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Enjoy a retirement residence like no other, at The Helier.
With chef-created cuisine, architectural design, world-class amenities and first class hospitality – this is retirement living, redefined.
Once you’re on this stunning property, you’ll discover attention to detail in every element. From our day spa to restaurant, cinema to luxury apartments, no expense or consideration has been spared.
Views across the Waitematā Harbour and the surrounding bays can be enjoyed from the stunning indoor and outdoor spaces, while cosy winter nights are spent by the fire in the lounge.
Fixed weekly for life – guaranteed.
To view, call Debbie on 0800 333 688 today.
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OMK 1965 . Oblure . Omann Jun . Rex Kralj . Saito Wood Stoff Nagel . Tomado . Warm Nordic . Zaha Hadid Design
15 Williamson Ave, Ponsonby, Auckland goodform.co.nz
Isol Pendant by David Thulstrup for Astep
We are inviting final entries for our Collectors’ Cars, Motorcycles & Automobilia live auction on Sunday 5 May. We are seeking cars of impeccable quality, design and provenance for this year’s sales, and invite entries of prestige European marques including, but not limited to: Jaguar, Porsche, Ferrari, Mercedes, Maserati, and Rolls-Royce. Also highly sought after are American and British classics including Mustang, Cadillac, MG, and Land Rover, as well as rare Japanese (JDM) vehicles to meet the growing market. Get in touch for a complimentary appraisal.
Entries close Friday 22 March. Request an Appraisal
The largest wealth transfer in history is underway.
As the next generation to continue the family legacy, it is important to be prepared.
This includes understanding the best structure to receive and protect your family’s wealth, what your position is within your family’s estate plan and the expectations that will be placed on you as an emerging family leader.
Give your family peace of mind that their legacy is in safe hands. Talk to our Private Wealth Team today.
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Auckland’s premier art storage and logistics specialist.
Artlink offers bespoke transport and storage solutions for artists, private collectors, galleries and art lovers. With an uncompromising eye for detail, our team will ensure your artwork’s integrity and value are preserved at every step.
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John Spiteri, Paint a Rumour , 2009. Image curtosey Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney. John Spiteri, Paint a Rumour , 2009. Image courtesy Sarah Cottier Gallery, Sydney.
David Cox, d harding, Ana Iti, Nicholas Mangan, Kate Newby, Bridget Reweti, Koji Ryui, Yasmin Smith, John Spiteri, Raukura Turei
9 March – 12 May, 2024
It’s what we’re made for
printer
Crucial Colour 24 Fairfax Avenue
Penrose Auckland 1061
Edition of 1,800 Offset printed, 120 pages 113gsm Matt Art 100gsm Laser Offset
Freely distributed to subscribers or available at select public art spaces and hospitality venues.
Paul Evans Managing Director paul@webbs.co.nz
+64 21 866 000
head office advertising press design
Karen Rigby Business Manager karen@webbs.co.nz
+64 22 344 5610
Mel Hargrave General Manager mel@webbs.co.nz
+64 27 929 5604
Caolán McAleer Head of Marketing caolan@webbs.co.nz
+64 27 929 5603
Elizabeth Boadicea Marketing Manager elizabeth@webbs.co.nz
+64 22 029 5611
Olivia Woodgate Creative Director design@webbs.co.nz
+64 22 323 4919
wellington christchurch auckland
Tasha Jenkins Head of Art tasha@webbs.co.nz
Hannah Owen Registrar, Art registrar@webbs.co.nz
+64 9 529 5609
Georgina Brett Specialist, Art georgina@webbs.co.nz
+64 27 929 5609
Jo Bragg Inventory Coordinator, Art art@webbs.co.nz
+64 21 113 5001
Charles Tongue
Valuations Specialist valuations@webbs.co.nz
+64 22 406 5514
Mark Hutchins-Pond Senior Specialist, Art mark@webbs.co.nz +64 4 555 6001
Sean Duxfield Specialist, Art sean@webbs.co.nz
+64 21 053 6504
Established in 1976, Webb's has a long and rich history of valuing New Zealand's finest art and luxury collectibles. Valuations have been a core aspect of our business from the beginning, and over the decades Webb's has successfully completed valuations for countless astute collectors and public institutions.
Webb's has a range of departments, and the specialist experience to value all manner of objects. Webb's departments include Art, Decorative and Asian Arts, Fine Wines & Whiskies, Fine Jewels, Watches & Luxury Accessories, and Collectors' Cars, Motorcycles & Automobilia.
Collectors, institutions, and insurers trust Webb's valuations because we are independent and highly experienced. Get in touch with our Valuations Specialist to arrange an assessment of your collection.
valuations@webbs.co.nz
+64 22 406
Charles Tongue Valuations Specialist
Webb's is currently inviting entries for our upcoming art auctions of 2024.
From our entry-level sales showcasing affordable works through to highly curated catalogues of museum-quality New Zealand and international art; our auction calendar showcases a wide range of artworks and price points.
We are honoured to consistently bring to market striking works by artists at various stages of their career. Already this year we have featured works by iconic New Zealand artists such as Bill Hammond, Toss Woollaston, Fiona Pardington, Gordon Walters, Rita Angus and Ralph Hotere, among others.
With the largest team of art specialists of any New Zealand auction house; representation in Wellington, Christchurch and Auckland; and a marketing powerhouse, Webb's is Aotearoa’s superior choice to steward your artwork or collection into a new home.
If you have any major artworks or collections you would like to bring to auction, please reach out to our specialist team for an obligation free appraisal.
Over the past three years Webb’s has undergone a remarkable period of success and strategic growth.
Following on from the very successful, 2021 arrival of Webb’s into Wellington, we are thrilled to announce further expansion, into the South Island art scene.
Sean Duxfield is our newly appointed, Christchurch-based, Art Specialist and he will be leading business in the region. Sean will be available to conduct in-person appraisals, valuations, and assist with artworks change of guardianship in the most professional and sensitive manner.
Likewise, he will be involved in curating South Island based events such as touring highlights from our top-tier art catalogues allowing local collectors to immerse themselves in our offerings.
“I am very much looking forward to connecting with South Island collectors and buyers as well as organisations and artists who are hoping to leverage Webb’s strong brand awareness and premium marketing to reach large, national audiences and achieve unparalleled results at auction.”
Sean has over three decades’ experience within the arts sector in
Sean Duxfield Specialist, Art sean@webbs.co.nz +64 21 053 6504
a wide range of roles. These have included: Working with leading public art galleries in Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington and New Plymouth; cochair of the Canterbury Society of the Arts/CoCA board; Trustee of the Bill and Pip Culbert Trust; and a long-standing association with the Venice Biennale.
“These roles have granted me an invaluable vantage point from which to understand the arts ecosystem of the South Island,” says Sean, “as well as its wider importance and significant investment potential.”
The South Island has a long and fertile art history and as such, Webb’s continues to see strong interest in the
work produced in this region. This is increasingly translating into recordbreaking prices in the secondary market and it is an incredible time to be involved with this momentum.
“Since its inception, Webb’s has been committed to championing artistic expressions from across Aotearoa,” says Paul Evans, Webb’s Managing Director, “the appointment of Sean Duxfield in Christchurch continues our commitment to better understand and service the unique needs of this area and further celebrate their invaluable voices. We look forward to seeing stronger representation of the South Island in our galleries with Sean’s expertise.”
“The appointment of Sean Duxfield in Christchurch continues our commitment to better understand and service the unique needs of this area and further celebrate their invaluable voices”
February 2024 marked the momentous finale of a daringly eclectic, four part auction of the single owner collection we have had the honour of being deeply involved with since early 2022: The Collection of Jack C. Richards.
Richards, who has had a globetrotting, academic career in the fields of applied linguistics, language teaching and educational publishing, developed a passion for travel and a very singular strategy for collecting fine and decorative arts from amazing corners of the world. Textiles from Guatemala and Korea, glass art from France, woodblock prints from Japan and further treasures from Laos, China, and beyond served as exquisite mementoes for a mind deeply engaged with the cultures he came into contact with.
Here at Webb’s we began the process of auctioning this awe-inspiring collection with à la poursuite de la beauté in July 2022. This sale presented his internationally significant trove of glass by French, Art Nouveau design maestro René Lalique.
The result — from nearly 74,000 catalogue views by highly competitive buyers and institutions from as far afield as the UK, France, Milan, and Zurich — was a white glove sale with a price tag totalling over $1 million.
