Don Binney: Observer, April 2022

0641 Auction Catalogue April 2022 An auction of drawings from the artist's studio archives

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Webb's

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Table of Contents

Journal 22 Foreword 26 NFT Explainer

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Programme 31 Plates 33

Webb's

Terms & Conditions

83

Absentee Bid Form

87

2022

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Taking off March 2022: A Luxury Partnership

Chanel Classic Double Flap Bag Available in various colours and sizes est $7,000 - $9,000.

Webb’s in partnership with BrandCo Paris is proud to present a curated selection of luxury handbags and accessories in a special online-only event from 25 March.

The sale includes exclusive items and limited editions from the top haute couture mansions that have never been available in Aotearoa before. It features icons from Hermès, such as the Birkin and Kelly and Chanel’s emblematic Flap and Boy handbag lines. The winning bidders' exclusive product will be express shipped from Europe - in plenty of time for that special event.

A standout item of the sale is a Monogram Leather Aeroplane Keepall from Louis Vuitton. Only 60 examples of this were made worldwide for Virgil Abloh’s very last menswear FW21 collection for the Parisian fashion house. The price estimate for this stunning piece is $80,000 - $100,000.

Jess Mackenzie Specialist, Fine Jewels & Watches AJP (GIA) jess@webbs.co.nz +64 9 529 5607 Webb's

April

The late Virgil Abloh made history when he became the first Black designer appointed as the men's artistic director of Louis Vuitton.

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× Webb's

Louis Vuitton Monogram Leather Aeroplane Keepall Edition of 60 designed by Virgil Abloh est $80,000 – $100,000 2022

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A Shared History: Don Binney & Webb's Don Binney has had a long association with Webb’s. When Binney’s works began to appear regularly on the secondary market in the late 1980s, Webb’s was the natural choice for vendors. Indeed, Webb’s is the leading auction house both in terms of number of works sold and prices achieved for Binney’s work. The record hammer price of $600,0000 set in November 2021 for Binney’s majestic Mana Island should be seen as the latest in a long line of such successes at Webb’s.

Analysing the sales’ history of Binney’s work at Webb’s proves to be extremely illuminating and tells us quite a lot about the growth of the art market in recent decades. Of the over two hundred works by Binney that have been sold through Webb’s since 1989, ten have exceeded the $100,000 mark. The first work to do so was Untitled Bird and Hill from 1968 that sold for $170,000 in 2004. Only five years later, in 2009, Binney’s Kotare over Hikurangi from 1965 broke the $200,000 barrier putting Binney in the select company of a small number of New Zealand artists whose works achieve such figures at public sale.

Don Binney, Mana Island est. $500,000 - $800,000 price realised. $711,000 Webb's

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Don Binney, Mana Island on display at Webb's, December 2021

“I consider each viewer of any work that I achieve to be an occupant of the painting.

Anybody who fronts up to a canvas I have authored is in a sense a figure of that landscape” – Don Binney 1

1 Don Binney, quoted in David Famularo, ‘Painting Porirua’, The Dominion Post, 7 October 2005, B8 Webb's

2022

Over the last ten years, Binney’s major paintings have continued to command six-figure prices at auction.

In 2011, his Kotare over Ratana Church, Te Kao from 1963 which depicts his signature bird motif hovering over the iconic Ratana Church, fetched $270,000. And in 2017, the wonderful Last Flight of the Kokako from the Warwick & Kitty Brown Collection set another milestone record by selling for over $500,000 with buyer’s premium. In each case, these milestone prices were first achieved at Webb’s and set the pattern that others soon followed.

So, the record set just last year for Mana Island was entirely predictable when one examines the sales history. That it is the largest work that Binney ever painted is of course part of its extraordinary appeal. Its sheer scale engulfs the viewer as Binney intended. As he said, “I consider each viewer of any work that I achieve to be an occupant of the painting. Anybody who fronts up to a canvas I have authored is in a sense a figure of that landscape”1 Market history suggests that the value of Binney’s works will continue to rise. They are iconic images of Aotearoa/New Zealand. We see ourselves in them. They could not have been made anywhere else. As long as we continue to celebrate our uniqueness and to cherish our own sense of identity, Binney will continue to serve us both as prophet and mentor.

Webb’s is proud of the its long involvement with the work of Don Binney. Together, it has been a journey which has seen Binney established as one of our “blue chip” artists. Marketing campaigns and high-profile sales are all well and good, but none of this would be worthwhile without our steadfast belief in the quality of the work and its enduring relevance.

25

Foreword

It has been an absolute pleasure for the team at Webb’s to work alongside Philippa and Mary Binney to bring together this catalogue of works on paper by legendary artist Don Binney. Binney is a household name and an artist that all New Zealanders know well.

His paintings of the New Zealand landscape, especially those including native birds, are instantly recognisable and a part of our visual and cultural identity.

Throughout his oeuvre, Binney formed a meaningful connection to nature. Over time, this extended to te ao Māori. Binney’s alignment to the Māori way of thinking and relating to nature was ground-breaking for a Pākehā artist of his time. Through the collection of sketches presented here we can gain a deeper understanding of the artist’s methodology, his attention to detail and his role as an observer. One can almost feel the tranquil plein air setting that some of the sketches would have been created in, this tranquillity emanating from the works themselves.

We are privileged to be able to travel this suite of important drawings to our new premises in Wellington and to Christchurch before being on view in our Auckland gallery.

If you are not able to make it along to one of the three viewing options, we are able to assist with condition reports or FaceTime viewing of any of the featured works. Please get in touch, we are always happy to hear from our clients and lend our professional assistance.

Adrienne (AD) Schierning Head of Art ad@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5609

Nō mātau a Webb’s te waimārie te mahi ngātahi me Philippa rāua ko Mary Binney ki te whakarite i tēnei whakarārangitanga o ngā waituhinga a te tohunga rongonui nei a Don Binney. E mōhiotia whānuatia te īngoa Binney puta noa i a Aotearoa whānui. Ko ōnā waituhi mo te taiao me ngā manu taketake o Aotearoa nei, he whakaatu te tūākiri me te ahurea o tēnei whenua. Arā, ko te whakaatu atu i te tūhonotanga o ana toi ki te taiao te kaupapa matua a Binney.

I toro atu a Binney ki ngā āhuatanga o te Ao Māori hoki. Ahakoa he tangata pākeha, i whakamahi a ia i ngā tikanga me ngā whakaaro a te Māori i roto i ana mahi toi katoa. I roto i wēnei waituhi, e taea mātau te kite i te hōhonutanga o tōna āhuatanga mahi me tōna tohungatanga ki te tā, ki te āta titiro, te āta wherawhera hoki. Nui tonu ngā wairua e putaputa mai ana i roto i ana waituhi, he wairua aiō, he wairua noho tau, he wairua mōwai rokiroki.

Koa ana te ngākau te whakaatu nei i tēnei o ana mahi me ana waituhi ki o mātau nei tari hou i Te Whanganui-ā-Tara i Ōtautahi hoki i mua tonu te whakarewatanga i tō mātau tari i Tāmaki Makaurau nei. Ina kāore koe e taea te tae ā-tinana mai ki konei, e āhei ana mātau te tuku rīpoata whakamātau āhua, te whakaatu atu rānei i wēnei waituhi runga FaceTime. Tēnā, whakapā mai ki a mātau, kei te wātea mātau te tuku āwhina atu ki a mātau nei apataki. Piki mai, kake mai!

Webb's

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Don Binney. Photographed by Marti Friedlander, c1977.

Webb's

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Observer NFTs

Webb's is thrilled to present Don Binney: Observer. This magnificent collection of drawings by the masterful Don Binney will be auctioned on Tuesday 12 April.

Uniquely, the successful bidder for each lot will receive both the original drawing and an NFT derived from it.

Each lot in this catalogue is accompanied by a QR code. Scanning this code with your phone will allow you to open a webpage to view the NFT that is paired with the drawing.

Webb's

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NFTs are blockchain-based digital assets. There are many different blockchains, though Ethereum is one of the most popular and is considered ‘the gold standard’ for NFTs. Consequently, we have minted the NFTs in this auction on Ethereum.

Maintaining the security and integrity of a blockchain requires a network of validators, who use a computational system to achieve consensus on block data. T his process can be energy intensive. For that reason, we have offset the carbon footprint of each NFT in this collection at the time of its creation.

Bidding for this auction will operate in standard Webb’s fashion, though in order to take possession of the NFT at the conclusion of the auction, the purchaser will need to have a blockchain wallet. The basics of setting up a wallet are outlined below.

nfts and blockchains: a brief explainer Blockchains are data ledgers that record assets and transactions. Typically, they are peerto-peer distributed ledgers – meaning that transactions take place directly between users and the transaction records are maintained by a network of validators. This is in contrast to conventional transactions that run through a centralised entity, such as a bank, who also maintains the records. All of the transactions occurring on a blockchain’s network within a given time period (typically between 20 seconds and 10 minutes) are collated into a dataset, called a block. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the prior block, creating an unfalsifiable data chain – hence blockchain.

