KEY POINTS:
If competition is good for customers, then 2007 looks like being a vintage year in Auckland for buyers of art at auction.
Not only is public optimism in the economy rising but the city will see no fewer than five auction houses in competition for the art dollar.
Wellington, by comparison, has but one - Dunbar Sloane.
That firm is not giving up on its Auckland branch - far from it. But expect to see it concentrating more on Wellington for major art sales, with Auckland the centre for the booming trade in New Zealand historical items, militaria and Maori and Pacific artefacts.
Webb's, 30 years old this year, has a strong programme planned for next year. Look for some big private collections, including photographs by Brian Brake.
Such sales are always of interest, in bringing forward works that have often been off the market for many years - witness the $1.4 million fetched by the collection of the former president of the Court of Appeal, Sir Ivor Richardson, by Sloane's in Wellington early this year.
The International Art Centre in Parnell, which celebrated its 35th birthday this year, will be well to the fore again. Director Richard Thomson, whose detailed recall of sales and prices is mind-boggling, proved to be a more than competent auctioneer this year.
Out on Great South Rd, Cordy's, under new owner Andrew Grigg, maintained its familiar clientele for its regular antique and general sales. Attendance at its new art-only sales was weaker but some good works were offered and sold.
Next year's wild card is the brand-new house (as yet unnamed) set up by Ross Millar, James Parkinson and Ben Plumbly, all formerly of Webb's. They bring formidable backgrounds, particularly in modern and contemporary art and design, to the task, and favour a location somewhere around trendy Ponsonby, K Rd or Grey Lynn.
The year soon to end had many highlights. Two were at the International Art Centre - a charming watercolour of the Plains of Waterloo by J.M.W. Turner and an evocative painting by Horace Moore-Jones of Anzac Cove at Gallipoli.
The Turner went for $174,500; the Anzac painting sold at more than 10 times its reserve, to reach $56,750 (both prices include buyer's premium of 12 per cent and GST).
Webb's saw a record price for a single image by a New Zealand photographer of $6000 ($6844 with buyer's premium and GST) for Meccano Bus by Peter Peryer at the Fraser sale last month, exceeded last week by the same photographer's Trout, which went for $8750 ($9980).
Webb's also set a record for Michael Illingworth, with Mr and Mrs Thomas Piss-Quick selling for $160,000 ($182,496) in September. In April, a big Gretchen Albrecht abstract went for $41,000 ($46,764), also a record.
Cordy's highlight was not in art but with a rare Royal Doulton Maori chief character jug which fetched $65,659 - an Australasian record.
Finally, in a previous column Sloane's were reported as claiming a record of $11,500 for a piece of New Zealand jewellery. Not so. Chris Devereaux of Webb's rightly points out that three years ago he sold a pendant set with diamonds by Ida Hudig, a Dutch-born immigrant to New Zealand and a leading maker of modern movement jewellery, for $35,000 ($38,937).
Like many other of her pieces at that sale, it is understood to have ended up in Te Papa.