Submitted by aarAdmin on Fri, 11/22/2024 - 00:00
Fresh works to auction, particularly if they are by well-known artists, often attract much deserved attention from buyers and collectors.
So it proved with Australian iconic modern artist Jeffrey Smart (1912-2013) when his impressive work Cable Coils 2000-01 (lot 38) went under the hammer at Menzies Melbourne Important Australian & International Art sale on November 20.
The catalogue front cover painting sold for $828,409 (including buyer’s premium) in a 123-lot auction that realised $6,629,850.
American artist Robert Indiana (1928-2018) filled second spot in the top 10 with his sculpture entitled HOPE (Blue/Red) 2009 (lot 39), the central message for Barack Obama’s campaign for the 2008 United States presidency, changing hands for $736,364.
A social recluse, in 1965 Indiana had achieved international fame and surged to the front of America’s pop art movement with his earlier polychrome aluminium sculpture entitled LOVE.
Eighty-two-year-old Spanish sculptor Manolo Valez appeared for the first time at an Australian auction with his monumental bronze Reina Mariana 2004 (lot 37), inspired by Diego Velazquez’s official Portrait of Marian of Austria (1652-53) – while the artist’s various works of the Spanish-born Austrian queen (1634-1696) have become true contemporary European art icons. This edition brought a credible $409,909 at Menzies auction.
Ethel Spowers (1890-1947) was another successful auction story with The Battle 1933 (lot 24) selling for $282,273 on its $80,000-$120,000 catalogue estimate.
Melbourne’s Luna Park featured amongst the top 10 works (sale price $220,909) courtesy of Albert Tucker’s (1914-1999) painting of the same name (lot 40) which he finished in 1987.
This painting was completed more than 40 years after his first Luna Park work, that is now housed in the Heide Museum of Modern Art, following 15 years in relative seclusion with his wife Barbara at Hurstbridge.
Once again, it reinforces his disdain for St Kilda’s seedy lifestyle using Pablo Picasso-like fragmented body forms and surrealistic fascination for the uncanny and canivalesque.
Tim Storrier comes into the top-selling frame at $217,841 with Night Wind (on Waning Moon) 2010 (lot 41) and Norman Lindsay (1879-1969) with The Lute Player c1924 (lot 43).
Another Storrier painting – Waterline (Sundown Run) 2001 (lot 36) – also featured at $159,545, while contemporary artist Del Kathryn Barton’s Feel the Earth, Deeply 2019 (lot 19) returned a more than satisfying $153,409 on its $60,000-$80,000 estimate.
Leading 19th century landscape painter William Charles Piguenit (1836-1914) rounded out the top 10 paintings with Mt Byron, Lake Petrarch, Tasmania (lot 42) which sold well above its estimate at $135,000.