NFTs, or Non-fungible tokens, are blockchain-based digital assets. They are often comprised of digital images, gifs, or short videos. These digital files are ‘minted’, or established as unique digital tokens on a blockchain. Thereafter, they can be bought and sold like other assets or pieces of property. When sold, an NFT will be transferred from the wallet of the seller to the wallet of the buyer. This transaction is recorded on the blockchain. As blockchains maintain indelible records of transactions, NFTs have a steadfast record of provenance. This has favourable implications for determining the authenticity of a particular NFT.

Julian McKinnon Content & Research editor@webbs.co.nz +64 21 113 5001

setting up a blockchain wallet In order to make transactions on a blockchain, a user needs to have a wallet. This is not dissimilar to a digital bank account, though an important distinction is that a blockchain wallet can hold NFTs as well as digital currencies. There are many blockchain wallets available. Some of the most widely used are MetaMask and Trustwallet. These are software wallets that you can download and set up on your computer or smartphone, much like an internet banking app. For additional security, you may wish to purchase a hardware wallet. These are physical devices that need to be connected to your computer or phone in order to make a transaction. Ledger and Trezor are the most reputable hardware wallet brands.

Please Note: When you establish a blockchain wallet, you will be given a backup phrase – often a string of words or characters. This is in case you lose access to your wallet, either through forgetting a password or losing a hardware wallet. It is very important that you keep this backup phrase entirely secure – do not reveal it to anyone.

We are excited about this sale, and we know that many of our clients will be too. If you have any queries, please get in touch. We would love to hear from you.

Webb's

2022

Charles Ninow Director of Art charles@webbs.co.nz +64 21 053 6504

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Webb's

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Programme

Wellington Preview

Wednesday 23 March 6pm - 8pm

Viewing

Thursday 24 March 10am – 5pm

Friday 25 March 10am – 5pm

Saturday 26 March

10am – 4pm

Christchurch Preview Viewing

Wednesday 30 March 6pm - 8pm

Friday 1 April 10am – 5pm

Auction & Viewing Location Wellington 23 Marion Street Te Aro Wellington, 6011 Christchurch 65 Cambridge Terrace Central City Christchurch, 8013 Auckland 33a Normanby Rd Mount Eden Auckland, 1024 Webb's

Thursday 31 March 10am – 5pm

Saturday 2 April

10am – 4pm

Auckland Preview

Thursday 07 April 6pm - 8pm

Viewing

Friday 8 April 10am – 5pm

Saturday 9 April 10am – 5pm

Sunday 10 April 10am – 4pm

Monday 11 April 10am – 5pm

Auction 2022

Tuesday 12 April 6.30pm 31

Plates

Specialist Enquiries auckland Adrienne (AD) Schierning Head of Art ad@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5609 Tasha Jenkins Specialist, Art tasha@webbs.co.nz +64 22 595 5610 wellington Carey Young Specialist, Art carey@webbs.co.nz +64 21 368 348 David Maskill Specialist, Art david@webbs.co.nz +64 27 256 0900

Connie Dwyer Administrator, Art connie@webbs.co.nz +64 9 529 5600

The successful bidder on each lot within this catalogue will receive two additional items with their artwork. The first is a certificate of authenticity signed by Philippa and Mary Binney and the second is an NFT derived from the work.

Webb's

2022

Condition Reports

33

Sight Lines, Flight Paths Essay by GREGORY O’BRIEN Watching the bird-watcher. As he sets forth, sketch-book wedged between left arm and ribcage, we sense both his artistic path and his physical progress through a chosen landscape. Striding forth into the Te Henga coastal zone, he is mindful of the angle of the sun and formations of coastal cloud; he is aware how the time of day adjusts the weight and shape of the dunes before him and beneath his feet. And how it is that the translucence of adjacent Wainamu Lake alters the space around it.

Should the wind rise while he is working, his drawing hand serves to hold down the sheet of paper as the pencil-line continues on its way. In some cases, this might account for the urgency and weightiness of the contours, profiles and outlines (lot 11 and 12); grit, as well as eloquence, is part of the formula. With their vocabulary of harsh and soft markings—their broad sweeping pencil lines, on one hand, and their faint tracings and soft pencilshadings, on the other—Don Binney’s drawings elucidate and crystalise his fascination with certain views and subjects. In his more subdued images, you can feel the artist’s quietly unfolding, lilting affection for his subject matter. The works have nothing if not sensibility—a quality manifest in the frail lines of his birds in flight (those ‘Spirits of the Air’, to borrow a phrase from his spiritual forebear, John Ruskin). Elsewhere, in Binney’s gridded-up ‘working’ drawings, we track other aspects of his artistic persona: a calculating, methodical mind and eye mulling over pictorial elements and fastidiously planning his next move. Without thinking it to death. The bird has to remain in flight, no matter what. Spirit is the thing.

Spanning an entire career, from student studies (lot 13 – 16) to late works, Don Binney’s drawings configure as a crucial and persistent element in his oeuvre. They open up a number of vistas into his wider creative project. Fundamentally existential in nature, the drawings are predicated on the artist’s physical presence in a given place or in front of a certain subject. Another necessary precondition is that he is linked to that subject emotionally—he only ever draws subjects that hold some allure or attraction for him.

Sketchbooks and drawing materials accompanied Binney out into the landscape to a degree that painting and its accoutrements—for practical reasons—never could. The drawings configured as both an end in themselves and also, in numerous cases, acts of preparation or pre-planning.

Increasingly, especially during the last two decades of his career, Binney would painstakingly grid up a page of his sketchbook so the imagery could then be transferred to a canvas, leaving little to chance. The numerous drawings adapted for such a purpose are also evidence of the care—almost forensic, at times—with which he weighed up bird and landscape elements in particular, and explored their inter-relationship. In various published statements, he maintained that the truest subject of his art was the space between those two elements.

From early in his career, drawings were integral in the development of significant paintings. The sketch of Lake Omapere (lot 48) made in late 1963 provided the structural basis for an almost identically composed oil painting (see Webb’s Works of Art auction, August 2021); the drawing of a beachside cottage (lot 32) was the basis for the 1964 painting Heron’s Departure, New Spring, Te Henga and then, forty years later, a lithograph Otawewe, Te Henga. Two separate drawings—one of a gannet, the other of the headland (lot 55 and 20) — were conjoined in the 2003 oil painting Gannets above Muriwai.

Like numerous other drawings from throughout his career, untitled (lot 50) highlights Binney’s love of the arabesque — the flowing, surging curve that sweeps up all the elements in a composition and brings them into a formal/conceptual wholeness, animating and enlivening the rectangle of canvas or sheet of paper. His many curvilinear renderings of Te Henga lagoon and the

5

Don Binney Tokatoka c1980 graphite and charcoal on paper signed D.B., inscribed TOKATOKA in graphite lower right 150 × 225mm est Webb's

$1,500 — $2,500 April

34

surrounding headlands and dunes are also notable in this regard.

As is the case with many of his greatest paintings, the drawings are characterised by a consummate reduction to essence — a process of simplification by which the subject is enlarged and vitalised. In one untitled drawing (lot 43), shaded ocean and blankpaper sky encapsulate the mid-ocean gaze of an ocean-crossing frigate bird, a subject Binney had explored in a series of three important 'Pacific Frigate Bird' paintings exhibited earlier in the watershed year of 1969. The great subject of this unassuming drawing is the majestic sea bird, an invisible but inferred presence.

In a later drawing (lot 44), an island — Mana — and other landforms materialise on the horizon.

Alongside the simplifying impulse, there is also fine-tuning and adjustment in the artist’s process. He attends closely to how a bird’s wings might relate to the edge of the image (lot 36, 37 and 35)—how movement can be micro-managed accordingly, left or right, up or down, forwards and back. A balancing of weightlessness. Intent on the removal of any extraneous detail, in Binney’s mind the irrelevant is never negotiable. As he extrapolated in a 1966 interview, the purpose of outlines in his work is ‘to imply solidity and eliminate a lot of irrelevant details of colour and tonal form’.

While still in his twenties, Binney made a point of exhibiting drawings alongside paintings, deeming them of comparable artistic value. As early as May 1966, he included 17 drawings alongside 12 paintings in his inaugural exhibition at Barry Lett Galleries. During the 1970s, when he felt staleness besetting his painting, he seized upon drawing as a way forward. For much of his career painting and drawing were mutually sustaining.

Through both he gained a greater feeling for and understanding of his subjects, be they bird or land.

2022 marks the tenth anniversary of Don Binney’s death.

During the past decade his bird and landscape painting have achieved great status within the secondary art market, but met with a paucity of serious critical examination. This was also the case for much of his working life. While his phenomenal success early in the 1960s assured him a place in the public eye, that same acclaim only served to alienate him from his peers and the curatorium, rendering his place in the nation’s art history less than secure.

In my recently completed monograph, Don Binney — Flight Path (forthcoming from Auckland University Press, summer 202223), the artist emerges as a maverick, uncompromising, paradoxical and at times beleaguered figure. Yet his art rises far above the constraints he felt — and, to some degree, courted — during his life. In his melding of ornithological and modernist art traditions, Don Binney had few if any real precedents or contemporaries on the international, let alone the national, stage. Acutely tuned to the ecological concerns of recent decades, his life’s work has become even more timely and indispensable in the years since his death. We are only now beginning to recognise his art — of which drawing was a lively and revealing component — as the widely sourced, many-layered, incisive project that it was.

