By Louise Bellamy
The conveyor belt of Whiteleys, Smarts, Nolans, Boyds, Bracks, Blackmans, Williams and Drysdales continued to dominate the mid-year Australian art sales. But the after-effects of the global financial crisis have prompted some of the country's leading auction houses to seek new niches in in the Australian – and international – cutting-edge contemporary market.
Menzies Art Brands doesn't stray from the conventional quarterly auction formula with its regular quarterly turnovers largely accrued by the same prominent names. Its July 24 sale, which kick-started the winter sales, realised a $6.9 million turnover, more than half - $3.6 million – from just six works: a Smart, Nolan, two Whiteleys, a Drysale and a McCubbin.
Star: Jeffrey Smart's Self Portrait at Papini's sold for $1.26 million at the Deutscher and Hackett sale last week.
This week's Sotheby's Australia sales showed the similar pattern, with $3.5 million of its $6.3 million turnover comprising three Smarts, two Williams, a Whiteley and Drysdale. Significant was the $183,000 record struck for Robert Dickerson's 1954 oil The Bottle. Aged 90, Dickerson is one of the oldest working artists in Australia.
Sotheby's chairman Geoffrey Smith's mantra is "quality not quantity", hence its recent decision to ditch its indigenous art department. Now significant Aboriginal works are incorporated into the main Australian sales because, he explains, "the indigenous art market isn't strong enough no matter how it's presented".
Heavyweight: Works by painters such as Brett Whiteley are still the jewels in sales programs.Credit: Jason South
"Aboriginal art sold through tourism ventures has denuded quality indigenous material, an area which should be taken on by public institutions," Smith said.
But other auction houses are deliberately targeting new names and niches. Deutscher and Hackett, for instance, is now integrating prominent contemporary international art with Australian works. Its sale in Sydney last Wednesday of 142 lots which turned over $6.7 million - 80 per cent by lot and 93 per cent by value - was marked old, and new ingredients. Stars (again) were Smart's 1984-85 Self Portrait at Papini's ($1.26 million) and. Whiteley's 1969 Orange Fruit Dove ($780,000). Third was British artist Frank Auerbach's 1992 work, David Landau Seated, which sold for $720,000.
Deutscher's director Chris Deutscher said growing confidence in overseas vendors selling through his auction house had burgeoned since it sold British artist Bridget Riley's OFF, 1963, for $984,000 last year. "We are defining ourselves in terms of being leaders of international – and Australian – contemporary art," Deutscher said.
Melbourne's oldest auction house, Leonard Joel's Auctioneers, is also chipping into the contemporary art sphere. Its director, John Albrecht, said he was fixed on operating "boutique niche contemporary art auctions".
"Someone has to start reoffering to create a secondary contemporary art market," Albrecht said. With the largest client base in the country, Albrecht dubbed the main auction house's offerings as "sanitised" and something he wanted to "polish up".
Last week Joel's held a standalone sale of 30 indigenous works worth about $50,000; in July it sold the entire 172 works from the Pro Hart Collection for $1.6 million and its first standalone contemporary art sale of Australian and international works on May 19 fetched $1.7 million. Its head of art, Sophie Ullin, is working towards an exclusive Australian contemporary art sale for later this year.
Mossgreen Auctions has targeted single owner sales of Australian art, which now account, according to director Paul Sumner, "for more than half our $15 million turnover for Australian art for this year alone". Sales also include annual standalone indigenous art as "it's an area we don't want to abandon", he said.
"We are being a multi-disciplined auction house dealing in all areas of a collection – from people's antiques through to their top end art."
Bonham's stellar 2013 sales, which included the $5 million Laverty Collection and $19 million Grundy Collection – is not being replicated this year. Rumour has it that China's largest auction house, Poly Culture, is in negotiations to buy it, which may be why it has not established a permanent base in either Melbourne or Sydney.
Its $2.2 million August 18 sale – comprising 41 lots and a 60 per cent sale rate – was, however, peppered with new stars including Howard Arkley's 1998 work A Large House with Fence, which sold for record $463,600, and Charles Meere's Australian Beach Pattern, 1940, which, fetched $323,000.