The competition for each piece made for an exhilarating auction, with prices for the fine glass escalating to new records. The piece Perruches (Parakeets) for instance, exceeded $50,000, having only held the high estimate of $12,000. Fever pitch was reached with the sale of Palestre (Palaestra), a grey-glass mould blown piece, displaying intricate acid-etched figures standing in classical poses. The vase blitzed the high estimate of $35,000 to reach $71,700 including BP.
à la poursuite de la beauté: The Jack C. Richards Collection of Lalique Glass was monumental in New Zealand auction history and it has set a benchmark for the global sale of Lalique glass on the secondary market.
Webb’s and Richards then embarked on three further auctions titled Worldly Possessions, which displayed the breadth of this collector’s acumen for other areas of the decorative arts.
Worldly Possessions II, III and IV sales brought together textiles (including rare Chinese, Japanese, and Korean robes, handwoven silk textiles and ikats); ceramics such as Ming dynasty Chinese porcelain as well as more contemporary works; large scale artworks from around the world; Richards’ collection of rare Paul Jacoulet woodblock prints; lacquered boxes from Korea, and much more.
We saw fierce bidding on the floor, online, and through and array of international
avenues. Buyers from as far as France, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, Guam, Korea, China, England, Malaysia, Singapore and the the US vied to purchase a piece of Richards’ remarkable collection and with it, a reminder of his unique perspective and impeccable ability to recognise beauty across geographic divides.
Through a concerted, omnichannel and global marketing approach, the entire Richards’ collection attracted well over 200,000 auction views, an average sell-through rate across the whole collection of 89% and realising a final, hammer price of nearly $2 million.
Working with Richards for these four phenomenal sales has been a privilege. It is an honour to be entrusted with the process of auctioning this significant collection that celebrates examples of the finest decorative art in the world.
In recent years Webb’s has orchestrated some of the most remarkable single owner auctions in the country’s history. The unrivalled success of these auctions not only keep the breadth and depth of the collections and the trust of their collectors in our capabilities, but also underline Webb’s expertise, highly targeted marketing and strategic presentation of these masterpieces to the market.
Melting Moments (2021) and Goods and Services (2022) are two notable offerings of modern and contemporary works from a single owner collection.
The former took place in October 2021 and brought to market nearly 70 exceptional artworks, broke major records, and garnered a slew of media attention across Aotearoa both for the combined significance of its offering, as for the prices achieved for its vendor.
This was followed up, in July 2022, with the second auction of this collection which featured an impressive array of artworks by prominent New Zealand artists. Among the highlights were two masterpieces by Bill Hammond — Wishbone Cave and the eponymous Goods and Services — which fetched significant prices of $446,850 and $418,250 respectively.
Collectively, these two auctions of a single owner collection achieved sales totaling $5.9 million, demonstrating not just the remarkable investment strategy that underpinned its curation, but the enduring market appetite for outstanding artworks in Aotearoa.
Quickly following on from these two auctions, Webb’s Art Department achieved yet another historic milestone: Our partnership with BNZ for the sale of the Bank of New Zealand Art Collection. This iconic catalogue boasted over 200 artworks by seminal artists such as Colin McCahon, Tony Fomison, Gordon Walters, Bill Hammond, Robin White and Milan Mrkusich, and was toured nationally by Webb’s before being auctioned, in three parts, during September 2022.
The sale of the BNZ Collection was a tectonic shift in New Zealand’s auction landscape. It accomplished an unprecedented $15.3 million in sales and shattered a yet unbeaten record for the highest price ever achieved at auction in New Zealand for a single artwork: Colin McCahon’s Is there anything of which one can say look this is new? which sold for $2.45 million.
In addition to these marquee events, Webb’s has successfully handled other significant single owner collections in niche markets such as decorative arts (The Peter Downey Collection) and The Roy Savage Collection of Classic Cars which underscore Webb’s versatility and ability to cater to diverse collector interests.
We are acutely aware that these auctions — beyond the numbers — represent the culmination of passion, the embodiment of the pursuit of expertise, and, as such, our reverence for these objects are implicit in every aspect of our client interactions.
Looking ahead, Webb’s remains dedicated to pushing the boundaries and setting new standards in the auction industry. With our unmatched expertise, extensive network, and unwavering commitment to client satisfaction, Webb’s continues to shape the landscape of New Zealand’s auction market, one exceptional collection at a time.
Caolán McAleer Head of Single Owner Collections caolan@webbs.co.nz +64 27 929 5603 Tasha Jenkins Head of Art tasha@webbs.co.nz +64 22 595 5610The varied and wonderful world of The Estate — Webb’s fortnightly online auction and curated gallery space of all things design and vintage — is celebrating two years since its inception this coming June.
“We had noticed there were a lot of amazing objects we were turning down because they didn’t seem to fit the themes of any of our other Decorative Arts auctions,” reminisces Cam Millar, The Estate’s manager, “so, we thought, why not create one specifically for them?”
A self-confessed fan of architecture, antiques, the Arts and Crafts movement and 70s Italian furniture, Cam has had a long career in retail and clearly remembers that first auction: “It was just a blank building we had to start giving character to. We received a huge amount of items from an estate and it was this really eclectic assortment. It even included a life-sized, fibreglass bull wearing a rugby jersey that had been signed by the 2003 Blues Rugby Team.”
The objects back then were “a bit rough!” he confesses, whereas nowadays, The Estate’s offerings — which come from estates, people downsizing or starting a new life overseas, industrial designers shifting end-of-line stock, or collectors running out of space — can only be described as radically eclectic.
From the humble utilitarianism of a set of vintage spoons to the wild irreverence of an 1865 hippopotamus skull (taxidermied by the iconic London firm E. Gerrard & Sons). From ancient Greek and Roman artefacts to the simple elegance of mid century modernist and contemporary furniture and
lighting. From items with no reserves to an extremely rare pair of Tannoy speakers that achieved a staggering $25,095 (Incl BP) hammer price; the offerings can only be compared to what one would find in Paris’ Les Puces, the San Telmo markets in Buenos Aires or a well stocked 16th Century wunderkammer.
Just like those places, The Estate has become a true community of bargain hunters and collectors, stylists and decorators, designers and art department crew from various local film productions.
“Because we have such a diverse range of objects, we really embrace the mixing of different styles and eras and encourage that kind of creativity from our visitors,” says Karen Dunsmore, who has also been with The Estate from day one. Every fortnight the close-knit team of Karen, Harry and Max style the gallery into various groups resembling residential settings as a way of inspiring visitors.
“We try as best we can to tell stories within the gallery, because people love to come in and we want them to discover design narratives and items they haven't seen on the website,” says Karen.
In the past two years, The Estate ’s very popular digital platform has practically doubled the lots they offer in each auction. They have received 2.8 million views and close to 120,000 bids. More importantly, over 21,000 items have changed hands; their stories and design languages preserved and cared for by another generation rather than consumed and quickly disposed of.
Cameron Millar Manager, The Estate cameron@webbs.co.nz
+64 22 342 5610
Karen Dunsmore Administrator, The Estate theestate@webbs.co.nz
+64 9 529 5600
As for the future of the highly popular online auction and gallery?
“We are working together with the wider Decorative Arts department here at Webb’s to put together live auctions of really fantastic iconic design pieces,” says Millar, “we are also working on a couple of curated auctions — one focused on urban street culture and another one on vintage hi-fi audio equipment.”
“Our buyers will continue to come in and express their personalities through their choices,” says Karen “they have defined tastes and really know what they want… they're after treasure.”
And treasure they get.
“Because we have such a diverse range of objects, we really embrace the mixing of different styles and eras and encourage that kind of creativity from our visitors.”
Leah Morris
Head of Decorative Arts leah@webbs.co.nz
+64 27 929 5607
Florence S. Fournier Specialist, Decorative Arts florence@webbs.co.nz
+64 22 499 5619
Webb's is proud to announce the launch of Design Live, a new, quarterly, live auction showcasing the best of mid-century, modern and contemporary design; a celebration of craftsmanship, materials and the designers who brought them to life.
We are currently seeking entries and welcome consignments of furniture, such as lounge chairs, sofas, dining sets, sideboards, chests of drawers, coffee tables, office furniture, lamps and lighting, rugs, mirrors, glass and ceramics, wall art and more.
This auction promises to be a festival of creativity, immaculate craft and elegance. Contact our team of specialists for a complimentary, noobligation appraisal or to consign and keep in touch about on our inaugural Design Live auction.
Webb’s broke significant records and ushered outstanding prices for artworks brought to market last year. This included the highest price paid for an artwork at auction in 2023, Bill Hammond's Melting Moments I. Aotearoa’s secondary art market is booming and this is an excellent time to consign your artworks with the team of specialists at Webb’s.