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Don Binney untitled 1969 charcoal on paper signed DON BINNEY, dated 14 May 1969 in charcoal lower right, inscribed 24 and 1533 lower right in ink and graphite verso 315 × 394mm est

Webb's

$4,000 — $6,000

2022

35

1

Don Binney Mill Creek, Rakiura 2005 charcoal and graphite on paper 220 × 345mm est

$7,000 — $9,000

Note Drawing for screenprint Mill Creek, Rakiura, 2011.

Webb's

April

lot 1

36

2

Don Binney Mill Creek, Rakiura 2005 charcoal on paper signed DON BINNEY and dated MARCH 2005 in charcoal lower right; inscribed MILL CREEK, RAKIURA in charcoal lower left 149 × 210mm est

$5,000 — $8,000

Note Drawing for screenprint Mill Creek, Rakiura, 2011.

Webb's

2022

lot 2

37

3

Don Binney untitled 1971 graphite on paper dated 26 July 71 and inscribed MR BRUCE in graphite lower right; inscribed A FLUTELIKE HONK, AND A PATINA, RATHER THAN A SCREEN, OF GREEN & PURPLE in graphite lower left 320 × 395mm est Webb's

$4,000 — $6,000

lot 3

4

Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 145 × 206mm est April

$1,500 — $2,500

lot 4

38

5

Don Binney Tokatoka c1980 graphite and charcoal on paper signed D.B and inscribed TOKATOKA in graphite lower right 150 × 225mm est

$1,500 — $2,500

6

Don Binney untitled c1993 graphite and ink on paper 148 × 207mm est

lot 5

$3,000 — $5,000

Note Drawing for painting TOKATOKA FARM III, 1980.

Note Drawing of Piha from Binney's bach, used as preliminary study for various 'Artist's Garden' works 1993-95.

Webb's

2022

lot 6

39

7

Don Binney untitled c2003 charcoal and graphite on paper inscribed INITIAL STUDY BEFORE DECIDING MAIN GRID AND SPACE-RATIOS IN THE ADAPTED COMPOSITION in graphite upper edge 300 × 240mm est Webb's

$7,000 — $9,000

lot 7

April

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8

Don Binney The Descent of the Dove 2003 signed DON BINNEY and dated JAN 2003 in ink lower left; inscribed THE DESCENT OF THE DOVE, FROM (1) ENLARGED ADAPTATION OF PIERO'S... THROUGH PHASES OF MY OWN MORE SPREADING, ENFOLDING AND INTO A GRID-REFERENCE THE CENTRAL LINE DESCENDING FROM THE DOVE SUSTAINS CENTRALITY INTO THE VESSEL HELD BY THE BAPTIST AND THE ENSUING BAPTISING WATER EFFECTIVELY THE DOVE DESCENDS INTO THE WATERS OF BAPTISM.... DON BINNEY in ink lower edge 410 × 280mm est Webb's

$6,000 — $8,000

lot 8

2022

41

Light is Ever Changing, Never Still Essay by VICTORIA WYNN–JONES It must have been some time before 10 July 1985 that Don Binney photographed the dove painted on the hull of the Rainbow Warrior. A 10” × 12” print was made, for further examination; since committing to full-time teaching at Elam in 1977, Binney took advantage of the school’s darkrooms.1 The frame has been cunningly composed so that the expanse of the painted surface of the ship is maximised.

Two strands of sturdy mooring rope sweep through the image, brushing across one of the dove’s wings. The dove itself is reduced right back, to a flat, white shape. Slightly fanned tail, wings extended and stretched, one eye and a beak, of course, politely clasping a sinuous sprig of olive.

Ravens and crows were commonly kept on seafaring vessels as they helped with way-finding and the location of land.2 But it is the dove that has captured imaginations, perhaps because this part of the tale produces such a wonderful image. After the deluge, the wizened patriarch outstretches an arm, before a storm-cleared sky. The graceful white bird flaps the wings as she returns to him.

Such a moment eclipses the veritable traffic of birds that must have taken place before the flood. Yet how utterly fitting it is to acknowledge these avian arrivals and departures, given Binney’s life-long obsession with what novelist J. D. Salinger called “those little creatures with a normal temperature of 125°.”3 The dove is, after all, the most biblical of birds.

Binney returned to this subject matter in 2003. There are two sketches, in charcoal and graphite on paper, each a response to Piero della Francesca’s The Baptism of Christ (after 1437). The 15thcentury perspectivist placed his dove exactly mid-way across the painting. Perfectly balanced, it perhaps represents the Holy Spirit and hovers gently over the head of Jesus Christ. Binney diligently underlines the heading ‘The Descent of the Dove, From….’ He neatly rules the page in half so that he can practice drawing the perfectly symmetrical bird. In della Francesca’s work the tail feathers of the dove align with its head and beak, John the Baptist’s knuckle and thumb, an earthen bowl and a precise drop of water from the river Jordan. Binney creates a commentary, working through his process step by step, the dove’s progress from top to bottom. He draws the dove four times, each time adding variations, beginning with an “enlarged adaptation of Piero’s” – they are on a first-name basis, moving through what he refers to as “phases of my own more spreading, enfolding,” as noted on the page. The dove’s tail feathers drop, the wings become more muscular. Then Binney makes the outlines heavier, placing the dove into a reference grid. The beak still in the centre, wing-tips at the edges of the measured space.

In the final form Binney has superimposed a grid over the central shape, working out the proportions and ratios of the body of the bird. Below, in ink, also well balanced, is Binney’s commentary: “the central line descending from the dove sustains centrality into the vessel held by the baptist and the ensuing baptising water effectively the dove descends into its waters of baptism.”

In a 2003 interview with art historian Damian Skinner, Binney remembers that, when trying to decide on an occupation, his mentor, Father Brian Thewliss, suggested he become an Anglican clergyman. He reflects, “I’m still a bit of a Father Don, you know.”4 In the same media, on the same paper, Binney drew up a study for an adapted composition of della Francesca’s Baptism. It is inscribed “initial study before deciding main grid and space-ratios in the adapted composition.” In this sketch the dove fills almost a third of the composition; framed by trees and the concave dip of a hill, she extends across the picture plane. Christ is entirely absent, and in the bottom-left corner is a slim profile of the Baptist. His sleeve and arm stretch out as he pours the baptismal liquid, perfectly aligned with the dove’s beak. In the final painting, Baptism, After Piero: An Adaptation (2003), the baptismal cup has been superimposed before a river, snaking through a landscape, green on one side, sandy on the other. It is within this oil and acrylic on canvas that

1 Don Binney, “Artist’s Statement, May 1992,” in The Graphic Scale: Don Binney Since 1980 (Auckland: Auckland Society of the Arts, 1992), unpaginated.

2 Henry Heras, “The Crow of Noe,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 10.2 (1948): 131–139.

3 J. D. Salinger, Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters. Seymour: An Introduction (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971), 76.

4 Don Binney, “A Recovered Commitment: Interview,” in Damian Skinner, Don Binney: Ngā Manu/Ngā Motu – Birds/Islands (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003), 21.

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another transformation takes place, and holy water becomes the precious resources that are the waterways of Aotearoa.

The conservationist drive behind Binney’s Baptism, After Piero: An Adaptation (2003) harks back to the objectives of the Rainbow Warrior – as the flagship for environmental organisation Greenpeace, she saw many campaigns, opposing commercial whaling, the baby fur seal trade, toxic waste dumping and, above all, nuclear testing in the Pacific.5 It also ties into Binney’s lifelong interest in environmentalist discourse. In 1971 his work was included in the group show Earth/Earth at Barry Lett Galleries, together with Michael Illingworth, Colin McCahon, Michael Smither and Toss Woollaston. Skinner observed that by the 1960s, Pākehā artists’ concerns with national identity and landscape were starting “to be turned to a political purpose.”6 By 1976 Binney’s art making had become thoroughly entangled with environmental concerns. In the catalogue for Earth/Earth he reflects: 7

Don Binney untitled c2003 charcoal and graphite on paper 419 × 296mm est

"Whether or not (my work) relates to any or some of the canons of art topicality I cannot say, though I see nothing inappropriate in offering a prayer for pure air, clean water and growing life in this and the coming century..."

$7,000 — $9,000

7

In the light of these words, in Binney’s two preparatory drawings can be seen the artist working through how exactly to depict a prayer for clean water. He does so using geometrical structures from 15thcentury painting and depicts a landscape almost totally devoid of human presence, yet one utterly dominated by a bird – the dove.

