreciation Smither felt for his mother. The artist has cast his mother in harsh, carved lines, that at first could be seen as unflattering. These are, however, built by many laborious layers of linseed oil and thin paint that describe physiognomies that would only be recognised from intimate association.

Throughout his painting practice, Smither has wrestled with his relationships and understanding of responsibility, passion, women, family, and teachings of the church – most significantly its control over sensuality and sexuality. His painting is his comprehension, exploration, and adoration for those close to him. After completing his studies at the Elam School of Fine Arts with contemporaries Don Biney and Stanley Palmer, and after his later marriage to Poet Elizabeth Harrington, Smither struggled to fund his painting career. The financial pressure pushed them both to move their young family to Pāeteroa where they raised three children in a two-bedroom cottage in the remote valleys of Central Otago. It was at this time that his series centred around domestic life and the strong influence of Rita Angus materialised. It was these works that won Smither the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship in 1970. Many of these depictions of his children and wife are held in major national collections.

His contentment of being in a state of semi-isolation can be read in his works.

The introverted nature of his upbringing and time spent in the South Island could be reason for Smither's hyper-real but detached renderings of his day to day existence.

This frayed separation has a hollowing and darkening effect on how he reproduces his subjects, regardless of the often electric colour palettee he employs. In, Self Portrait, 1984, Smither is present as the father, lover, and son, but is too always the observer, removed whilst documenting.

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54

Michael Smither Portrait of the Artist's Mother 1975 oil on board signed MDS and dated 75 in brushpoint lower right 930 × 660mm est

$90,000 — $120,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Peter McLeavey Gallery, 1975.

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Exhibitions Waikato Art Museum, Hamilton, 1975; Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, 1975.

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55

Michael Smither Self Portrait 1984 oil on board signed MDS and dated 84 in brushpoint lower left 560 × 480mm est

$60,000 — $80,000

Exhibitions Michael Smither: An Introduction, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, 1984.

Provenance Private collection, Wellington.

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130

56

Séraphine Pick The Paddock (No Sound) 2001 oil on canvas signed S Pick and dated 2001 in brushpoint lower right 300 × 380mm

57

Séraphine Pick And Be With You (study) 2009 acrylic on paper signed Séraphine Pick and dated 09 in graphite lower right 280 × 550mm

est

est

$7,000 — $10,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Brooke/Gifford Gallery, Christchurch, 2001.

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$15,000 — $18,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington.

Acquired from Hamish McKay Gallery.

Exhibitions Séraphine Pick, Pocket full Of Rainbows, Hamish McKay Gallery, Wellington, 2010.

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58

Rita Angus Buss Farm c1928 watercolour on paper signed R Angus in graphite lower right 297 × 194mm est

59

Kushana Bush Pony Shuffle 2010 graphite and gouache on paper signed Kushana Bush, dated 2010 June and inscribed Pony Shuffle in graphite verso 760 × 560mm

$15,000 — $25,000 est

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Important Works of Art, Webb's, Auckland, 21 July 2009, lot 65.

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$5,000 — $8,000

Provenance Private collection. Acquired from Brett McDowell Gallery, Dunedin, 2010.

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60

Grahame Sydney Composition on a Square 1968 oil on board signed Grahame C Sydney and dated July 1968 in brush point lower left; signed Grahame C Sydney, dated July 1968 and inscribed Oil/"Composition on a Square" in ink verso 240 × 390mm est

$30,000 — $40,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Passed by bequest 2007; Private collection. Acquired from Dawsons Gallery, Dunedin, 1969.

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61

Stuart Robertson Peace in 10000 hands 2016 neon, archival print on perspex 1000 × 1000mm est

$8,000 — $14,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland.

62

Stuart Robertson Peace in 10000 hands 2016 neon, digital print on perspex 1000 × 1000mm est

$8,000 — $14,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Page Blackie Gallery, Wellington, 2016.

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63

Ralph Hotere and Mary McFarlane Untitled 1999 mirror on metal signed Hotere and McFarlane, dated 22/11/99 and inscribed Port Chalmers in brushpoint verso 230mm diameter est

$35,000 — $50,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Monterey Art Gallery, Auckland, 2002.