Kia ora koutou, nau ma haere mai; welcome to our March Works of Art catalogue.
It is an honour to present the remarkable 1997 work Road to Onslow 1 by Sir Grahame Sydney, which graces our first Works of Art catalogue of 2024. This stunning painting beautifully captures the stark, rugged hills of Otago, making it a fitting choice for our inaugural catalogue since Webb’s announced our new presence in the South Island.
Webb’s takes pride in our commitment to serve wider Aotearoa and ensure we do not focus solely on the upper North Island. Since opening our Te Aro gallery in Wellington three years ago, we have engaged many new loyal clients who have contributed to our mission for continuous growth. While Webb’s Wellington is a space to share our premium catalogue highlights with Wellingtonians, it also has an exciting point of difference showcasing curated, pop-up exhibitions of local artists. Most recently we were honoured to exhibit Entelechy which was guest curated by Alison Bartley and featured iconic New Zealand artists Jacqueline Fahey, Gretchen Albrecht, Emily Karaka, Ann Shelton, Robyn Kahukiwa and more. We have also just appointed the brilliant Virginia Woods-Jack as our Wellington Exhibitions Manager, so I anticipate many more exciting shows in the capital.
As we forge roots in Christchurch with the recent appointment of Art Specialist Sean Duxfield, we are excited to better serve the South Island. Sean has a wealth of experience at various leading public galleries, most recently Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū. Sean will be available throughout the South Island for inperson appraisals, valuations and more. We are thrilled to have him come on board the Webb’s team.
Christchurch has long been a cultural hub for artists, with celebrated collectives arising, as highlighted in recent curated Webb’s catalogues The Group and Pencil Case Painters . The region has produced some of New Zealand’s most well-known artists, many of whom are featured our March catalogue. Notably, the incomparable Bill Hammond's Whistler’s Mother 2 is included, alongside a stunning Plantation Series work by Bill Sutton, a delicate studio study by Rita Angus, a bold abstract painting by Darryn George, and Toss Woollaston’s luscious painting Tower and Verandah, Greymouth , nodding to the nearby West Coast town.
Representing the deeper South, we have Ralph Hotere, who lived and often created work about his beloved Dunedin, and Grahame Sydney, currently based in Otago. Sydney’s beautiful Road to Onslow 1 straddles the line between representational and abstract painting, while an earlier 1974 work, also included here, shows his experimentation with egg tempera. Ralph Hotere is well represented in a fantastic array of works showcasing his breadth as an artist: screenprints and works on paper;
the bold Mungo at Aramoana (1983) with a typical wooden frame; and the dynamic and politically charged What’s in a Game? from 1988.
I am very pleased to feature fantastic examples of paintings that stylistically interconnect ‘folk’and ‘fine’ art by artists Pauline Yearbury and Teuane Tibbo, whose skilful renderings of colour and form are a joy to view.
Other highlights include three Robin White works showcasing different eras of her career, from the clean lines of Morris Commercial, Hokianga (1978) to Falling Star Over Betio, Tarawa made while in Kiribati, to the recent barkcloth work It Must Be Raining in Suva (2019).
A personal catalogue favourite is I will be gentle with you (2007-8) by John Pule. It has been some time since a work of this calibre by the artist has come to market, and it is a pleasure to present this one. The work’s striking scale, beautiful cyanic ‘clouds,’ and delicate ink drawings truly envelop you in it’s embrace.
Also on offer are fantastic works by Buck Nin, Reuben Paterson, Colin McCahon, Fiona Pardington, Michael Parekōwhai, Karl Maughan, Louise Henderson, and more.
We are delighted to showcase a few select works at an exclusive one-night event in Christchurch, ahead of the Wellington and Auckland viewings for this sale. Professor Heather Galbraith and Phillip Clarke ONZM will then discuss their highlights from the sale at the respective Wellington and Auckland viewing launches, ahead of the auction which takes place in Auckland on Monday 25 March at 6.30pm.
The Art team has meticulously crafted an outstanding catalogue for this sale, which has been a true labour of love. We are eager to share it with you and anticipate an exciting year ahead.
Tasha
Christchurch Programme
Wellington Programme
Auckland Programme
auckland 33a Normanby Rd
Mount Eden
Auckland 1024
wellington
23 Marion Street
Te Aro
Wellington 6011 Webb's
Launch Event
Monday 11 March 5.30pm — 7.30pm
Launch Event
Wednesday 13 March 6pm — 8pm
Heather Galbraith, Professor of Fine Arts at Toi Rauwhārangi College of Creative Arts, Massey University, will share her knowledge and discuss highlights from the selection of works on view at our Wellington premises. Please RSVP to karen@webbs.co.nz
Viewing
Thursday 14 — Friday 15 March 10am — 5pm
Saturday 16 March 11am — 4pm
Launch Event
Tuesday 19 March 6pm — 8pm
Join us for an exciting talk by collector Philip Clarke ONZM, former Director of Objectspace, who will discuss his personal standouts from the catalogue. Please RSVP to registrar@webbs.co.nz
Viewing
Wednesday 20 — Friday 22 March 10am — 5pm
Saturday 23 — Sunday 24 March 10am — 4pm
Viewing on Request
Monday 25 March 10am — 5pm
Live Auction
Monday 25 March 6.30pm
1 Pauline Yearbury
Hine-Mahuru (Spring Girl)
acrylic on rimu
signed JPY with incision left edge 600 × 300mm
est $2,000 — $4,000
provenance
Private collection, Russell. Acquired directly from the artist.
2 Pauline Yearbury
Hine-Ngahuru (Autumn Girl)
acrylic on rimu
signed JPY with incision lower right 600 × 300mm
est $2,000 — $4,000
provenance
Private collection, Russell. Acquired directly from the artist.
Hine-Raumati
300mm
est $2,000 — $4,000
provenance
Private collection, Russell. Acquired directly from the artist.
est $2,000 — $4,000
provenance
Private collection, Russell. Acquired directly from the artist.
5 Pat Hanly Brown Model 1985 screenprint on paper, 15/20 signed Hanly and dated '85 in graphite lower right, inscribed Brown Model in graphite upper left 435 × 610mm
est $3,500 — $6,500
provenance
Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Jill John, Auckland, c1991.
6 Richard Killeen untitled 1977 oil and enamel stencil on sand on paper, 1/21 signed Killeen, dated 9.77 and inscribed 1/21 in graphite lower right 330 × 330mm
est $5,000 — $7,000
provenance Private collection.
screenprint on paper, artist's proof signed Robin White, dated August 1978 and inscribed A/P in graphite lower left 720 × 540mm
est $7,000 — $12,000
provenance
Private collection. Acquired from Genko Gallery, Christchurch Arts Centre, Christchurch, c1980.
literature
Sarah Farrar, Jill Trevelyan and Nina Tonga (editors), Robin White: Something is Happening Here, (Wellington: Te Papa Press, 2022), 109; Alister Taylor, Robin White: New Zealand Painter, (Martinborough: Alister Taylor, 1981), 66.
W A Sutton in brushpoint lower right 370 × 560mm
est $8,000 — $12,000
provenance
Private collection, Blenheim. Acquired from Brooke/Gifford Gallery.
Hanly
Oct 67 and
est $10,000 — $15,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
The Artist's Studio graphite and watercolour on paper signed Rita Angus in ink lower right 550 × 360mm
est $20,000 — $35,000
provenance
Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Easter Art Auction, Dunbar Sloane, Wellington, 16 April 1997, lot 26.
Falling Star Over Betio, Tarawa 1985
screenpint on paper, 22/30 signed Robin White, dated Dec 1985 and inscribed Falling Star Over Betio, Tarawa in graphite lower edge 520 × 400mm
est $2,500 — $4,500
provenance
Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Webb's, c1980s.
392mm
est $4,000 — $6,000
provenance
Private collection.
est $12,000 — $18,000
provenance
Private collection.
From
lithograph on paper, 14/17 signed R Hotere, dated 2008 and inscribed 14/17 in graphite lower edge 650 × 490mm
est $5,000 — $7,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
Your Absence (by Bill Manhire) 2005
lithograph on paper, 17/20 signed Ralph Hotere, dated 2005 and inscribed 17/20 in graphite lower edge 650 × 490mm
est $5,000 — $7,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
16 Ralph Hotere Drawing for Black Painting 1969 ink on paper signed Hotere, dated 69 and inscribed Drawing for a Black Painting in graphite lower edge 340 × 315mm
est $12,000 — $15,000
provenance
Private collection, Christchurch.
17
est $18,000 — $24,000
provenance
Private collection, Christchurch.
