Saleroom: Hotere leads the way in booming art market

By DON MILNE

The share market drifts; property is said to be on the rise but shows no sign of booming. Yet, election or not, investors seem to be turning to art in a big way.

A major sale last month at Webb's saw a near-record turnout and what must surely be a record here for a one-day art sale, at just over $2.6 million.

No fewer than six works sold at $100,000 or more (hammer price, before adding 10 per cent buyer's premium and 12.5 per cent GST on the premium), and 10 more went for between $50,000 and $100,000.

As already published, top price for the night (and a record for a living New Zealand artist) went to Viva Aramoana by Ralph Hotere. It sold for $210,000 ($233,625 with premium and GST) to millionaire publisher Barry Colman.

Colman had a special reason for buying the painting - it will hang in Hotere's favourite watering hole, the Careys Bay Hotel in Port Chalmers, which is owned and being restored by the buyer and his wife.

That may have moved the price up a bit, but it is still seen as setting a new benchmark for Hotere. Other works by him fetched $31,000, $47,000 and $120,000, and a 1981 lithograph reached the astonishing figure of $6000. Predictably, works by Colin McCahon (top price $180,000), Charles Goldie ($80,000 and $90,000) and Bill Hammond (top price $100,000) sold well. Interest in these artists shows no sign of waning.

But a fine early work by abstract artist Milan Mrkusich sold for a record $77,500 - well above the top estimate of $60,000 - and a small early Don Binney, showing a pied tomtit set in a sombre landscape, went for $70,000, the top of the estimate.

Evelyn Page's wonderful Nude with Magnolias, painted when the artist was in her 80s, went at the top of the estimate, too, at $190,000. Her peaceful, early domestic scene, The Quiet Hour, failed to sell on the night but went subsequently for $65,000.

Historic works attracted not quite the same interest. A landscape by Alfred Sharpe, for instance, expected to go for between $120,000 and $150,000, did not reach the reserve on the night but sold afterwards for $100,000. The appealing 1851 watercolour of a "mixed-race" group in the Bay of Islands, by Commander Richard Aldworth Oliver, captain of HMS Fly, did well to reach $82,500, but might have done better.

This historic and well-documented work went to a private buyer, with Te Papa understood to be the under-bidder. "Never mind," said one cynic, with memories of the national museum's earlier purchase of a couple of Goldies. "In three or four years, they'll buy it at half a million."

Coming up: Webb's is holding its first sale of modern and contemporary furniture and other items of contemporary design at 6pm this Wednesday.

The International Art Centre has a full catalogue for its sale at 6.30 pm on Thursday in the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Parnell. The 210 lots include two fine works by Peter Siddell, a wonderfully bucolic watercolour of Wellington in 1888 by Christopher Aubrey, and several works by Petrus van der Velden. It also has good works by Margaret Stoddart and Sydney Lough Thompson, plus an interesting range of historic works.

Cordys have an art and antiques sale on August 13.

Dunbar Sloane's next Auckland sale is planned for August 21-22 and will include works from the Pearl Lerner collection and the collection of the Auckland Club.