64

Billy Apple Basic Needs 2014-18 UV-impregnated ink on canvas 620 × 380 mm est

$26,000 — $32,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Fine Art, Webb's, Auckland, December 2018, lot 256.

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66

Dick Frizzell Small Farm Dam 1990 oil on canvas signed Frizzell, dated 4/9/90 and inscribed Small Farm Dam in brushpoint lower right 450 × 550mm

65

Peter Siddell untitled 1973 acrylic on board signed P SIDDELL and dated 1973 in brushpoint lower right 595 × 800mm

est est

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired c1973.

Webb's

$15,000 — $20,000

$35,000 — $55,000

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Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Peter McLeavey Gallery, 1990.

136

67

Frances Hodgkins Washerwomen c1902 watercolour on paper signed F.M.H in brushpoint lower right 330 × 255mm est

$35,000 — $45,000

Provenance Private collection, Hamilton. Acquired from Waikato Society of Arts, Hamilton.

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Notes The Complete Frances Hodgkins Online Catalogue (www.completefranceshodgkins.com) number: FH0555.

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68

Dorothy Napangardi Robinson Salt at Mina Mina 2010 acrylic on linen signed Dorothy and inscribed DNR08200718 in ink verso 1200 × 900mm

Fatu Feu'u untitled acrylic on canvas signed Feuu and dated 2012 in ink verso 1010 × 1010mm

est

est

$11,000 — $16,000

Provenance Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from U.I Aboriginal Art Gallery, Alice Springs.

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69

$6,000 — $8,000

Provenance Private collection, Hamilton. Acquired from Waikato Society of Arts, Hamilton.

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70

Scott McFarlane untitled 2014-18 ceramic signed SMF in ink verso 1250 × 900mm (dimensions variable) est

$8,000 — $10,000

Provenance Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Vivian Gallery, Matakana, c2015.

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Terms and Conditions The terms and conditions of sale listed here contain the policies of Webb’s (Webb Fine Art). They are the terms on which Webb’s (Webb Fine Art) and the Seller contract with the Buyer. They may be amended by printed Saleroom Notices or oral announcements made before and during the sale. By bidding at auction you agree to be bound by these terms.

1.

Background to the Terms used in these Conditions The conditions that are listed below contain terms that are used regularly and may need explanation. They are as follows: “the Buyer” means the person with the highest bid accepted by the Auctioneer. “the Lot” means any item depicted within the sale for auction and in particular the item or items described against any lot number in the catalogue. “the Hammer price” means the amount of the highest bid accepted by the auctioneer in relation to a lot. “the Buyer’s Premium” means the charge payable by the Buyer to the auction house as a percentage of the hammer price. “the Reserve” means the lowest amount at which Webb’s has agreed with the Seller that the lot can be sold.

“Forgery” means an item constituting an imitation originally conceived and executed as a whole, with a fraudulent intention to deceive as to authorship, origin, age, period, culture or source, where the correct description as to such matters is not reflected by the description in the catalogue.

Accordingly, no lot shall be capable of being a forgery by reason of any damage or restoration work of any kind (Including re-painting). “the insured value” means the amount that Webb’s in its absolute discretion from time to time shall consider the value for which a lot should be covered for insurance (whether or not insurance is arranged by Webb’s).

All values expressed in Webb’s catalogues (in any format) are in New Zealand Dollars (NZD$). All bids, “hammer price”, “reserves”, “Buyers Premium” and other expressions of value are understood by all parties to be in New Zealand Dollars (NZD$) unless otherwise specified.

2.

Webb’s Auctions as Agent

Except as otherwise stated, Webb’s acts as agent for the Seller.

The contract for the sale of the property is therefore made between the Seller and the Buyer.

3.

Before the Sale

3.1.

Examination of Property Prospective Buyers are strongly advised to examine in person any property in which they are interested before the Auction takes place.

Neither Webb’s nor the Seller provides any guarantee in relation to the nature of the property apart from the Limited warranty in the paragraph below.

The property is otherwise sold “AS IS”

constitute a representation, warranty or assumption of liability by Webb’s of any kind. References in the catalogue entry to the condition report to damage or restoration are for guidance only and should be evaluated by personal inspection by the bidder or a knowledgeable representative. The absence of such a reference does not imply that an item is free from defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of any others. Estimates of the selling price should not be relied on as a statement that this is the price at which the item will sell or its value for any other purpose. Neither Webb’s nor The Seller is responsible for any errors or omissions in the catalogue or any supplemental material.