“
Most who see Tibbo's art respond to it on a purely sentimental level... When Teuane Tibbo appeared on the Auckland art scene in the early '60s, the usual assortment of adjectives used to describe the work of a self-taught or naive artist was attached to her paintings by reporters and art critics alike. The various commentators described Tibbo's work as honest, unique, delightful, direct, intuitive, appealing, child-like, simple, uncalculated, unsophisticated and refreshing.” 1
19 Teuane Tibbo untitled 1973
oil on board signed Teuane Tibbo and dated 1973 in brushpoint lower right 585 × 900mm
est $20,000 — $26,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
20 Darryn George Pukapuka #1
2007
oil on canvas signed DW George, dated 2007 and inscribed Pukapuka #1 in ink verso 1020 × 1525mm
est $10,000 — $18,000
provenance
Private collection Auckland.
21 Geoff Thornley
Construction 8.84 1984
acrylic on board signed G. R. Thornley, dated 8.84 and inscribed Construction 8.84 in acrylic verso 1040 × 1490mm
est $20,000 — $30,000
provenance
Private collection, Melbourne. Acquired from The Les and Milly Paris Collection, Art+Object, Auckland, 19 September 2012, lot 36.
2007
golden quartz, Bluff granite and steel cable 2800 × 1700 × 170mm (dimensions variable)
est $18,000 — $26,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
exhibitions TOROA, FHE Galleries, Auckland, January 2007.
note All the stones for this necklace are natural formations. The artist notes that, as the sources in this area are diminishing, they will not be using these materials again in this configuration.
2014
automotive paint on fibreglass, edition of 100 410 × 125 × 100mm (widest points)
est $30,000 — $35,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
exhibitions
Another from the series exhibited in Michael Lett, Art Fair, 2014, Auckland. Michael Parekōwhai, The Promised Land, 2015, GoMA, Brisbane Australia.
350 × 300mm
est $25,000 — $45,000
provenance
Private collection, Northland. Acquired directly from the artist, c2005.
25 Karl Maughan
Tank Top Road
2009
oil on canvas signed Karl Maughan, dated June 2009 and inscribed "Tank Top Road" in brushpoint verso 1215 × 1525mm
est $35,000 — $45,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
26
Reuben Paterson
Te Whenua o te Rangi
2015
glitter on canvas signed Reuben Paterson, dated 2015 and inscribed Te Whenua o te Rangi in graphite verso left panel; signed Reuben Paterson and dated 2015 in graphite verso right panel 1205 × 1205mm (each panel)
est $38,000 — $48,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
Born in 1973, Reuben Paterson (Ngāti Rangitihi, Ngāi Tūhoe, Tūhourangi, Scottish) has carved a niche for himself in Aotearoa’s art world through his unique and dazzling creations that seamlessly blend traditional Māori culture with a modern and innovative approach. At the heart of his artistic identity lies a material that has become synonymous with his work – glitter.
Paterson’s glitter paintings have become iconic representations of his ability to weave together traditional Māori motifs, symbols and stories with contemporary aesthetics. One of the defining features of these works is the meticulous attention to detail and the precision with which he applies the glitter to the canvas. The play of light on the glitter surface adds an extra layer of dynamism, making the artworks come alive as they interact with the surrounding environment.
Beyond the visual allure, Paterson’s glitter artworks carry deeper meanings and narratives. His use of glitter is not merely for decorative purposes but is a deliberate choice to challenge perceptions of value and materials. By elevating glitter, often associated with children’s craft projects, to the realm of fine art, Paterson prompts viewers to reconsider preconceived notions about artistic mediums.
The fusion of traditional Māori elements with the contemporary medium of glitter serves as a testament to Paterson’s ability to bridge the gap between past and present, inviting a diverse audience to engage with his art.
In addition to his glitter paintings, Paterson has expanded his artistic repertoire to include sculptures, installations and public art projects, further solidifying his position as a prominent figure in the Aotearoa contemporary art scene. His glitter artworks, with their dazzling beauty and profound cultural connections, continue to leave an indelible mark on the art world, inviting viewers to explore the intersections of tradition, innovation and personal identity.
27 Buck Nin
Ancestral Banner Over The Land 1991
oil on board signed NIN and dated '91 in brushpoint lower right 1205 × 840mm
est $20,000 — $30,000
provenance
Private collection, Wellington.
est $35,000 — $45,000
provenance Collection of the
1988
oil on canvas signed W A Sutton and dated '88 in brushpoint lower left; inscribed "XXIII" in brushpoint verso 500 × 900mm
est $36,000 — $48,000
provenance
Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Brooke/Gifford Gallery, Christchurch.
“I tried to show how I despised what they [exotic pine plantations] were doing to our country, changing the pattern of it, but then art forms took over and they developed as paintings.”1
‘Bill Sutton’s Plantation Series’, Tikaka Tuku Iho |
Heritage, Lincoln University.
“The camera is a living extension of me. I felt drawn to photography because of its ability to bring the past into the future… In its ability to carry information in a concrete form a photograph moves into the future in a way that we can’t.”1
30 Fiona Pardington
Manawarahi Female Huia, Hawkes Bay Museum
2022
archival inkjet print on Hahnemühle paper, edition of 10 signed Fiona Pardington in ink verso 1450 × 1090mm
est $25,000 — $40,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Starkwhite, Auckland.
“This is one thing that I think is vitally
important
and not
enough people
understand: that you have to work flat out, and the faster you work the more likely you are to produce a good end result, and the long time it takes often to produce a painting – and it is a long time, even the ones that look as if they are dashed off – is spend in looking at the, and correcting the least little thing… this going over and over is I think absolutely essential, and it must be stopped at the right point; you must know exactly when to stop, otherwise you will squeeze out all the feeling that you may have had originally.”1
31 Colin McCahon
Northland 1959
ink on paper signed McCahon, dated April '59 and inscribed Northland in ink lower left 600 × 505mm
est $60,000 — $80,000
provenance
Private collection, Christchurch.
32 Ralph Hotere
Mungo at Aramoana
1983
oil on board signed Hotere and dated '83 in brushpoint lower right 535 × 450mm
est $60,000 — $80,000
provenance
Private collection Auckland. Acquired from Bosshard Galleries, Dunedin, 1983.
Aramoana is a beautiful place, but it feels like the end of the world. Located on a sand-dune spit that extends out into the ocean, to visit is to understand why it is named ‘pathway to the sea’. Standing at the end of the spit, you feel as though you should be able to keep going, walking out into the water, across the mouth of the Otago Harbour, emerging from the waves to climb the rugged cliffs where the royal albatrosses make their nests at the edge of the Otago Peninsula.
From his studio at Observation Point in Port Chalmers, Ralph Hotere (Te Aupōuri) (1931–2013) could see the bright line of the spit, shattered cliffs and pale-grey beaches to one side, expansive salt marshes to the other, the stark line of the man-made Aramoana mole poking out into the water, blocking tidal sands from swirling into the harbour. In the late 1970s, when Aramoana was proposed as the site for a new aluminium smelter, Hotere and his then wife, poet Cilla McQueen, were part of the resistance, supporting passionate residents and local iwi in their battle against the government. Vincent O’Sullivan describes how Hotere assumed “an almost folkloric status as touched-up stories went the rounds of his painting lamp-posts black on the Aramoana road, and defacing public notices. He sent [poet and friend] Bill Manhire a photograph of black acrylic flung across a smelter hoarding, with a note that it was the best painting he’d done.”1
With the Save Aramoana Campaign fuelling Hotere’s work for over a decade, it is unsurprising that he began to combine this with other interests, especially after the development plans were finally abandoned in 1981. The following year, Hotere visited
the dry bed of Lake Mungo in South Western New South Wales, a site where, a decade earlier, shifting sands and soil erosion had revealed an ancient Aboriginal burial site containing three sets of human remains, among the oldest ever discovered. Alongside his archaeologist friends, Hotere became fascinated by this ancient place, observing the three distinct layers of sand and soil found around the edges of the lake: the red ochre of Gol Gol, the oldest layer, the greyish Mungo layer, deposited between 50,000 and 25,000 years ago, and finally the golden-brown Zanci layer, laid down between 25,000 and 15,000 years ago. 2
Back at Aramoana, Hotere may have recognised the grey of Mungo in the sands and sediment of his home, may have felt a connection between the two wild places that remain mostly unspoiled, close to how they might have been thousands of years ago. In Mungo at Aramoana, Hotere also references the visual language of archaeologists’ location diagrams, uniform white dots showing the positions of 13 samples within the central form of the work.