Throughout Binney’s archive there are numerous preparatory drawings in graphite on paper, carefully ruled up and numbered, sometimes with letters, sometimes with Roman numerals. Just as with della Francesca’s dove, Binney uses drawing to work through compositional problems and questions of proportion. How high will a bird be placed? What exactly is the ratio of land to sky? How might the shape of a bird be further refined? How exactly can the land be depicted so that it is shown to advantage and its distinct features shine? Binney sketched out a gannet and mountain, a flying kōkako, a tomtit at Cornwallis, coastal studies, mountains, all with the reference grid so that later they could be increased in scale for a painting. Binney’s grids and preparatory drawings reflect Skinner’s observation that:

"Artists do not transparently reflect what they see, but ‘frame’ their subject through the conditions of viewing made available by their culture and their chosen style."

8

This perspective, argues Skinner, allows one to explore the way Binney’s works engage with artistic techniques and styles, the “problems of painting,” rather than reading them as merely responses to the environmental conditions of Aotearoa. It is through iterative processes of photographing, drawing and sketching that Binney made his careful observations, before refining landforms and vegetation with his confident and bold outlines, then transposing such highly recognisable forms to painting. It is critical when drawing from the land to have a sense of composition and framing. Binney’s technique of gridding up as an aid to draughtsmanship stretches far back into the history

5 James Higham, "Rainbow Warrior," in The Encyclopedia of Tourism and Recreation in Marine Environments, edited by Michael Luck (Wallingford: CABI, 2008).

6 Damian Skinner, Don Binney: Ngā Manu/Ngā Motu – Birds/Islands, 16.

7 Binney, “Artist’s Statement,” Earth/ Earth, quoted in Skinner, 17.

8 Skinner, Ngā Manu/Ngā Motu, 7.

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8

Don Binney The Descent of the Dove 2003 charcoal, graphite and ink on paper 419 × 296mm est

$6,000 — $8,000

of Western European painting. I can’t help but think there is definitely something settler-like about such management and division of space as a way of depicting Aotearoa.

Of course, there is far more to Binney’s artistic practice than grids; what occurs within his drawings and sketches is a loving attention to detail. With the tip of a pencil, or the edge of a piece of charcoal, he follows the curvilinear forms of bays and hills, inlets, boulders and sand, particularly at his beloved Te Henga. The way a river-course meanders distractedly through an estuary to the sea. The way mountains layer themselves, after seas and before the sky. Smudged charcoal is often used to capture the fall of light, its absence shows where sunlight pools on a rounded hill, its presence shows the way shadows build and deepen at its base and in its folds. Light is ever changing, never still.

At one point in his long teaching career, Binney drew a quick outline of a bird in red on a University of Auckland internal memorandum slip. Blue lines are used to indicate the slightest amount of modelling, the receding edge of a wing, the partially shaded tail and legs, the shadowy lower wing. In a moment of distraction or perhaps even inspiration, Binney quickly captured a bird upon institutional stationery. Was this done while on the phone, or while in a meeting? Without the artist’s expert ornithological knowledge, the bird is difficult to identify; is it a tarāpuka, or black-billed gull, as seen in Ngataringa Revisited The drawing captures reverie, mind-wandering beyond the walls of the university; detained upon paper is a brief flash in the artist’s consciousness, something as fleeting and transitory as seeing a bird through high-powered binoculars.

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9

Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 210 × 148mm 10 est

$1,500 — $2,500

Note Drawing for Painting Manunui, Queen Charlotte, 2005.

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Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 210 × 148mm est 2022

$1,500 — $2,500

lot 9

lot 10

45

11

Don Binney Wainamu 1965 charcoal on paper dated 13-3-65, and inscribed WAINAMU in charcoal lower left 272 × 375mm est Webb's

$4,000 — $6,000

lot 11

12

Don Binney untitled charcoal and pastel on paper inscribed 3 in graphite verso 270 × 372mm est April

$5,000 — $8,000

lot 12

46

14 13

Don Binney untitled c1960 ink and graphite on paper 260 × 168mm est

$2,500 — $4,500

Don Binney untitled c1960 ink and graphite on paper 264 × 200mm est

$2,500 — $4,500 lot 13

lot 14

Don Binney untitled c1960 ink and graphite on paper 264 × 170mm

Don Binney untitled c1960 ink and graphite on paper inscribed By By FAT MAN in graphite upper edge 200 × 148mm

est

est

lot 15

lot 16

15

Webb's

$2,000 — $4,000

16

2022

$1,000 — $2,000

47

17

Don Binney untitled graphite and coloured pencil on paper 148 × 210mm est Webb's

$4,000 — $6,000

lot 17

April

48

18

Don Binney untitled graphite and coloured pencil on paper 140 × 200mm est Webb's

$4,000 — $6,000

lot 18

2022

49

Don Binney untitled 1964 charcoal and pastel on paper dated 22-8-64 in charcoal lower left 270 × 370mm

20

Don Binney Te Henga 1963 charcoal on paper dated 19-10-1963, inscribed TE HENGA in charcoal lower right 271 × 375mm

lot 19

est

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lot 20

19

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April

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50

lot 21

Don Binney untitled ink on paper 175 × 255mm

22

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21

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Don Binney untitled ink on paper 200 × 255mm

2022

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lot 22

51

23

Don Binney untitled c1982 graphite on paper 475 × 250mm est

$8,000 — $10,000

Note Drawing for painting Kairara Kaka, Great Barrier, 1982.

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24

Don Binney untitled graphite and ink on paper 293 × 207mm est

$7,000 — $9,000

Note Drawing for screenprint Swoop of the Kotare, Wainamu, 1980.

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25

Don Binney untitled c2005 graphite on paper 280 × 220mm est

$5,000 — $8,000

Note Drawing for painting Tomtit, Cornwallis, 2005.

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Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 290 × 220mm est April

$5,000 — $8,000

lot 25

lot 26

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27

Don Binney untitled c2005 graphite on paper 210 × 150mm

28

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$4,000 — $6,000

Don Binney untitled c2001 graphite on paper 300 × 190mm $6,000 — $9,000

Note Drawing for painting Tarapiroe, Wairau, 2005.

Note Drawing for painting Waitangirua, 2006.

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lot 27

lot 28

55

29

Don Binney untitled charcoal, graphite and pastel on paper inscribed BEACH LEAVE AS IN LARGE SKETCH and SHORE LINE AS IN LARGE SKETCH in graphite lower edge 270 × 372mm est Webb's

$10,000 — $15,000

lot 29

April

56

30

Don Binney untitled 1974 charcoal, ink, graphite on paper signed DON BINNEY and dated 1974 in charcoal lower right 235 × 314mm est Webb's

$2,500 — $4,500

lot 30

2022

57

Don Binney: Guardian of Te Henga Essay by VICTORIA MUNN

In Drawing the Waitakere Coast, Don Binney describes his approach to depicting his viewpoint from Karekare, on Auckland’s West Coast, encompassing the dacite dome The Watchman and the Farley Point headland: ‘I crouch on moss and manuka debris, to one side of a trench-like path; in these ranges many a track doubles as a stormwater runnel. Into my Moleskine bound notebook a Class 227 Reliance pencil forms the line study with colour notations.

Later... the drawing is translated on to [sic] Arches Watercolour 300gsm smooth

by Cumberland colour pencils. Having interpreted places like this for a long time, I tend to select from this range.’

1

42

Don Binney "Tui" - Bethells 1959 charcoal and watercolour on paper dated Sept. '59. and inscribed "Tui" - Bethells. in charcoal in lower right 270 × 370mm est

$3,000 — $5,000

1 Don Binney, Drawing the Waitakere Coast, (Auckland: Godwit, 2010), 23.

2 Ibid., 23, 61.

3 Ibid, 12. For more information on ‘Fisher Lodge’ in Huia, see Eloise Callister-Baker, ‘Destined for Exctinction: Elam’s Huia House’, The Pantograph Punch, 7 September 2017. pantographpunch.com/posts/huia-house 4 Alice Tyler, ‘Don Binney Interviewed, 6 May’ (unpaginated, unpublished, 2011), cited in Alice Tyler, ‘A singular obsession: bird motifs in the paintings of three New Zealand artists: Don Binney, Raymond Cging and Bill Hammond’ (MA thesis, University of Auckland, 2012), 24.

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Immediately, the reader grasps Binney’s familiarity with the West Coast and, indeed, Binney’s entire narration of the illustrated book reads as a paean to the landscape to which he was intimately connected. Evident here, too, is an artistic familiarity with the environment: Binney prefers Faber-Castell’s 190 Venetian Red for rendering ‘that rusty tinge atop The Watchman,’ 155 Night Green and 234 Cool Grey to capture the density of radiata pine just inland from the Te Henga (Bethell’s Beach) coastline. 2 It is fortunate that Binney so readily and consistently contributed to the discourse regarding his oeuvre and practice.

Drawing upon his impressive lexicon, his interpretations and reflections not only provide minutiae on his artistic process, down to the shade of colour pencil, but also elucidate the significance of Tāmaki Makaurau sites to Binney. From the 1950s, Binney considered Te Henga - more specifically, the Kauri plateau land behind Te Henga - his primary stomping ground, but the artist was well-acquainted with the wider Waitakere area. His 1958 enrolment at Elam School of Fine Arts did nothing to quell his affinity for the West Coast; A.J.C. Fisher, Director of Elam from 1924 to 1959, had donated a kauri-filled plot in Huia to the Elam Student Association, where his students could spend weekends or holidays.3 One student took it upon himself to jerry-build a three-storey timber house on the land. Later, in the mid-1960s, Binney converted a cow shed near Te Henga beach into his studio, and this residence only strengthened Binney’s deep appreciation. Many personal statements and interviews betray his romantic perception of Te Henga. He was especially enchanted by the way that the natural environment, once destroyed in the interests of colonial pastoral activity, was beginning to reclaim the land. Certainly, the natural elements and unrelenting weather conditions were hardly conducive to farming; the land needed constant taming.