Images are measured height by width (sight size). Illustrations are provided only as a guide and should not be relied upon as a true representation of colour or condition. Images are not shown at a standard scale. Mention is rarely made of frames (which may be provided as supplementary images on the website) which do not form part of the lot as described in the printed catalogue.

An item bought “on Extension” must be paid for in full before it will be released to the purchaser or his/ her agreed expertising committee or specialist. Payments received for such items will be held “in trust” for up to 90 days or earlier, if the issue of authenticity has been resolved more quickly. Extensions must be requested before the auction.

Foreign buyers should note that all transactions are in New Zealand Dollars so there may be a small exchange rate risk. The costs associated with acquiring a good opinion or certificate will be carried by the purchaser. If the item turns out to be forged or otherwise incorrectly described, all reasonable costs will be borne by the vendor.

3.

Buyers Responsibility All property is sold “as is” without representation or warranty of any kind by Webb’s or the Seller. Buyers are responsible for satisfying themselves concerning the condition of the property and the matters referred to in the catalogue by requesting a condition report.

No lot to be rejected if, subsequent to the sale, it has been immersed in liquid or treated by any other process unless the Auctioneer’s permission to subject the lot to such immersion or treatment has first been obtained in writing.

2.

Catalogue and Other Descriptions All statements by Webb’s in the catalogue entry for the property or in the condition report, or made orally or in writing elsewhere, are statements of opinion and are not to be relied upon as statements of fact. Such statements do not

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4.

At the Sale

4.1.

Refusal of Admission Webb’s reserves the right at our complete discretion to refuse admission to the auction premises or participation in any auction and to reject any bid.

4.2.

Registration Before Bidding Any prospective new buyer must complete and sign a registration form and provide photo identification before bidding. Webb’s may request bank, trade or other financial references to substantiate this registration.

4.3.

Bidding as a Principal When making a bid, a bidder is accepting personal liability to pay the purchase price including the buyer’s premium and all applicable taxes, plus all other applicable charges, unless it has been explicitly agreed in writing with Webb’s before the commencement of the sale that the bidder is acting as agent on behalf of an identified third party acceptable to Webb’s and that Webb’s will only look to the principal for payment.

4.4.

International Registrations All International clients not known to Webb’s will be required to scan or fax through an accredited form of photo identification and pay a deposit at our discretion in cleared funds into Webb’s account at least 24 hours before the commencement of the auction. Bids will not be accepted without this deposit. Webb’s also reserves the right to request any additional forms of identification prior to registering an overseas bid.

This deposit can be made using a credit card, however the balance of any purchase price in excess of $5,000 cannot be charged to this card without prior arrangement.

This deposit is redeemable against any auction purchase and will be refunded in full if no purchases are made.

4.5.

Absentee Bids Webb’s will use reasonable efforts to execute written bids delivered to us AT LEAST 24 Hours before the sale for the convenience of those clients who are unable to attend the auction in person. If we receive identical written bids on a particular lot, and at the auction these are the highest bids on that lot, then the lot will be sold to the person whose written bid was received and accepted first.

Execution of written bids is a free service undertaken subject to other commitments at the time of the sale and we do not accept liability for failing to execute a written bid or for errors or omissions which may arise.

It is the bidder’s responsibility to check with Webb’s after the auction if they were successful. Unlimited or “Buy” bids will not be accepted.

4.6.

Telephone Bids Priority will be given to overseas and bidders from other regions.

Please refer to the catalogue for the Telephone Bids form.

Arrangements for this service must be confirmed AT LEAST 24 HOURS PRIOR to the auction commencing.

Webb’s accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any errors or failure to execute bids. In telephone

Webb's

bidding the buyer agrees to be bound by all terms and conditions listed here and accepts that Webb’s cannot be held responsible for any miscommunications in the process.

The success of telephone bidding cannot be guaranteed due to circumstances that are unforeseen.