While earlier works dealt specifically with protesting the smelter, this work from his Mungo series shows how Hotere’s practice was affected by his participation in the resistance, which was motivated by both social and environmental concerns. These later works, made around the same time as many of his anti-apartheid paintings, show Hotere’s deepening understanding not only of the effects humans have upon the land, but also expanding to consider the effects the land may have on us, especially when our bones break down into ash, soil and sand.
33 Bill Hammond
"A Blade of Grass Will Always Be a Blade of Grass…" 1993
acrylic on canvas signed W D Hammond and dated 1993 in bruspoint lower edge; inscribed A BLADE OF GRASS WILL ALWAYS BE A BLADE OF GRASS/MEN AND WOMEN ARE THE SUBJECT OF MY ENQUIRY/SAMUEL JOHNSON. in brushpoint upper edge 910 × 450mm
est $50,000 — $80,000
provenance
collection,
“In this period, Hammond begins to play with space, splicing and cutting, zooming in or out on details as if they are seen through an eccentric lens, parodying how things really look—and quite often they look bad. ‘Humans’ are tainted with self-centredness or lascivious greed and are unable to connect with nature. The laboratories of their living rooms are compartmentalised and crowded with objects and furniture, which in some cases are turning into menacing hybrid creatures. In these sinister variations, Hammond’s tacky use of garish red, grey, yellow and black imprisons his anthropomorphic creatures.”1
34 John Pule
I will be gentle with you
2007–8
signed John Puhiatau Pule in ink lower left, dated 2007/8 in ink lower right and inscribed I will be gentle with you in lower centre 1520 × 1215mm
est $85,000 — $95,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
I will be gentle with you (2007–8) is one of John Pule’s so-called ‘cloud’ paintings from the era that followed his ‘tapa’ paintings of the 1990s. For these, Pule drew on nineteenthcentury hiapo (decorated Niuean tapa cloth) to develop his own pictorial language, likening his tapa paintings to architecture, describing how “the patterns look like a plan of a village, or a plan of tracks going down to the ocean … I started remembering the roads and pathways and houses in the village I come from, and other rooms of our house, and I put all that down, and did images, birds, a lot of personal symbols, and now and then a triangle.”1 For his cloud paintings, Pule took the personal, political semiotics he had developed in the hiapo works and threw them to the sky, allowing his tiny graphic figures to walk across dripping enamel clouds, to climb up and down trailing roots and vines, to erect churches and monuments atop floating, airborne islands.
To live among the clouds may sound like something from a dream, but all is not well in Pule’s cloud worlds. As art historian Peter Brunt writes, “Pule renders scene after scene of Herculean efforts to transfer various embodiments of cultural and religious meaning across the empty space between one floating ‘cloud world’ and another in a modern cosmos of ceaseless violence, suffering and disaster.”2 In both his poetry and painting practices, Pule draws from personal and historical traumas, the horrors of colonisation, the importation of Christianity to the Pacific, experiences of migration and subsequent cultural loss, war and terror still
perpetrated across the world today. Echoing his lyrical poetry, the titles of Pule’s works are often in the first person, although who that person may be is rarely clear. Visually similar to the five panels of Kehe tau hauaga foou / To all new arrivals (2007, held in the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki collection), I will be gentle with you may speak from the position of Aotearoa addressing a person newly arrived here, possibly a young Pule himself (who came to Aotearoa from Niue when he was just two). While the title initially reads as a sweet sentiment, read it again and the whiff of a threat will appear: when a person says “I will be gentle”, it usually suggests they are about to do something painful to you. They might do it as gently as they can, but it is still going to hurt.
The tiny people who live on the blue clouds of I will be gentle with you work together to carry a mountain, atop which sits a cross. On another cloud, a crowd lowers the body of one of their own into a cavity while angels fly above them. Elsewhere, another group carries a gargantuan human head and what appears to be the corpse of an enormous seabird. Below, the cloud upon which an inky black church has been built remains empty of people. Tendrils trailing from beneath the clouds seem to sprout beautiful flora, heartshaped leaves, but also strange symbols and creatures whose mouths appear to open wide with pain. As with many of Pule’s paintings, to look longer is to find more details, graphic minutiae referencing mythologies both ancient and personal, meanings both discoverable and obscure.
1 Caroline Vercoe, “Art Niu Sila: Contemporary Pacific Art in New Zealand,” in Pacific Art Niu Sila: The Pacific Dimension of Contemporary New Zealand Arts, ed. Sean Mallon and Fuli Pereira (Wellington: Te Papa Press, Wellington, 2002), 202.
2 Peter Brunt, “History and Imagination in the Art of John Pule,” in Hauaga, ed. Nicholas Thomas (Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2010). 84.
35 Louise Henderson untitled 1971
oil on board signed Louise Henderson and dated '71 in brushpoint lower right 1200 × 900mm
est $70,000 — $100,000
“[In Europe] I have not seen anything but walls and houses and inside studios. Well, to come back to New Zealand – my studio was in the bush in Gillies Avenue – so beautiful, the trees! What else could I do but paint the bush?1”
1 Louise Henderson as quoted in Felicity Milburn, Lara Strongman and Julia Waite's Louise Henderson: From Life, (Auckland and Christchurch: Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, 2019), 42.
Young artists in this country might be chastened to know that one of the most important New Zealand painters of the twentieth century was once told by his employer that, while “art might be the cream on your coffee, Rawleighs is your bread and butter.” 1 Already an established painter, after World War II Toss Woollaston (1910–1998) moved his family to Greymouth in order to take up a lucrative salaried job selling household goods door-to-door. Woollaston worked for Rawleighs until he was awarded an annual fellowship that enabled him to travel to Australia to study the works of old masters at the National Gallery of Victoria, soon after which he was able to paint full time.
Tower and Verandah, Greymouth was painted in the difficult years when, with a mortgage and a young family, money was so tight he considered giving up painting. Despite being isolated from his artist community – at his previous home in Māpua, Colin McCahon, Anne Hamblett, Doris Lusk and Patrick Hayman had been frequent visitors – and his full-time job only allowing him to paint in the evenings and on weekends, Woollaston’s work transformed in response to the dramatic topography and atmospheric effects of the West Coast. Although he is best known for his energetic, expressionistic depictions of the landscape, this painting is one of a small number from this period painted from the elevated position of his hillside home looking down over the Greymouth township, an unusual vantage point that allowed him to experiment with perspective and architecture. Here, he creates a sophisticated frame-within-aframe, the arches of a nearby verandah dividing the picture into three separate spaces, creating a sense of enclosure and intimacy rarely found in Woollaston’s
oeuvre. As art historian Oliver Stead has noted, Woollaston’s town scenes “adopt methods of representation that seem to align more closely to the bourgeois lyricism of École de Paris painters like Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), and Raoul Dufy (1877–1953)”, as can be seen in the decorative flourishes such as the scalloped edges of the central archway. 2
Despite the urban subject matter, Woollaston’s palette remains characteristically subdued. Composed primarily of browns, greys and ochre, Woollaston relies on contrasting greens and judicious use of white to create light and space in an otherwise crowded composition, the titular tower centred and framed within a verandah arch. Describing an earlier painting of the same view – Landscape with Tower, Greymouth (1952), now held in the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū collection – when it was first exhibited in the 1952 Group Show in Christchurch, reviewer Ron O’Reilly described it has having “the immediate appearance of dirty colours thrown together at random.” He continues, “but if the spectator is prepared to attend to it with patience, he will see that it is, in fact, very carefully, thoroughly composed, and that the slashes of paint come together in a most solid and luminous way.” 3 Painted just a few years later, Tower and Verandah, Greymouth shows Woollaston’s commitment to his “dirty” palette and the development of his Cézannesque style, in which the careful consideration of colour, form and composition is disguised by an apparently casual approach to brushwork. With his loose strokes and elemental palette, Woollaston has performed some alchemy, conjuring not so much a representation of a place, but the feeling of being there at that moment, in that light, on that day.
1 David Young, “Toss Woollaston: Distance Looks His Way,” New Zealand Listener, 10 November 1979, 21.
2 Oliver Stead, Woollaston: The Wallace Arts Trust Collection 1931–1996 (Auckland: The James Wallace Arts Trust, 2015), 35.
3 Ronald O'Reilly, “Controversy Theme for Group Show,” Christchurch Star-Sun, 29 October 1952, 2.
36 Toss Woollaston
Tower and Verandah, Greymouth c1956
oil on board
580 × 710mm
est $30,000 — $50,000
provenance
Private Collection, Upper Hutt. Acquired privately, 2018. Private collection, Wellington; Acquired from Peter McLeavey Gallery, Wellington, c1980s.