Observing native plants such as manuka expanding their territory once again, and native and threatened species returning, Binney was deeply appreciative of the power of nature. The artist incorporated Māori beliefs into his perception of the native bush, and resolutely employed Māori place names when describing the West Coast. In the 1960s, a senior member of the local iwi entrusted Binney with a list of Māori place names for landforms between Manukau Harbour and Muriwai.4 Binney explained the impact of this on his connection with Te Henga; ‘an awesome kind of passing on...this is the psychological, emotional and spiritual setting for my Te Henga work.’5 Binney’s embrace of indigenous cultures also extended into his ornithological pursuits. Along with researching the folkloric birds and bird imagery in pre-Colombian culture, he was interested in birds’ roles in Māori mythology, especially in relation to guardianship. When describing Sun shall not burn Thee by day nor moon by night, a painting rendering a rare native New Zealand bird in the Te Henga landscape, Binney doggedly proffered the Māori, English and Latin names: mātātā, fernbird, bowdleria punctata.6 Binney’s interest in ornithology began under the tutelage of schoolmaster R.B. Sibson, while attending King’s College.

Binney’s school diaries were covered in avian sketches, and he gleaned a detailed understanding of different birds’ structural forms, creating ‘millimetrically calibrated, verbatim-accurate’ drawings from carcasses in his late teens.7 "Tui" - Bethells (lot 42), a skull study in charcoal and watercolour produced in Te Henga in 1959, demonstrates Binney’s anatomical curiosity. But, drawing upon a long-standing comparison between Binney’s bird motifs and those of Raymond Ching (1939-), Binney’s approach to painting birds forgoes scientific detail in favour of capturing essential characteristics. ‘You’re not going to see every little bib or tucker in a fleeting glimpse,’ he acknowledged, ‘but you will see those cardinal characteristics of shape, of approximate size and general colour.’8 Both Auckland’s West Coast - including impressions of Te Henga, Taumaiti, Karekare - and depictions of birds pipiwharauroa and kereru - featured in Binney’s first solo exhibition at Ikon Gallery in 1963, which caught the attention of the New Zealand art world. At this early stage, Binney was 59

45

Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 145 × 205mm est

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57

Don Binney untitled graphite and colour pencil on paper 149 × 210mm est

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5 Richard Wolfe, ‘Don Binney Interviewed, 7 February’ (unpaginated, unpublished, 2000), cited in Alice Tyler, ‘A singular obsession: bird motifs in the paintings of three New Zealand artists: Don Binney, Raymond Ching and Bill Hammond’ (MA thesis, University of Auckland, 2012), 24.

6 Sun shall not burn Thee by day nor moon by night (1966) is in the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki collection. Binney spoke about the artwork in a video created by the Gallery during an exhibition ‘Binney - Forty Years On’. Don Binney: Seven Paintings (Auckland, Pioneer, 2004).

7 Don Binney, ‘Looking Back’, in Recollections: A Supplement to ‘Hauturu’, Newsletter of the Little Barrier Island Supporters Trust (2008), unpaginated.

8 Patrick Smith, ‘The painter man meets artist boy’, in Sunday Star (27 August 1989), C3.

9 ‘Exhibition sold out’, Auckland Star, 21 October 1964.

10 Damian Skinner, Don Binney: ngā manu/ngā motu = birds/islands (Auckland, Auckland University Press, 2003), 36.

11 Prime Minister Bill Rowling’s 1974 Christmas card even featured the aforementioned painting Sun shall not burn Thee by day nor moon by night.

12 Damian Skinner, ‘Landfall: Don Binney and Art History in the 1970s’, Art New Zealand no.130 (Autumn 2009), 48.

13 Don Binney, in ‘Don Binney: Auckland Festival Exhibition’, Barry Lett Galleries exhibition catalogue, 1966.

14 Don Binney, Michael Illingworth, Colin McCahon, Michael Smither, and M. J. Woollaston, ‘Earth/Earth’ (Barry Lett Galleries Auckland, 1971).

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already using Māori terms and place names in his artwork titles.

Another Ikon Gallery exhibition the following year saw 24-yearold Binney make New Zealand history, the first one-man show by a contemporary New Zealand painter to sell out.9 By this point, Binney had attended Elam School of Fine Arts, undertaken training at Auckland Teachers’ College and, in 1963, began working as an art teacher at Mount Roskill Grammar School. He had also forged relationships with key figures in the New Zealand artistic scene.

During his final year at high school, he undertook outdoor classes with John Weeks, then later attended summer school lessons with Louise Henderson. Colin McCahon gave him evening classes at Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and in 1960 Peter Tomory, then director of the Gallery, taught Binney’s Elam year group art history.

Draughtsmanship played a critical role in Binney’s art and, in 1958, it was the Design course that Binney enrolled himself in at Elam, rather than Painting. Attracted by figures such as Robert Ellis and Michael Nicholson, Binney’s decision speaks to his desire to develop graphic skills that would underpin his artistic practice.

Gridlines, line studies and colour annotations in artworks such as Untitled (lot 45) and Untitled (lot 57) evidence his working process.

The artist recognised a symbiotic relationship between his drawings and paintings - advancement in one medium improving the other - and that drawing did not always play a precursory role. Binney was also acutely aware that drawings could, too, be finished artworks (‘and why shouldn’t they be?’).10 The newfound availability of acrylic paint in New Zealand in the mid-1960s enabled Binney to render tertiary details, such as the tail feather pattern of the mātātā, that he did not feel he could proficiently achieve in oil. The decade also saw a greater consciousness of New Zealand’s art history, connected to an espousal, by figures such as Tomory and Hamish Keith, of the notion of New Zealand’s ‘hard light’. This unique light was credited with fostering the hard-edged style of New Zealand painters, both nineteenth-century watercolourists and contemporary painters such as Binney. The rhetoric contributed to a wider dialogue about national identity, which Binney’s New Zealand landscapes, clearly-defined forms and strong outlines, aligned nicely with.11 Perhaps for this reason, impressively soon after his debut show, Binney was selected to represent New Zealand at the Third Paris Biennale (1963), in an exhibition of Contemporary New Zealand Painting in London (1965), and at the 1970 Trade Fair in Osaka.

In later decades, though, the labels ‘nationalist’ and ‘regionalist’ came to be understood as affronts, and concepts of hard light and national identity were criticised. As Damien Skinner explains, Binney ‘became perhaps the most public victim of shifts in ideologies that dethroned the nationalism of the 1960s.’12 Though hesitant about the regionalist label, Binney readily articulated his emotional connection to Te Henga. In 1966, keen to assert the effect of the West Coast on his artistic idiom, Binney cited as examples the importance of Shoreham Vale to nineteenth-century British painter Samuel Palmer, and Toss Woollaston’s affinity for a pocket of the South Island.13 Binney was also fearful of the impact of human interference on Te Henga, and vocalised his concern for its preservation. The problem went beyond Auckland’s West Coast. In a catalogue accompanying the 1971 exhibition Earth/Earth at Barry Lett Galleries, Binney clearly states his sorrow for the decline of New Zealand’s ecology, and disdain for the colonial practices that encouraged it.14 His statement reads as a rallying cry for New Zealand to protect endangered species, to see the value of the unique environment beyond potential monetary profit. Accordingly, the artist actively supported causes such as Little Barrier Island Supporters’ Trust and Tiritiri Matangi Sanctuary and, considering his environmental ethic, Binney’s depictions of native, often threatened, bird species took on greater political connotations.

Over the next two decades, Binney’s bird imagery fell to the wayside, as he focused more on landscapes, and experimented with new media and new imagery. Once again, his interest in graphics evidenced itself, and Binney employed superimposed motifs, along with charcoal, lithography, collage and photography.

60

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Don Binney untitled 1974 charcoal, ink, graphite on paper signed DON BINNEY and dated 1974 in charcoal lower right 235 × 314mm est

$2,500 — $4,500

15 Damian Skinner, Don Binney: ngā manu/ngā motu = birds/islands (Auckland, Auckland University Press, 2003), 31-32.

16 Don Binney, ‘Artist statement’ in The Graphic Scale: Don Binney since 1980, exhibition catalogue, (Auckland, Auckland Society of the Arts, 1992).

17 This concern was expressed in the artist’s statement in the exhibition catalogue accompanying ‘Don Binney: Paintings and Drawings’, an exhibition at Barry Lett Galleries, 24 June - 5 July 1974.

18 Richard Wolfe, ‘Don Binney Interviewed, 9 February’ (unpaginated, unpublished, 2000), cited in Alice Tyler, ‘A singular obsession: bird motifs in the paintings of three New Zealand artists: Don Binney, Raymond Ching and Bill Hammond’ (MA thesis, University of Auckland, 2012), 33-34.