Buyers should be aware of the risk and accept the consequences should contact be unsuccessful at the time of Auction. You must advise Webb’s of the lots in question, and you will be assumed to be a buyer at the minimum price of 75% of estimate (i.e. reserve) for all such lots. Webb’s will advise Telephone Bidders who have registered at least 24 hours before the auction of any relevant changes to descriptions, withdrawals, or any other sale room notices.

4.7.

Online Bidding Webb’s offers an online bidding service. When bidding online the buyer agrees to be bound by all terms and conditions listed here

by Webb’s.

Webb’s accepts no responsibility for any errors, failure to execute bids or any other miscommunications regarding this process. It is the online bidder’s responsibility to ensure the accuracy of the relevant information regarding bids, lot numbers and contact details. Webb’s does not charge for this service.

4.8.

Reserves Unless otherwise indicated, all lots are offered subject to a reserve, which is the confidential minimum price below which the Lot will not be sold. The reserve will not exceed the low estimate printed in the catalogue. The auctioneer may open the bidding on any Lot below the reserve by placing a bid on behalf of the Seller. The auctioneer may continue to bid on behalf of seller up to the amount of the reserve, either by placing consecutive bids or by placing bids in response to other bidders.

4.9.

Auctioneers Discretion The Auctioneer has the right at his/ her absolute and sole discretion to refuse any bid, to advance the bidding in such a manner as he/she may decide, to withdraw or divide any lot, to combine any two or more lots and, in the case or error or dispute and whether during or after the sale, to determine the successful bidder, to continue the bidding, to cancel the sale or to reoffer and resell the item in dispute. If any dispute arises after the sale, then Webb’s sale record is conclusive.

4.10. Successful Bid and Passing of Risk Subject to the auctioneer’s discretion, the highest bidder accepted by the auctioneer will be the buyer and the striking of his hammer marks the acceptance of the highest bid and the conclusion of a contract for sale between the Seller and the Buyer. Risk and responsibility for the lot (including frames or glass where relevant) passes immediately to the Buyer.

4.11. Indicative Bidding Steps, etc.

Webb’s reserves the right to refuse any bid, withdraw any lot from sale,

March

to place a reserve on any lot and to advance the bidding according to the following indicative steps: Increment Dollar Range Amount $20 $0–$500 $50 $500–$1,000 $100 $1,000–$2,000 $200 $2,000–$5,000 $500 $5,000–$10,000 $1,000 $10,000–$20,000 $2,000 $20,000–$50,000 $5,000 $50,000 – $100,000 $10,000 $100,000–$200,000 $20,000 $200,000–$500,000 $50,000 $500,000–$1,000,000 Absentee bids must follow these increments and any bids that don’t follow the steps will be rounded up to the nearest acceptable bid.

made for this service. All packing, shipping, insurance, postage & associated charges will be borne by the purchaser.

5.

5.6.1. to charge interest at such a rate as we shall reasonably decide.

After the Sale

5.1.

Buyers Premium In addition to the hammer price, the buyer agrees to pay to Webb’s the buyer’s premium. The buyer’s premium is 18.5% of the hammer price plus GST. (Goods and Services Tax) where applicable.

5.2.

Payment and Passing of Title The buyer must pay the full amount due (comprising the hammer price, buyer’s premium and any applicable taxes and GST) not later than 2 days after the auction date.

The buyer will not acquire title to the lot until Webb’s receives full payment in cleared funds, and no goods under any circumstances will be released without confirmation of cleared funds received. This applies even if the buyer wishes to send items overseas.

Payment can be made by direct transfer, cash (not exceeding NZD$5,000, if wishing to pay more than NZD$5,000 then this must be deposited directly into a Bank of New Zealand branch and bank receipt supplied) and EFTPOS (please check the daily limit). Payments can also be made by credit card in person with a 2.2% merchant fee for Visa and Mastercard and 3.3% for American Express. Invoices that are in excess of $5,000 and where the card holder is not present, cannot be charged to a credit card without prior arrangement. Bank cheques are subject to five days clearance.

The buyer is responsible for any bank fees and charges applicable for the transfer of funds into Webb’s account.

5.3.

Collection of Purchases & Insurance Webb’s is entitled to retain items sold until all amounts due to us have been received in full in cleared funds. Subject to this, the Buyer shall collect purchased lots within 2 days from the date of the sale unless otherwise agreed in writing between Webb’s and the Buyer.

