A return to earth for Australia's art auction houses

Peter Fish

Dec 5, 2018 – 10.00pm

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Despite ending with a soupçon of excitement over drawings from Nicolas Baudin's south seas expeditions, 2018 has proved relatively subdued in the auction arena.

With some notable exceptions, the year was marked by few record-high prices and more well-worn repeats.

Overall turnover by the dominant auctioneers has fallen back to around $105 million for the year, from $142 million in 2017, Australian Art Sales Digest statistics show.

Jeffrey Smart's Outside the Ministry sold for $490,909 at Menzies on November 22. SEE CAPTION INFO

Of course 2017 was supercharged by some exceptional sales, including that of the late media figure James Fairfax. Indeed, the statistics show annual art market auction turnover has mostly hovered around $100 million since the boom came off the rails amid the recession 10 years ago.

No single work by an Australian artist convincingly overshot the million dollar mark in the final sales for 2018, with a sizable cohort of unsold lots.

This year only six Australian works brought more than $1 million. Last year there were 10.

Sotheby's

Sotheby's clearly ended the year with bragging rights. Its November 20 sale in Sydney, including a sprinkling of paintings from the collection of Aussie Home Loans founder John Symond, drew in $8.3 million on the back of strong prices for top names. Brett Whiteley's amorphous Nude Beside the Basin fetched the top price of $829,600 and Joel Elenberg's white marble sculpture Mask A brought a new high for the artist of $634,400. Its other strong prices, John Russell's Ariadne at $671,000 and John Brack's Pantomime at $610,000, were in line with expectations.

Elioth Gruner's epic Sunshine and Rain, Jamieson Valley surpassed expectations with a price of $103,700, as did Sidney Nolan's Riverbend (Ned Kelly) at $61,000.

Lesser work to impress included Elioth Gruner's Ploughing at $57,340 on an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000.

John Russell's Ariadne brought $671,000, at Sotheby's. Danny Kneebone

The sale brought Sotheby's total for the year to a chart-topping $33.78 million.

Deutscher and Hackett

Deutscher and Hackett, which according to its own estimates edged ahead of Sotheby's in 2017 as market leader, failed to do so this year despite its coup in listing the newly discovered art from the Nicolas Baudin expedition.

The Baudin works, which turned up virtually unnoticed at a sale in Paris a year ago, did justice to the extensive research on them by rare book dealer Hordern House, which offered them jointly with Deutscher and Hackett. Despite several going unsold, the drawings tallied $2.8 million.

With its last art sale of the year on November 28 raising $6.84 million, supercharged by the Baudin sale, Deutscher and Hackett tallied $19.19 million for the 12 months, just behind Menzies' $21.15 million and well behind Sotheby's.

Joel Elenberg's Mask A did well at Sotheby's sale, bringing $634,400. Geoff Sumner

For its final sale D&H's top 10 prices included two of the Baudin drawings, Sauvage de L'Ile Van Diemen, a full length study showing a seated Aborigine, at $829,600, and a similarly titled head and shoulders view of a different native at $707,600. John Brack's Reclining Nude at $634,600, Lin Richard's nihilistic Painting with Aluminium Bar at $524,600 and Joel Elenberg's sculpture Makiko at $414,800 also made the top 10. New records were set by Cressida Campbell's Gum Blossom at $122,000 and Harold Freedman's wartime study Maintenance Work on a Beaufighter $51,240.

Sold well above estimates were Brett Whiteley's Rabbit Holes, Blayney at $146,400, Emanuel Phillips Fox's Fishing Boats and Jetty, Le Brusc at $57,340, and Elioth Gruner's September Morning at $51,240. Four Ellis Rowan flower studies in watercolour also stood out at up to $19,520 each. Among the Aboriginal works on offer, Timmy Tjapangati's Parayirrpilnya brought $22,570 and George Tjungurrayi 's Tingari at Kirrimalunya at $20,740 – both besting their estimates. Mirka Mora's Dreaming in the Garden brought $30,500, three times the lower estimate. The artist died in August, aged 90.

Menzies

Menzies' sale in Melbourne on November 22 achieved mixed results, with unsolds noticeable among lower priced lots towards the end.

Of its two major imported works, Fernand Leger's China Town and Andy Warhol's Muhammad Ali, both described as from Melbourne collections, topped the sold list supplied to Art Sales Digest.

Emanuel Phillips Fox's Fishing Boats and Jetty, Le Brusc, brought $57,340, at Deutscher and Hackett. SEE CAPTION INFO

Leger's China Town was knocked down for the highest price in the auction, $1,472,726, but as this is its third appearance at Menzies in little more than three years it appears it may have changed hands among one of Menzies' syndicates.

Warhol's images of Muhammad Ali, portrayed in a set of four large 1978 silkscreen prints, brought $294,545, reflecting a hammer price above the estimate.

Sold right on their lower estimates were Fred Williams' Hillside II at $981,818 and Jeffrey Smart's Outside the Ministry at $490,909.

Mid-level works that comfortably cleared their estimates included John Perceval's Ti-Tree and She Oaks at $85,909, John Olsen's Burnt Tree 1-V, comprising five 51cm canvases, which sold for $51,545, Tim Storrier's Ashes, Frame and Paper IV at $31,909 and Hans Heysen's The White Gum, Ambleside at $25,545.

Bonhams

Bonhams final sale of the year in Sydney on November 14 raised $1.38 million. The figure was boosted in no small measure by a substantial number of works from John Cruthers, the son of University of WA benefactor and charity figure Sheila Cruthers. Among the Cruthers consignments was Ralph Balson's Untitled from 1941 – which had been displayed at the artist's seminal but little appreciated one-man exhibition at Sydney's Anthony Hordern the year it was painted. It brought the highest price, $402,600. Linocut prints by Dorrit Black also stood out – Music brought $91,500 and The Acrobats $67,100.

With a sales tally of $11.26 million for 2018, Bonhams falls well behind the three majors in this race, and will clearly be hoping for more consignments from the likes of Cruthers to sustain its Australian art sales.

ptrfish8@gmail.com