19 Binney is referencing his 1968 painting Temple to Ehecatl, Calixtlahuaca, in Don Binney: Seven Paintings (Auckland, Pioneer, 2004).

20 Don Binney, ‘Artists and the Environment: A Benevolent By-product’, Art New Zealand no.7 (1977), 43.

21 Peter Shaw, ‘Lively Arts: The Slur of Nationalism’, Metro (August 1989), 184.

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Binney had returned to Elam in 1975, first as Tutor and eventually accepting the post of Head of Painting, where he readily utilised the Elam photography dark rooms. Binney’s differentiation in style did not receive adulation from critics, especially in comparison with his 1960s hey-day. It was his 1991 sojourn in Hawaii, where he was fondly reminded of Aotearoa, that Binney credited for his return to his earlier technique and subject matter. Binney’s birds were flying again, and he undertook the design of the stained glass window, Grace and Peace, for St Thomas’ Anglican Church in Tāmaki.

Binney himself was not physically bound to Tāmaki Makaurau, and was well-acquainted with other passages of the New Zealand landscape. As a student, he had painted Canterbury’s Port Hills, and sensitively discerned similarities and differences in topography and lines, textures and tones.

He made several visits to Rakiura/Stewart Island, appreciative of the lack of change to the Mill Creek landscape over a thirty year period. He also travelled overseas extensively. In 1967-68, working from a rooftop studio in Mexico City, the artworks Binney produced demonstrate both his sensitive response to his new surroundings, and the thematic consistency in his oeuvre. The Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council funded trip to Mexico and North America supported his study of sacral bird imagery in indigenous cultures, but also enabled Binney to explore different media. In the late 1960s, liquitex paint was much easier to access in Mexico than in Auckland. In 1973, Binney visited East Africa, the Great Rift Valley providing much fodder for the keen ornithologist. He undertook many other trips, too, to the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. In discussion with Skinner, Binney pinpointed two effects of his trips abroad.15 First, in seeing both similar and different landscapes, lights, cultures and species, he gained a greater insight into his home country. Secondly, upon his return, he often found a strengthened sense of his artistic direction, less concerned about labels or critique, though in 1992 he warned that ‘visual creativity [was] still tyrannised by its theorists.’16 The absence of the Te Henga topography from Binney’s later work was partly a reaction to the growing popularity of the area among city dwellers.17 ‘I can never physically go back there. I do not want to go back to a world of urban registered four-wheel drive vehicles,’ he lamented.18 Binney’s interest in remote environments, sites unchallenged by modern living, is clear. Discussing the subject matter of an artwork produced in Mexico he described an Aztec temple to the wind god Ehecatl as ‘mercifully’ off the beaten track.19 His 1974 drawing of the sign prohibiting vehicles on untitled (lot 30), and several drawings of road’s end produced in the same decade, affirm a similar attraction to places ‘where one’s motor car is of no further use.’

For Binney, ‘this is where you make your beginnings.’ 20 Yet in Te Henga’s absence, other Tāmaki Makaurau viewpoints were depicted by Binney, including Hauturu (Little Barrier Island) Tiritiri Matangi and Devonport. Across five decades of art making, the place of Auckland in Binney’s oeuvre and biography is consistent and pronounced. In 1989, in his typical voluble style, Binney explained his artistic loyalty to the region: ‘The kind of imagery I find most satisfactory is that found in the northern-most third of the New Zealand archipelago.’ 21

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Don Binney Te Henga 1964 charcoal on paper signed DON BINNEY, dated APRIL '64 and inscribed TE HENGA in charcoal lower right 270 × 370mm

32

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33

Don Binney Te Henga 1964 charcoal on paper signed BINNEY, dated AUG '64 and inscribed TE HENGA in charcoal lower left lower left 274 × 374mm

Don Binney untitled charcoal on paper 318 × 392mm

34

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lot 31

lot 32

lot 33

lot 34

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Don Binney untitled charcoal on paper 270 × 372mm

April

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Don Binney untitled graphite and ink on paper 140 × 210mm est

$1,000 — $2,000

Note Drawing for painting Ngataringa Return, 2002, which was in turn based on a 1972 drawing reproduced as a poster.

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lot 35

63

37

Don Binney untitled c2009 graphite on paper 275 × 145mm 36

Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 275 × 145mm est Webb's

$1,500 — $2,500

est

$1,200 — $2,200

Note Drawing for painting Mad Tui over Homestead, Te Henga, 2009.

April

lot 36

lot 37

64

38

Don Binney untitled charcoal and graphite on paper 290 × 415mm est Webb's

$8,000 — $10,000

lot 38

2022

65

39

Don Binney Tikinui Northward c1979 acrylic on Xerox inscribed TIKINUI NORTHWARD, CORRECTED XEROX AS A STUDY FOR PAINTING in graphite lower right 275 × 190mm est Webb's

$2,000 — $4,000

lot 39

April

66

40

Don Binney untitled acrylic on paper 205 × 290mm est Webb's

$12,000 — $16,000

lot 40

2022

67

41

Don Binney untitled c2003 graphite on paper 285 × 210mm est

$1,500 — $2,500

Note Drawing for painting Gannets above Muriwai, 2003.

Webb's

lot 41

April

68

42

Don Binney "Tui" - Bethells 1959 charcoal and watercolour on paper dated Sept. '59. and inscribed "Tui" - Bethells. in charcoal in lower right 270 × 370mm est Webb's

$3,000 — $5,000

lot 42

2022

69

43

Don Binney untitled 1969 charcoal on paper signed DON BINNEY and dated 14 May 1969 in charcoal lower right; inscribed 24 1533 in ink verso 315 × 394mm est Webb's

$4,000 — $6,000

lot 43

April

70

44

Don Binney Mana Island from Makara 1970 graphite on paper signed DON BINNEY in graphite lower right, dated 30 July 1970 and inscribed MANA ISLAND FROM MAKARA in graphite upper right; inscribed AVOCADO 3-3-3-32 20 x 16 1/2 17 in graphite verso 268 × 354mm est Webb's

$8,000 — $12,000

lot 44

2022

71

lot 45

45

Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 145 × 205mm

46

est

est

Webb's

$3,000 — $5,000

Don Binney untitled graphite and coloured pencil on paper 290 × 205mm

April

$3,000 — $5,000

lot 46

72

47

Don Binney untitled graphite, ink and gouache on paper 291 × 205mm est Webb's

$2,500 — $5,000

lot 47

2022

73

48

Don Binney Lake Omapere 1963 charcoal on paper dated Nov 24 1963 and inscribed LAKE OMAPERE in charcoal lower right 270 × 374mm est

$4,000 — $6,000

Note Drawing for painting Lake Omapere, 1963–64.

Webb's

49

Don Binney Te Henga 1965 charcoal on paper signed DON BINNEY, dated JAN '65, and inscribed TE HENGA in charcoal lower right 270 × 372mm

lot 48

est

lot 49

April

$4,000 — $6,000

74

50

Don Binney untitled c1964 charcoal and ink on paper inscribed "WHERE IS THE KING?" "OU EST LE ROI?" "S'DONDE ESTA EL REY" "VAR IST DER KÖNIG?" in ink upper left 270 × 170mm est

$4,000 — $6,000

Note Drawing for painting Where is the king, exhibited in Binney's 1964 exhibition at Ikon Gallery.

Webb's

2022

lot 50

75

lot 51

Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 145 × 210mm

52

est

est

51

Webb's

$1,500 — $2,500

Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 145 × 205mm

April

$1,500 — $2,500

lot 52

76

53

Don Binney untitled graphite and coloured pencil on paper 212 × 299mm est Webb's

$10,000 — $15,000

lot 53

2022

77

54

Don Binney untitled graphite on paper 321 × 396mm est Webb's

$5,000 — $8,000

lot 54

April

78

55

Don Binney untitled graphite on paper inscribed 17 1/2 × 13 1/2 kmh in graphite lower right 270 × 415mm est

$3,000 — $5,000

Note Drawing for painting Gannets above Muriwai, 2003.

Webb's

lot 55

2022

79

56

Don Binney untitled graphite and coloured pencil on paper 210 × 296mm est Webb's

$2,000 — $4,000

lot 56

April

80

57

Don Binney untitled graphite and coloured pencil on paper 149 × 210mm est Webb's

$4,000 — $6,000

lot 57

2022

81

Webb's

April

82

Terms and Conditions The terms and conditions of sale listed here contain the policies of Webb’s (Webb Fine Art). They are the terms on which Webb’s (Webb Fine Art) and the Seller contract with the Buyer. They may be amended by printed Saleroom Notices or oral announcements made before and during the sale.

By bidding at auction you agree to be bound by these terms.

1.

Background to the Terms used in these Conditions The conditions that are listed below contain terms that are used regularly and may need explanation. They are as follows: “the Buyer” means the person with the highest bid accepted by the Auctioneer. “the Lot” means any item depicted within the sale for auction and in particular the item or items described against any lot number in the catalogue. “the Hammer price” means the amount of the highest bid accepted by the auctioneer in relation to a lot. “the Buyer’s Premium” means the charge payable by the Buyer to the auction house as a percentage of the hammer price. “the Reserve” means the lowest amount at which Webb’s has agreed with the Seller that the lot can be sold.