At the fall of the hammer, insurance is the responsibility of the purchaser.

5.4.

Packing, Handling and Shipping Webb’s will be able to suggest removals companies that the buyer can use but takes no responsibility whatsoever for the actions of any recommended third party.

Webb’s can pack and handle goods purchased at the auction by agreement and a charge will be

5.5.

Permits, Licences and Certificates Under The Protected Objects Act 1975, buyers may be required to obtain a licence for certain categories of items in a sale from the Ministry of Culture & Heritage, PO Box 5364, Wellington.

5.6.

Remedies for Non-Payment If the Buyer fails to make full payment immediately, Webb’s is entitled to exercise one or more of the following rights or remedies (in addition to asserting any other rights or remedies available under the law)

5.6.2. to hold the defaulting Buyer liable for the total amount due and to commence legal proceedings for its recovery along with interest, legal fees and costs to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law.

5.6.3. to cancel the sale.

5.6.4. to resell the property publicly or privately on such terms as we see fit.

5.6.5. to pay the Seller an amount up to the net proceeds payable in respect of the amount bid by the defaulting Buyer. In these circumstances the defaulting Buyer can have no claim upon Webb’s in the event that the item(s) are sold for an amount greater than the original invoiced amount.

5.6.6. to set off against any amounts which Webb’s may owe the Buyer in any other transactions, the outstanding amount remaining unpaid by the Buyer.

5.6.7. where several amounts are owed by the Buyer to us, in respect of different transactions, to apply any amount paid to discharge any amount owed in respect of any particular transaction, whether or not the Buyer so directs.

5.6.8. to reject at any future auction any bids made by or on behalf of the Buyer or to obtain a deposit from the Buyer prior to accepting any bids.

5.6.9. to exercise all the rights and remedies of a person holding security over any property in our possession owned by the Buyer whether by way of pledge, security interest or in any other way, to the fullest extent permitted by the law of the place where such property is located. The Buyer will be deemed to have been granted such security to us and we may retain

142

such property as collateral security for said Buyer’s obligations to us.

5.6.10. to take such other action as Webb’s deem necessary or appropriate.

If we do sell the property under paragraph (4), then the defaulting Buyer shall be liable for payment of any deficiency between the total amount originally due to us and the price obtained upon reselling as well as for all costs, expenses, damages, legal fees and commissions and premiums of whatever kinds associated with both sales or otherwise arising from the default.

If we pay any amount to the Seller under paragraph (5) the Buyer acknowledges that Webb’s shall have all of the rights of the Seller, however arising, to pursue the Buyer for such amount.

5.7.

Failure to Collect Purchases Where purchases are not collected within 2 days from the sale date, whether or not payment has been made, we shall be permitted to remove the property to a warehouse at the buyer’s expense, and only release the items after payment in full has been made of removal, storage handling, insurance and any other costs incurred, together with payment of all other amounts due to us.

6.

Extent of Webb’s Liability

Webb’s agrees to refund the purchase price in the circumstances of the Limited Warranty set out in paragraph 7 below. Apart from that, neither the Seller nor we, nor any of our employees or agents are responsible for the correctness of any statement of whatever kind concerning any lot, whether written or oral, nor for any other errors or omissions in description or for any faults or defects in any lots. Except as stated in paragraph 7 below, neither the Seller, ourselves, our officers, agents or employees give any representation warranty or guarantee or assume any liability of any kind in respect of any lot with regard to merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, description, size, quality, condition, attribution, authenticity, rarity, importance, medium, provenance, exhibition history, literature or historical relevance. Except as required by local law any warranty of any kind is excluded by this paragraph.

7.

Limited Warranty

Subject to the terms and conditions of this paragraph, the Seller warrants for the period of thirty days from the date of the sale that any property described in this catalogue (noting such description may be amended by any saleroom notice or announcement) which is stated without qualification to be the work of a named author or authorship is authentic and not a forgery. The term “Author” or “authorship” refers

Webb's

to the creator of the property or to the period, culture, source, or origin as the case may be, with which the creation of such property is identified in the catalogue.

