Submitted by aarAdmin on Fri, 08/01/2014 - 00:00
Menzies Art Brands was over the moon when Brett Whiteley’s Gauguin, brought back earlier this year from the Chelsea Hotel in New York and seen for the first time in Australia, sold at its July auction in Melbourne for $1,718,182 including buyers’ premium.
The Chelsea Hotel was a cultural magnet and attracted many of the leading artists and musicians of the 1960s – such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Janis Joplin, Jackson Pollock, Dylan Thomas – and, of course, Whiteley.
According to art experts, Whiteley was infused with an almost messianic fervour at this time and embarked upon a small number of highly dramatic paintings, compressed within a two-year period, which represented a forceful departure from the style of his earlier London-based works.
Gauguin is one of the best of these rare and intense New York paintings and was painted after Whiteley admired his works and read about the unfortunate life of the French artist.
Whiteley’s The Orange Table also did well, changing hands for $920,455, while his Table and Fruit 1978 brought $540,000.
Frederick McCubbin’s Spring Morning 1914 was another strong result, selling for $515,455 – with the auction totalling $6,920,714.