“Forgery” means an item constituting an imitation originally conceived and executed as a whole, with a fraudulent intention to deceive as to authorship, origin, age, period, culture or source, where the correct description as to such matters is not reflected by the description in the catalogue.

Accordingly, no lot shall be capable of being a forgery by reason of any damage or restoration work of any kind (Including re-painting). “the insured value” means the amount that Webb’s in its absolute discretion from time to time shall consider the value for which a lot should be covered for insurance (whether or not insurance is arranged by Webb’s).

All values expressed in Webb’s catalogues (in any format) are in New Zealand Dollars (NZD$). All bids, “hammer price”, “reserves”, “Buyers Premium” and other expressions of value are understood by all parties to be in New Zealand Dollars (NZD$) unless otherwise specified.

2.

Webb’s Auctions as Agent

Except as otherwise stated, Webb’s acts as agent for the Seller.

2.

Catalogue and Other Descriptions All statements by Webb’s in the catalogue entry for the property or in the condition report, or made orally or in writing elsewhere, are statements of opinion and are not to be relied upon as statements of fact. Such statements do not constitute a representation, warranty or assumption of liability

by Webb’s of any kind. References in the catalogue entry to the condition report to damage or restoration are for guidance only and should be evaluated by personal inspection by the bidder or a knowledgeable representative. The absence of such a reference does not imply that an item is free from defects or restoration, nor does a reference to particular defects imply the absence of any others. Estimates of the selling price should not be relied on as a statement that this is the price at which the item will sell or its value for any other purpose. Neither Webb’s nor The Seller is responsible for any errors or omissions in the catalogue or any supplemental material.

Images are measured height by width (sight size). Illustrations are provided only as a guide and should not be relied upon as a true representation of colour or condition. Images are not shown at a standard scale. Mention is rarely made of frames (which may be provided as supplementary images on the website) which do not form part of the lot as described in the printed catalogue.

An item bought “on Extension” must be paid for in full before it will be released to the purchaser or his/ her agreed expertising committee or specialist. Payments received for such items will be held “in trust” for up to 90 days or earlier, if the issue of authenticity has been resolved more quickly. Extensions must be requested before the auction.

Foreign buyers should note that all transactions are in New Zealand Dollars so there may be a small exchange rate risk. The costs associated with acquiring a good opinion or certificate will be carried by the purchaser. If the item turns out to be forged or otherwise incorrectly described, all reasonable costs will be borne by the vendor.

The contract for the sale of the property is therefore made between the Seller and the Buyer.

3.

Before the Sale

3.1.

Examination of Property Prospective Buyers are strongly advised to examine in person any property in which they are interested before the Auction takes place.

Neither Webb’s nor the Seller provides any guarantee in relation to the nature of the property apart from the Limited warranty in the paragraph below.

The property is otherwise sold “AS IS”

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83

3.

Buyers Responsibility All property is sold “as is” without representation or warranty of any kind by Webb’s or the Seller. Buyers are responsible for satisfying themselves concerning the condition of the property and the matters referred to in the catalogue by requesting a condition report.

No lot to be rejected if, subsequent to the sale, it has been immersed in liquid or treated by any other process unless the Auctioneer’s permission to subject the lot to such immersion or treatment has first been obtained in writing.

4.

At the Sale

4.1.

Refusal of Admission Webb’s reserves the right at our complete discretion to refuse admission to the auction premises or participation in any auction and to reject any bid.

4.2.

Registration Before Bidding Any prospective new buyer must complete and sign a registration form and provide photo identification before bidding. Webb’s may request bank, trade or other financial references to substantiate this registration.

4.3.

Bidding as a Principal When making a bid, a bidder is accepting personal liability to pay the purchase price including the buyer’s premium and all applicable taxes, plus all other applicable charges, unless it has been explicitly agreed in writing with Webb’s before the commencement of the sale that the bidder is acting as agent on behalf of an identified third party acceptable to Webb’s and that Webb’s will only look to the principal for payment.

4.4.

International Registrations All International clients not known to Webb’s will be required to scan or fax through an accredited form of photo identification and pay a deposit at our discretion in cleared funds into Webb’s account at least 24 hours before the commencement of the auction. Bids will not be accepted without this deposit.

Webb’s also reserves the right to request any additional forms of identification prior to registering an overseas bid.

This deposit can be made using a credit card, however the balance of any purchase price in excess of $5,000 cannot be charged to this card without prior arrangement.

This deposit is redeemable against any auction purchase and will be refunded in full if no purchases are made.

4.5.

Absentee Bids Webb’s will use reasonable efforts to execute written bids delivered to us AT LEAST 24 Hours before the sale for the convenience of those clients who are unable to attend the auction in person. If we receive identical written bids on a particular lot, and at the auction these are the highest bids on that lot, then the lot will be

Webb's

sold to the person whose written bid was received and accepted first.

Execution of written bids is a free service undertaken subject to other commitments at the time of the sale and we do not accept liability for failing to execute a written bid or for errors or omissions which may arise.

It is the bidder’s responsibility to check with Webb’s after the auction if they were successful. Unlimited or “Buy” bids will not be accepted.

4.6.

Telephone Bids Priority will be given to overseas and bidders from other regions.

Please refer to the catalogue for the Telephone Bids form.

Arrangements for this service must be confirmed AT LEAST 24 HOURS PRIOR to the auction commencing.

Webb’s accepts no responsibility whatsoever for any errors or failure to execute bids. In telephone bidding the buyer agrees to be bound by all terms and conditions listed here and accepts that Webb’s cannot be held responsible for any miscommunications in the process.

The success of telephone bidding cannot be guaranteed due to circumstances that are unforeseen.

Buyers should be aware of the risk and accept the consequences should contact be unsuccessful at the time of Auction. You must advise Webb’s of the lots in question, and you will be assumed to be a buyer at the minimum price of 75% of estimate (i.e. reserve) for all such lots. Webb’s will advise Telephone Bidders who have registered at least 24 hours before the auction of any relevant changes to descriptions, withdrawals, or any other sale room notices.

4.7.

Online Bidding Webb’s offers an online bidding service. When bidding online the buyer agrees to be bound by all terms and conditions listed here

by Webb’s.

Webb’s accepts no responsibility for any errors, failure to execute bids or any other miscommunications regarding this process. It is the online bidder’s responsibility to ensure the accuracy of the relevant information regarding bids, lot numbers and contact details.

Webb’s does not charge for this service.

4.8.

Reserves Unless otherwise indicated, all lots are offered subject to a reserve, which is the confidential minimum price below which the Lot will not be sold. The reserve will not exceed the low estimate printed in the catalogue. The auctioneer may open the bidding on any Lot below the reserve by placing a bid on behalf of the Seller. The auctioneer may continue to bid on behalf of seller up to the amount of the reserve, either by placing consecutive bids or by placing bids in response to other bidders.

4.9.

Auctioneers Discretion The Auctioneer has the right at his/ her absolute and sole discretion to refuse any bid, to advance the bidding in such a manner as he/she may decide, to withdraw or divide April

any lot, to combine any two or more lots and, in the case or error or dispute and whether during or after the sale, to determine the successful bidder, to continue the bidding, to cancel the sale or to reoffer and resell the item in dispute. If any dispute arises after the sale, then Webb’s sale record is conclusive.

4.10. Successful Bid and Passing of Risk Subject to the auctioneer’s discretion, the highest bidder accepted by the auctioneer will be the buyer and the striking of his hammer marks the acceptance of the highest bid and the conclusion of a contract for sale between the Seller and the Buyer. Risk and responsibility for the lot (including frames or glass where relevant) passes immediately to the Buyer.

4.11. Indicative Bidding Steps, etc.

Webb’s reserves the right to refuse any bid, withdraw any lot from sale, to place a reserve on any lot and to advance the bidding according to the following indicative steps: Increment Dollar Range Amount $20 $0–$500 $50 $500–$1,000 $100 $1,000–$2,000 $200 $2,000–$5,000 $500 $5,000–$10,000 $1,000 $10,000–$20,000 $2,000 $20,000–$50,000 $5,000 $50,000 – $100,000 $10,000 $100,000–$200,000 $20,000 $200,000–$500,000 $50,000 $500,000–$1,000,000 Absentee bids must follow these increments and any bids that don’t follow the steps will be rounded up to the nearest acceptable bid.

5.

After the Sale

5.1.

Buyers Premium In addition to the hammer price, the buyer agrees to pay to Webb’s the buyer’s premium. The buyer’s premium is 18.5% of the hammer price plus GST. (Goods and Services Tax) where applicable.

5.2.

Payment and Passing of Title The buyer must pay the full amount due (comprising the hammer price, buyer’s premium and any applicable taxes and GST) not later than 2 days after the auction date.

The buyer will not acquire title to the lot until Webb’s receives full payment in cleared funds, and no goods under any circumstances will be released without confirmation of cleared funds received. This applies even if the buyer wishes to send items overseas.