The warranty is subject to the following: it does not apply where a) the catalogue description or saleroom notice corresponded to the generally accepted opinion of scholars and experts at the date of the sale or fairly indicated that there was a conflict of opinions, or b) correct identification of a lot can be demonstrated only by means of a scientific process not generally accepted for use until after publication of the catalogue or a process which at the date of the publication of the catalogue was unreasonably expensive or impractical or likely to have caused damage to the property. the benefits of the warranty are not assignable and shall apply only to the original buyer of the lot as shown on the invoice originally issued by Webb’s when the lot was sold at Auction. the Original Buyer must have remained the owner of the lot without disposing of any interest in it to any third party.

The Buyer’s sole and exclusive remedy against the Seller in place of any other remedy which might be available, is the cancellation of the sale and the refund of the original purchase price paid for the lot less the buyer’s premium which is non-refundable. Neither the Seller nor Webb’s will be liable for any special, incidental nor consequential damages including, without limitation, loss of profits.

The Buyer must give written notice of claim to us within thirty days of the date of the Auction. The Seller shall have the right, to require the Buyer to obtain two written opinions by recognised experts in the field, mutually acceptable to the Buyer and Webb’s to decide whether or not to cancel the sale under warranty. the Buyer must return the lot to Seller in the same condition that it was purchased.

8.

10.

Law and Jurisdiction

These terms and conditions and any matters concerned with the foregoing fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New Zealand, unless otherwise stated.

11.

Pre-Sale Estimates

Webb’s publishes with each catalogue our opinion as to the estimated price range for each lot.

These estimates are approximate prices only and are not intended to be definitive. They are prepared well in advance of the sale and may be subject to revision. Interested parties should contact Webb’s prior to auction for updated pre-sale estimates and starting prices.

12.

Sale Results

Webb’s will provide auction results, which will be available as soon as possible after the sale. Results will include buyer’s premium.

These results will be posted at www.webbs.co.nz.

13.

Goods and Service Tax

GST is applicable on the hammer price in the case where the seller is selling property that is owned by an entity registered for GST. GST is also applicable on the hammer price in the case where the seller is not a New Zealand resident. These lots are denoted by a dagger symbol † placed next to the estimate. GST is also applicable on the buyer’s premium.

Severability

If any part of these Conditions of Sale is found by any court to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable, that part shall be discounted, and the rest of the Conditions shall continue to be valid to the fullest extent permitted by law.

9.

Copyright

The copyright in all images, illustrations and written material produced by Webb’s relating to a lot including the contents of this catalogue, is and shall remain the property at all times of Webb’s and shall not be used by the Buyer, nor by anyone else without our prior written consent. Webb’s and the Seller make no representation or warranty that the Buyer of a property will acquire any copyright or other reproduction rights in it.

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Index of Artists A Albrecht, Gretchen Angus, Rita Apple, Billy Armleder, John

N 68, 118-119 132 135 121

B Binney, Don Bush, Kushana

58 132

C Carlin, Kirstin Clairmont, Philip Clarke, Russell Cotton, Shane

59 99, 101-102, 110-116 47 70-71

D de Lautour, Tony Dibble, Paul

117 47

F Feu’u, Fatu Fomison, Tony Frank, Dale Frizzell, Dick

138 73 66 136

G Gimblett, Max

Napangardi Robinson, Dorothy Nikolic, Tomislav

138 66

P Pardington, Fiona

Parekōwhai, Michael Pick, Séraphine

72, 80-81, 96 68, 69 60, 131

R Rae, Jude Reynolds, John Robertson, Stuart

92-93 62 134

S Scott, Ian Sharpe, Alfred Siddell, Peter Smither, Michael Stringer, Terry Sydney, Grahame

63 126-127 136 86-89, 128-130 120 133

W Walters, Gordon Westra, Ans Wilkinson, Brendon Woollaston, Toss

58, 64 63 61 62

76-77

H Hammond, Bill 90-91, 98-99, 103, 105-109 Hemer, André 59 Hodgkins, Frances 124-125,137 Hotere, Ralph 67, 122-123 Hotere, Ralph & Mary McFarlane 135 I Ikin, Humphrey

78-79

M

Scan for Digital Absentee Bid Form

Webb's

Matchitt, Para McCahon, Colin McCracken, David McFarlane, Scott Mcleod, Andrew

March

64-65 82-83, 84-85, 94-95 121 139 74-75

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