While working as a gallery assistant at the Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki to support myself through art school, I recall Grahame Sydney speaking on the role of the imagination in his work. Sydney was presenting at an artist’s talk alongside curator Ron Brownson during his 2001 mid-career survey exhibition On the Road, at pains to emphasise that his hyper-realistic paintings were not simple translations of photographs, as they are sometimes misunderstood. Rather, they are more complicated than they may appear. During the talk, Sydney unpacked a particular painting, pointing out the subtle addition, removal and manipulation of certain details in order to create a carefully constructed composition, to the surprise of a number of audience members.
Such tensions between fact and fiction, photography and painting, real landscapes and codes of representation underpin Sydney’s work. His paintings are, on one hand, faithful depictions of the local Ōtākou environment in which he lives and works, while on the other hand they are highly staged fictions guided by longstanding landscape
traditions. At one level, these physical landscapes are reimagined by the artist, and correspondingly prompt the viewer’s imagination to project itself upon them. Writing in the 2012 exhibition catalogue for Grahame Sydney: Down South, Pātaka Museum of Arts and Culture’s Senior Curator of Contemporary Art, Helen Kedgley, notes:
Sydney gives us a created world, not one that is merely recorded. While he still makes preparatory drawings, he does not paint directly from nature. He constructs his images in the studio, carefully editing and framing each view, reinventing, reducing landscape to its bare essence … Sydney’s sparse, tightly structured compositions … suggest that the scene extends far beyond the frame.
Road to Onslow 1 (1997) is a prime example of Sydney’s painterly deployment of aesthetic manipulation. The scene depicts rolling hills and valleys on the road to Lake Onslow, which fade into the distance as the eye is guided through the pictorial space. The composition offers an immersive encounter, as finely rendered windswept tussock grassland in the foreground gently gives way to a hazy, impressionistic treatment of light in the distance. The atmospheric lighting presents this land as a kind of stage for potential associations and interpretations the viewer is invited to project upon it. Landscape as theatre.
Dramatic skies often dominate Sydney’s compositions, whereas Road to Onslow 1 looks down upon the earth from a distinctly elevated vantage point. While this reflects the view from the surrounding hills – the road to Lake Onslow runs along a ridge line 700 metres above sea level – a subtle ‘God’s-eye view’ is also potentially evoked. This interpretation is grounded in Sydney’s extension of Western romantic and sublime painting traditions, which portray the landscape using theatrical lighting, a pictorial code often designed to suggest a divine presence. This technique is also reflected in the visual strategies of early colonial painting in Aotearoa that attempt to Christianise the landscape, perceiving and conceiving the whenua from within this worldview. Some of Sydney’s early work engages directly with this iconography, depicting the figure of Christ and cross forms and situated in the Central Otago landscape in a more surrealist mode. In these early works, Sydney engages such aesthetic traditions, alongside
the legacies of New Zealand regionalism and modernists such as Colin McCahon. Road to Onslow 1 features low-key, raking light in the foreground and middle ground, which creates deep shadows and prominent contrasts, set against a background suffused with soft, atmospheric blue light. Here, the sky appears to gently descend upon the land — ‘Godzone’ indeed.
These lighting effects, contrasted with the elevated vantage point, may produce the feeling of being at once ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ the painting. Sydney’s omission of the horizon and sky perhaps reflects the closely cropped framing of a photograph he has taken as source material. However, the painting’s composition also reinforces the sense that this is not a depiction but a representation – and in keeping, a kind of visual and conceptual abstraction. Its honing in on a fragment drawn from a vast, wild expanse offers an attempt to contain that which it cannot. Here, Sydney extends the sublime tradition in Aotearoa through a representation of the land as rugged, spectacular and awe inspiring. A landscape that exceeds representation.
Of course, under certain atmospheric conditions and times of the day, Central Otago really does look like Sydney’s paintings. One may imagine what it must feel like to encounter such epic, sparsely populated, stark and at times unforgiving landscapes — scorching in the summer and snow-covered in winter.
Central Otago is a region the artist knows intimately, his embedded, decades-long work in this isolated environment eschewing the more conventional ‘road trip’ representations of a professional photographer or a tourist taking the scenic route. This might also go some way to explaining Sydney’s position as one of Aotearoa’s most popular and commercially successful working artists.
For some, the sense of remoteness in Road to Onslow 1 might evoke a kind of hinterland, a ‘back country’ region whose valleys were shaped by erosion caused by melting ice over immense geological time-scales. Another meaning of the term ‘hinterland’ is an area beyond what is visible or known. We may find echoes of this concept in the painting’s tight framing, which conjures a sense of the expanse beyond it. Its undulating hills might evoke folds of skin, internal landscapes or even the contours of thought.
37 Grahame Sydney Road to Onslow 1
1997
oil on linen signed Grahame Sydney and dated 1997 in brushpoint lower right 710 × 915mm
est $150,000 — $175,000
provenance
Private collection, Christchurch.
“Just as film makers are now making the trek into Central Otago looking for the ideal scenery for the perfect opening shot, Grahame Sydney’s painting has moved closer to cinematography. The visual language of film derives much of its potency from the seamless way in which the viewer is propelled into the imaginary world.
Like the carefully composed first frames in a film, Sydney’s images with their strips of lancing road or railway track, openings in a blank facade or chunk of recognisable but anonymous landscape present us with an opening scene.”1
Why ‘Whistler’s Mother’? With the breadth of art history ripe for the referencing, Bill Hammond (1947–2021) chose to paint numerous works inspired by American artist James Abbott McNeil Whistler’s most famous painting, officially titled Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1, also called Portrait of the Artist’s Mother, but more commonly known as ‘Whistler’s Mother’ (1871). The original painting is of an elderly woman clad in soft black and white lace, hands resting gently on her lap as she gazes steadily at, apparently, nothing. She is depicted in profile, seated on a chair within a grey room, her feet resting on a small object, a curtain and a small framed
picture the only decoration. Despite the subtle palette, the placid nature of the subject, it is an unsettling painting. Standing before Whistler’s Mother 2 (2000), I am sure it is this quality Hammond was drawn to as it is emulated here, a feeling of waiting, like the eerie calm that falls just before the heavens open.
Like Whistler’s painting, Hammond’s work shows a figure in profile. Unlike Whistler’s painting, Hammond’s figure is a bird. Not an ordinary bird, but one of Hammond’s anthropomorphised creatures, an upright figure with the curved head and beak of a seagull but the five fingers and vertical S-shaped spine of a person, with human clothes buttoned over
her top-heavy, grey body. Much has been written about the hybrid bird-people who first began to populate Hammond’s paintings after his 1989 trip to the subantarctic Auckland Islands, a place inhabited by birds alone; a place much like Aotearoa must have been before the arrival of any humans. Curator Robert Leonard has described Hammond’s bird-people as “interpretative conundrums”, their anthropomorphism allowing us to believe these creatures are knowable, to “project our own human desires and emotions” onto them, while also remaining silent and inscrutable; especially as their heads, the focal point of human communication, are their most nonhuman part.1
And then there is the bat, its presence heightening – or perhaps even creating –the feeling of foreboding. Why does this bird-woman carry a bat? The old woman in Whistler’s painting holds nothing in her hands, the bat is Hammond’s own addition, handle grasped, its weightier end resting, ready, in the palm of the bird-woman’s hand as she gazes at something beyond the canvas, her avian face unreadable. One imagines that Aotearoa before the humans was also devoid of all other natural predators – this is how, we are taught, so many flightless birds were able to exist and thrive here. Yet the presence of the bat in the hands of this motherly creature implies a world in which birds have had to arm themselves, suggesting that perhaps her world is not so different from our own.