Payment can be made by direct transfer, cash (not exceeding NZD$5,000, if wishing to pay more than NZD$5,000 then this must be deposited directly into a Bank of New Zealand branch and bank receipt

supplied) and EFTPOS (please check the daily limit). Payments can also be made by credit card in person with a 2.2% merchant fee for Visa and Mastercard and 3.3% for American Express. Invoices that are in excess of $5,000 and where the card holder is not present, cannot be charged to a credit card without prior arrangement. Bank cheques are subject to five days clearance.

The buyer is responsible for any bank fees and charges applicable for the transfer of funds into Webb’s account.

5.3.

Collection of Purchases & Insurance Webb’s is entitled to retain items sold until all amounts due to us have been received in full in cleared funds. Subject to this, the Buyer shall collect purchased lots within 2 days from the date of the sale unless otherwise agreed in writing between Webb’s and the Buyer.

At the fall of the hammer, insurance is the responsibility of the purchaser.

5.4.

Packing, Handling and Shipping Webb’s will be able to suggest removals companies that the buyer can use but takes no responsibility whatsoever for the actions of any recommended third party.

Webb’s can pack and handle goods purchased at the auction by agreement and a charge will be made for this service. All packing, shipping, insurance, postage & associated charges will be borne by the purchaser.

5.5.

Permits, Licences and Certificates Under The Protected Objects Act 1975, buyers may be required to obtain a licence for certain categories of items in a sale from the Ministry of Culture & Heritage, PO Box 5364, Wellington.

5.6.

Remedies for Non-Payment If the Buyer fails to make full payment immediately, Webb’s is entitled to exercise one or more of the following rights or remedies (in addition to asserting any other rights or remedies available under the law) 5.6.1.

to charge interest at such a rate as we shall reasonably decide.

5.6.2. to hold the defaulting Buyer liable for the total amount due and to commence legal proceedings for its recovery along with interest, legal fees and costs to the fullest extent permitted under applicable law.

5.6.3. to cancel the sale.

5.6.4. to resell the property publicly or privately on such terms as we see fit.

5.6.5. to pay the Seller an amount up to the net proceeds payable in respect of the amount bid by the defaulting Buyer. In these circumstances the defaulting Buyer can have

84

no claim upon Webb’s in the event that the item(s) are sold for an amount greater than the original invoiced amount.

5.6.6. to set off against any amounts which Webb’s may owe the Buyer in any other transactions, the outstanding amount remaining unpaid by the Buyer.

5.6.7.

where several amounts are owed by the Buyer to us, in respect of different transactions, to apply any amount paid to discharge any amount owed in respect of any particular transaction, whether or not the Buyer so directs.

5.6.8. to reject at any future auction any bids made by or on behalf of the Buyer or to obtain a deposit from the Buyer prior to accepting any bids.

5.6.9. to exercise all the rights and remedies of a person holding security over any property in our possession owned by the Buyer whether by way of pledge, security interest or in any other way, to the fullest extent permitted by the law of the place where such property is located. The Buyer will be deemed to have been granted such security to us and we may retain such property as collateral security for said Buyer’s obligations to us.

5.6.10. to take such other action as Webb’s deem necessary or appropriate.

If we do sell the property under paragraph (4), then the defaulting Buyer shall be liable for payment of any deficiency between the total amount originally due to us and the price obtained upon reselling as well as for all costs, expenses, damages, legal fees and commissions and premiums of whatever kinds associated with both sales or otherwise arising from the default.

If we pay any amount to the Seller under paragraph (5) the Buyer acknowledges that Webb’s shall have all of the rights of the Seller, however arising, to pursue the Buyer for such amount.

5.7.

Failure to Collect Purchases Where purchases are not collected within 2 days from the sale date, whether or not payment has been made, we shall be permitted to remove the property to a warehouse at the buyer’s expense, and only release the items after payment in full has been made of removal, storage handling, insurance and any other costs incurred, together Webb's

with payment of all other amounts due to us.

6.

Extent of Webb’s Liability

Webb’s agrees to refund the purchase price in the circumstances of the Limited Warranty set out in paragraph 7 below. Apart from that, neither the Seller nor we, nor any of our employees or agents are responsible for the correctness of any statement of whatever kind concerning any lot, whether written or oral, nor for any other errors or omissions in description or for any faults or defects in any lots. Except as stated in paragraph 7 below, neither the Seller, ourselves, our officers, agents or employees give any representation warranty or guarantee or assume any liability of any kind in respect of any lot with regard to merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, description, size, quality, condition, attribution, authenticity, rarity, importance, medium, provenance, exhibition history, literature or historical relevance. Except as required by local law any warranty of any kind is excluded by this paragraph.

7.

Limited Warranty

Subject to the terms and conditions of this paragraph, the Seller warrants for the period of thirty days from the date of the sale that any property described in this catalogue (noting such description may be amended by any saleroom notice or announcement) which is stated without qualification to be the work of a named author or authorship is authentic and not a forgery. The term “Author” or “authorship” refers to the creator of the property or to the period, culture, source, or origin as the case may be, with which the creation of such property is identified in the catalogue.

The warranty is subject to the following: it does not apply where a) the catalogue description or saleroom notice corresponded to the generally accepted opinion of scholars and experts at the date of the sale or fairly indicated that there was a conflict of opinions, or b) correct identification of a lot can be demonstrated only by means of a scientific process not generally accepted for use until after publication of the catalogue or a process which at the date of the publication of the catalogue was unreasonably expensive or impractical or likely to have caused damage to the property. the benefits of the warranty are not assignable and shall apply only to the original buyer of the lot as shown on the invoice originally issued by Webb’s when the lot was sold at Auction. the Original Buyer must have remained the owner of the lot 2022

without disposing of any interest in it to any third party.

The Buyer’s sole and exclusive remedy against the Seller in place of any other remedy which might be available, is the cancellation of the sale and the refund of the original purchase price paid for the lot less the buyer’s premium which is nonrefundable. Neither the Seller nor Webb’s will be liable for any special, incidental nor consequential damages including, without limitation, loss of profits.

The Buyer must give written notice of claim to us within thirty days of the date of the Auction. The Seller shall have the right, to require the Buyer to obtain two written opinions by recognised experts in the field, mutually acceptable to the Buyer and Webb’s to decide whether or not to cancel the sale under warranty.

which will be available as soon as possible after the sale. Results will include buyer’s premium.

These results will be posted at www.webbs.co.nz.

13.

Goods and Service Tax

GST is applicable on the hammer price in the case where the seller is selling property that is owned by an entity registered for GST. GST is also applicable on the hammer price in the case where the seller is not a New Zealand resident. These lots are denoted by a dagger symbol † placed next to the estimate. GST is also applicable on the buyer’s premium.

the Buyer must return the lot to Seller in the same condition that it was purchased.

8.

Severability

If any part of these Conditions of Sale is found by any court to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable, that part shall be discounted, and the rest of the Conditions shall continue to be valid to the fullest extent permitted by law.

9.

Copyright

The copyright in all images, illustrations and written material produced by Webb’s relating to a lot including the contents of this catalogue, is and shall remain the property at all times of Webb’s and shall not be used by the Buyer, nor by anyone else without our prior written consent. Webb’s and the Seller make no representation or warranty that the Buyer of a property will acquire any copyright or other reproduction rights in it.

10.

Law and Jurisdiction

These terms and conditions and any matters concerned with the foregoing fall within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New Zealand, unless otherwise stated.

11.

Pre-Sale Estimates

Webb’s publishes with each catalogue our opinion as to the estimated price range for each lot.

These estimates are approximate prices only and are not intended to be definitive. They are prepared well in advance of the sale and may be subject to revision. Interested parties should contact Webb’s prior to auction for updated pre-sale estimates and starting prices.

12.

Sale Results

Webb’s will provide auction results,

85

Webb's

April

86

Absentee Bid Form

Auctions Private Sales Valuations webbs.co.nz auction@webbs.co.nz auckland 33a Normanby Road Mount Eden, Auckland, 1024 09 529 5600 wellington 23 Marion Street Te Aro, Wellington, 6011 04 555 6001

Name

(Please Print Clearly)

Email

(Please provide for invoice purposes)

Address

Bidder #

(Office Use Only)

(PO Box not sufficient)

City

Auction # & Title

Postcode

(Please Print Auction & Title Here)

Telephone Number(s)

1

2

(In Order of Preference)

Lot Number (in order)

Catalogue Description

Maximum Bid

Not including buyer’s premium or GST

I authorise Webb’s to register bids on a per lot basis up to the maximum price I have indicated for each lot.

I will not hold Webb’s responsible for any errors that occur.

I understand that if my bid is successful, the purchase price will be the sum of my final bid plus the buyer’s premium of 18.5% of the final bid price plus any GST payable on the buyers premium, as indicated in the catalogue. GST will be charged on the buyer’s premium.

I have read and accepted Webb’s terms and conditions as printed in the catalogue and online at www.webbs.co.nz.

Bids will not be processed unless this form is signed.

Signature

In order to register to bid with Webb’s please complete this form and scan or email to auction@webbs.co.nz

Date

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