* The Whistler’s Mother works were not the first time Hammond paid homage to famous paintings from art history; for example, The Fall of Icarus (after Bruegel) (1995), held in the Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o
Waiwhetū collection, makes direct reference in both title and form to Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (c. 1560). Works from the early 1990s onwards also show the profound influence of French impressionist Pierre Auguste Renoir, as he begins to explore a more painterly style. However, perhaps one of the greatest influences on Hammond’s practice, and one that would inform his work for many years to come, was the the master woodblock prints of Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) and Ando Hiroshige (1797–1858) that he first encountered in 1991, on a trip to Tokyo facilitated by a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council of New Zealand grant. Elizabeth Hay writes, “Ukiyo-e (1680–1868) or ‘floating world’ images from Japan’s Edo period emphasised the importance of brushwork, direct observation and stylised realism with bold but limited colouring”, all
qualities present in Whistler’s Mother 2. 2
Unlike that of Whistler’s painting, Hammond’s palette is not confined to grey and black. His bird-woman stands before and somewhat within an uncertain aqueous space, watery turquoise paint loosely washed over canvas and left to drip. Opaque rivulets have formed like raindrops sliding down a window, catching on the forest green of her dress, dripping over her arms, wings and abdomen so it becomes unclear whether this blue is background or substance. She could be standing in a room, in the sky, underwater, or within some ethereal element unknown to us. Hay has suggested that Hammond’s paint-runs – a hallmark of his work – may “take their origin from Japanese woodblock imagery depicting rain.” She goes on to note that Hammond’s runs seem to reflect the realities of the weather in Aotearoa, describing how, “unlike the fine,
misty rain that informed Vincent van Gogh’s work, [Hammond’s] weeping runs of paint evoke the heavy and foreboding downpours of the West Coast.”3
* Writing for The New Yorker after seeing Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 in the flesh, Peter Schjeldahl suggests that perhaps the reason this painting is considered so iconic is because it shares a certain attribute with other artistic icons such as the Mona Lisa, The Scream, American Gothic and Andy Warhol’s Marilyns. Each of these works functions as a “distillation of meaning instantly recognized and forever inexhaustible.”4 In the case of ‘Whistler’s Mother’, Schjeldahl believes this ‘distilled meaning’ is “the mysteries of motherhood. Everybody has a mother, and something close to half of everybody becomes one.” It is a peculiar aspect of being human, that the things we have the most intimate, personal relationships with – our bodies, the natural world, our mothers – are also the most mysterious. Hammond’s Whistler’s Mother 2 seems to swirl these mysteries together, not to provide answers, but to point to their inscrutability and consider how one mystery might shed light on the others.
1 Robert Leonard, Bill Hammond: Goods and Services (Auckland: Webb’s, 2022), https://robertleonard. org/bill-hammond-goods-and-services/
2 Jennifer Hay, “Jingle Jangle Morning,” in Bill Hammond: Jingle Jangle Morning (Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, 2007), 38.
3 Ibid, 39.
4 Peter Schjeldahl, “Mom’s Home,” The New Yorker, 24 August 2015, https://www.newyorker. com/magazine/2015/08/31/moms-home
38 Bill Hammond
Whistler's Mother 2 2000
acrylic on canvas signed W D Hammond, dated 2000 and inscribed Whistler's Mother 2 in brushpoint upper edge 1020 × 760mm
est $260,000 — $320,000
provenance
Private collection. Acquired from Brooke/Gifford Gallery, Christchurch, 2000.
Apartheid would smell as sweet
If Rugby be thy name.
In his almost-haiku New Zealand Rugby Union, poet Hone Tuwhare reimagines the most famous lines from the balcony scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (II, ii, lines 45–46) for contemporary Aotearoa of the early 1970s. It’s a clever swap, given Shakespeare’s play is about the sectarian Capulet and Montague families, whose mutual hatred for one another ultimately leads to the young lovers’ untimely deaths. Penned in 1973, Tuwhare’s political poem reflects the growing social consciousness of New Zealanders, responding to newly instated Labour Prime Minister Norman Kirk’s controversial postponement of the South African Springboks’ rugby tour, in spite of his election-year promises that he would do no such thing. In Kirk’s 1973 letter to the New Zealand Rugby Football Union, he included a report stating: “it is the considered police view that the tour would engender the greatest eruption of violence this country has ever known.”1 Almost a decade later these words proved prophetic, when the 1981 Springbok tour divided the nation for 56 days in one of the largest civil disturbances in our modern history, with more than 150,000 people taking part in over 200 demonstrations in 28 centres and a subsequent 1,500 charged with offences stemming from these protests.2
1 Trevor Richards, “The Sunday Essay: The Cancelled Springbok Tour of 1973,” The Spinoff, 4 April 2023, https://thespinoff.co.nz/the-sunday-essay/09-04-2023/ the-sunday-essay-the-cancelled-springbok-tour-of-1973#
2 'The 1981 Springbok rugby tour', URL: https:// nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/1981-springbok-tour, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 4-Feb-2020
3 Kriselle Baker and Vincent O’Sullivan, Hotere (Ron Sang Publications: Auckland, 2008) 314.
Ralph Hotere’s (Te Aupōuri) painting What’s in a Game? looks back from the vantage point of 1988, utilising his friend’s poem to evoke the anger and tragedy that characterised the times, even echoing the catchy, satirical language common in protest chants and on placards to this day. Written in a combination of bold stencilled lettering and looping freehand scrawl, Hotere’s transcription of the poem onto canvas similarly recalls the improvisational aesthetics of protest materials. Describing Hotere’s practice of taking lines from the poems of friends such as Tuwhare and Bill Manhire, writer Vincent O’Sullivan highlights that these works were not collaborations, explaining that “the words became the painting, the painting as entirely Hotere’s as if he had taken an object in a room and let its associations ring for him.”3
In What’s in a Game? the associations between Tuwhare’s wry poem and Hotere’s patterning don’t so much ring as clamour: one direct message
chimes clear, but there are echoes, overtones and undertones adding richness while also disorienting the listener. Above the lines of poetry, taking up the majority of the vast unstretched canvas is the abbreviation “NZ” emblazoned twice, letters stacked on top of each other, thick black strokes over a garish orange-red ground, recalling the logos or numbers often branded on sports jerseys. However, on the second line, “NZ” has been corrupted, flipped upside down and around, two simple transformations with the haunting result of creating a pattern that evokes the formational lines of both the Union Jack and the Nazi swastika. Once noticed, it is hard to disentangle the three symbols from one another, to see one without simultaneously seeing the other, so Hotere visually implies the inextricability of these three ideologies: colonialism begets fascism begets nationalism begets colonialism, around and around they go. Hotere returned to the Black Union Jack
1988
acrylic on canvas signed Hotere and dated 8.8.88 in brushpoint lower right; inscribed Hone Tuwhare "New Zealand Rugby Union" 1973 in brushpoint lower left 1800 × 1520mm
est $300,000 — $400,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
literature
Kriselle
many times over the years, often accompanied by scrawled text asking, “Union Jack? A Black Union Jack?” or else boldly stating, “This is a Black Union Jack”. O’Sullivan hones in on the blackness of Hotere’s Union Jack motif, describing it as “the flag of imperialism leached of its colour and so its emblematic harmony.”4 Without colour, the ‘unity’ symbolised by the flag is distorted, the historic significance of each hue and shape lost or diminished to the point of futility. In What’s in a Game?, there is no lexical reference made to the Union Jack and the icon itself is barely black, smudged and spattered as it is with red paint, edging it closer to the conventional colouring of the Nazi swastika, reminding us of what is at stake when we turn a blind eye to regimes of segregation and oppression. The visceral, blood-like spray of red is also suggestive of the violence that could – and did – result from the government’s myopic view of race relations in our colonised country. In What’s in a Game?, we see a prophecy fulfilled, an eruption of violence spewed across the canvas like lava, the greatest this country has ever known. But we are also forced to grapple with our understandings of what “this country” really is, whether we simply echo the sentiments of Empire upon which we were founded or whether we hold our own values. In the 1970s, it was a question of whether we would lean into our conservative post-war identity as a country besotted by “rugby, racing and beer” and attempt to “keep politics out of sports”, or follow the UN directive of boycotting sport as a way of putting pressure on the South African Government, showing that we would not condone racism and refusing to demean our Māori rugby players.
Tracing the trajectory of Hotere’s life and practice, O’Sullivan observes that the artist was often moved to action by his experiences of injustice and imperialism, but that he quickly learned to respond as an artist. He writes, “It is remarkable how implacably his work insists that it plays that double role — art as politics, politics as art.”5 Visually arresting, red hot with righteous rage, What’s in a Game? exemplifies this sentiment with a message that, while historically located, remains as relevant as ever as the pendulum swings back towards greater sectarianism and we must contend with our values on the world stage once again.
est $70,000 — $100,000
provenance
“I never much liked the idea of being a New Zealand painter. I just wanted to be a good painter.”1
1 Gordon Walters as quoted in Lucy Hammonds, Laurence Simmons and Julia Waite's Gordon Walters: New Vision, (Auckland and Dunedin: Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki and Dunedin Public Art Gallery, 2007), 132.
41 Paul Dibble
Haeata/Dawn (after Michelangelo's Tomb for the Medici)
2003
bronze, artist's proof signed Paul Dibble NZ, dated 2003 and inscribed A/P Haeata with incision lower edge 580 × 320 × 160mm (widest points)
est $30,000 — $40,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, c2003.
This pair of bronze sculptures by Paul Dibble (1943–2023) recalls the allegorical figures lounging on either side of the marble sarcophagus of Lorenzo de’ Medici within Michelangelo’s tomb for the Medici (1520–34), in the Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, Florence – but not quite. Michelangelo’s Dawn is a young woman awakening, her body stretching as she regains consciousness, a pained look on her face suggesting the difficulty of returning to the world. His Dusk is an elderly bearded man, substantial muscles bulging as he lies at rest, his eyes tilted down as though worn out by the day he has lived through.
Not carved from marble, but cast in his signature bronze, Dibble’s figures are genderless, their lithe brown curves and limbs more suggestions of bodies than they are studies of the human form. With their curved bald heads, and smooth vertical channels missing from the centre of each torso, they appear more like archetypes or deities, their graceful, simplified forms representing the passage of time between dawn and dusk, and perhaps also the time between birth and death. Embedded into each figure’s shoulder like a tattoo is their title — Haeata/Dawn, with eyes just opening from their slumber, and Porehu/ Dusk, whose peaceful face suggests they are already drifting towards sleep.
For followers of Dibble’s career, it would have been unsurprising to see the influence of Renaissance sculpture popping up in his work. In the 1960s and 70s, Dibble made a series of bronze sculptures for Catholic churches around Tāmaki Makaurau, Colin McCahon having recommended him to John Hackshaw, a young domestic architect with a vision of building local churches as “houses of worship”, who commissioned Dibble to produce bronze candlesticks, tabernacles, crucifixes and so on.1 Although he pays homage to Michelangelo in the titles of these works, stylistically they are more beholden to Dibble’s favourite, Henri Matisse, whose playful, sinuous sculptures were a significant influence throughout his career as he pursued a sense of motion and dynamism in his work. Despite their sleepy countenances, Haeata and Porehu are both seated upright, Haeata’s toes even flexed upon the floor as though about to take on their full weight at any moment. It may seem contradictory to describe any large bronze as ‘light’, but there is an undeniable delicacy to these works, or at least the figures themselves, as they sit poised upon their blocks. Unlike Michelangelo’s Dusk and Dawn, who struggle to sleep tranquilly and then struggle to rouse, Dibble’s figures seem at peace, content with the flows of time that run between them, cognisant of new beginnings and accepting of the end.
42 Paul Dibble
Porehu/Dusk (after Michelangelo's Tomb for the Medici)
2003
bronze, artist's proof signed Paul Dibble NZ, dated 2003 and inscribed A/P Porehu with incision lower edge 580 × 300 × 170mm
est $30,000 — $40,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Gow Langsford Gallery, Auckland, c2003.
43 Fiona Pardington
Inseparable Huia 2016 pigment inks on Hahnemühle photorag paper, edition of 10 1090 × 1500mm
est $50,000 — $70,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
egg tempera on gesso on board signed Grahame C Sydney and dated June 1974 in graphite upper right 410 × 560mm
est $40,000 — $60,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
1957
600mm
est $40,000 — $80,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
Still Life with White Magnolias, Zinnias & Apples
oil on board
480 × 380mm
est $10,000 — $15,000
provenance
Private collection, Blenheim. Acquired from The Noel & Margaret Dick Collection, Dunbar Sloane, Wellington, 12 June 2019, lot 17; Collection of Noel and Margaret Dick, Wellington. Acquired privately; Collection of Helen Brown, Wellington. Gifted by the artist.
note
Accompanied by a Certificate of Authenticity from John Leech Gallery affixed verso.
est $20,000 — $30,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
est $20,000 — $40,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
oil on canvas signed Peter Siddell and dated 1992 in brushpoint lower right; inscribed 'table, peter siddell, oil canvas' in graphite verso 495 × 750mm
est $25,000 — $50,000
50 Toss Woollaston Rembrandt 1629 1992
oil on board signed Woollaston and dated 1992 in brushpoint right edge; inscribed Rembrandt 1629 in brushpoint left edge 660 × 500mm
est $40,000 — $60,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Peter McLeavey, c1995.
51 Petrus van der Velden untitled oil on canvas signed Petrus van Velden in brushpoint lower left 920 × 695mm
est $20,000 — $30,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
52 Terry Stringer
untitled 1989
bronze; blown glass, brass and electrical cord signed Terry Stringer and dated 89 with incision lower edge 340 × 370 × 195mm (widest points)
est $4,500 — $7,000
provenance
Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Academy of Fine Arts, Wellington, c1986.
53 Terry Stringer Fallen Figure 1982
bronze signed Terry Stringer and dated '82 with incision lower edge 630 × 565 × 380mm (widest points)
est $10,000 — $15,000
provenance
Private collection, Wellington. Acquired from Janne Land Gallery, Wellington, 1988.
Allan – Dear Friend
1987/89
acrylic polymer on linen signed Max Gimblett, dated 1987/89 and inscribed For Allan – Dear Friend in ink verso 300 × 510mm
est $6,000 — $10,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
oil and acrylic on canvas signed Marie Le Lievre, dated 2013 and inscribed Banged Up in graphite verso 760 × 760mm
est $4,800 — $7,500
provenance
Private collection, Auckland. Acquired from Antoinette Godkin Gallery, Auckland, 2013.
exhibitions Marie Le Lievre, Madder Temple, 2013, Antoinette Godkin Gallery, Auckland.
56 Max Gimblett
Inheritance – 7 1998
gesso, acrylic polymer, polyurethane, silver and shellac on board signed Max Gimblett, dated 1998 and inscribed Inheritance – 7 in brushpoint verso 500 × 300mm
est $12,000 — $22,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
57 Max Gimblett Sleeping Beauty 1993
gesso, polyurethane and Swiss gold on board signed Max Gimblett, dated 93/02 and inscribed Sleeping Beauty in brushpoint verso 550 × 300mm
est $12,000 — $22,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
2005
oil on linen signed M.Poppellwell, dated 2005 and inscribed Study for Parsnip Shooters in brushpoint lower right 920 × 840mm
est $6,600 — $8,000
provenance
exhibitions Martin Poppelwell,
acrylic and pigment on canvas signed André Hemer, dated 2019 and inscribed An Image Cast by the Sun #11 in graphite verso 385 × 270mm
est $3,000 — $5,000
provenance Private collection.
Don
Two Tooled Coats 1983
found objects; acrylic, nylon, fabric and steel signed Don Driver, 1983 and inscribed Two Tooled Coats in ink verso 1400 × 890mm
est $4,000 — $8,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
61 Toss Woollaston
View of the Taramakau River, from Dillmanstown, West Coast 1961 watercolour on paper signed Woollaston and dated '61 in brushpoint lower right 265 × 350mm
est $4,000 — $8,000
provenance
Private collection.
62 Toss Woollaston untitled 1961 watercolour on paper signed Woollaston, dated '61 in brushpoint lower right 260 × 360mm
est $6,000 — $8,000
provenance
Private collection, Wellington.
63 Toss Woollaston untitled 1990
watercolour on paper signed Woollaston and dated 7/4/90 in graphite lower right 200 × 290mm
est $4,000 — $8,000
provenance Private collection, Auckland.
64 Robert Ellis untitled 1961
acrylic and wax on card signed Robert Ellis and dated 61 in ink lower right 760 × 535mm
est $5,500 — $7,500
provenance Private collection.
oil on bronze, 2/3 signed Terry Stringer, dated 2014 and inscribed 2/3 with incision lower edge 12 × 210 × 110mm (widest points)
est $5,000 — $8,000
provenance
Private collection, Auckland.
est $10,000 — $15,000
provenance
Private collection.
67 Ans Westra
Wellington (Harbour View)
c1973
inkjet on Ilford Galerie Fiber gold silk, artist's proof 2 of 2 signed Ans Westra on accompanying Gallery Edition Certificate 950 × 950mm
est $7,500 — $8,500
provenance Private collection.
68 Roger Mortimer Mangarakau
2016
watercolour and gold dust on board signed Roger Mortimer, dated 2016 and inscribed Mangarakau in graphite verso 605 × 790mm
est $5,500 —$6,000
provenance
Private collection.
exhibitions Roger Mortimer Resolution Island, 2016, Bartley & Company Art, Wellington.
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.
The conditions that are listed below contain terms that are used regularly and may need explanation. They are as follows:
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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.
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4. At the Sale
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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.
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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 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
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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 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:
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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 19.5% of the hammer price plus GST (Goods and Services Tax) where applicable.
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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.
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5.5. Permits, Licences and Certificates
$5,000
$10,000
$20,000
$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.
5.6.1. 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 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.
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)
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 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 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 non-refundable. 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. 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.
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.
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.
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, 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.
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.
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