Select, February 2022

27.02.22 Select Webb's

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0638 Auction Catalogue February 2022 Contemporary, Modern and Historical Art

Imogen Taylor Baste

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Webb’s is delighted to present our third iteration of Select. After the success of our last two Select catalogues, we are happy to continue with this special addition to Art to Date. Our team of specialists have enjoyed scouring the consignments for Art to Date to choose works that stand out and offer interesting pairings. These “staff picks” are a fantastic overview of artistic practice and a dynamic offering.

The catalogue begins with two enchanting works from Wellington based Séraphine Pick. The artist has been a star performer among an impressive spike in the prices achieved for works by women at auction. Pick’s prices have skyrocketed, with collectors competing to acquire her remarkable works.

Webb’s reset the top price for the artist again in our Melting Moments auction in November last year, fetching an impressive $266,805 for her sensational work Burning the Furniture. The two intricate works on paper featured in Select offer an entry level option for the highly collectable artist. Painted in 1995, the same year she completed the Rita Angus residency, these works are distinctly of the artists 90s style with obvious youth culture references.

Featured on the cover is a luscious painting from rising star Imogen Taylor. Taylor’s paintings are a delightful investigation into the history and often discounted herstory Webb's

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of painting, restaging a mash up of historical references and techniques with her own agenda.

One of the standout combinations would have to be the pairing of emerging artist Claudia Kogachi and the lesserknown Richard (Dick) Lyne. Kogachi’s work has very quickly risen in popularity, seeing the young artist included in several public gallery exhibitions early in her career. Her works are incredibly honest, sharing often comical happenings in the artists life. Dick Lyne is an artist who very seldom comes to light, his works flying under the radar and sitting comfortably within a naïve genre. Lyne’s works share the same charming honesty we see in Kogachi’s paintings, endearing the viewer and offering a space for personal reflection.

We are incredibly pleased with this catalogue, and hope you will enjoy the following pages as much as we have enjoyed putting them together.

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This pair of paintings by Séraphine Pick (b. 1964) could be interpreted as odes to youthful memories. They playfully reference school-time mischief, a desk aflame, sly cigarettes and empty crushes. Though lively, they reflect the earth-shattering importance of everything when young, carefully curated appearances crafted by lipgloss and spider legs of mascara in order to appeal to the newly discovered opposite sex. The desk in the untitled work is ablaze, leaving the viewer to wonder what sparked and fuelled the fire. Perhaps the other work in the pair, Summer of 1975, captures the culprit in its paper-bag mask.

Though it also appears as something of an act of homage to the work of Canadian American painter Philip Guston.

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These works reflect the style of the so-called pencil case painters - sparse and doodle-like. Pick and her fellow graduates of the Ilam School of Fine Art, Bill Hammond, Tony de Lautour, Saskia Leek and Shane Cotton are often grouped under this moniker. This raises an interesting discussion of art school ecologies within New Zealand; in particular institutions, sitespecific styles sometimes emerge, aligning each alum with their contemporaries. Ilam has a rich tradition of this, following the pioneering modernist collective The Group.

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Séraphine Pick Summer of 1975 1995 acrylic on paper title inscribed 280 × 175mm

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Séraphine Pick untitled 1995 acrylic on paper 280 × 175mm est

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$1,600 — $2,200

$1,600 — $2,200

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With these two prints, Auckland-based artist Liz Maw (b. 1966) depicts two fantastical whimsical scenes. In one, a glittering pink and purple python entwines itself around the leg of natural historian David Attenborough; while in Naiad a gleaming pastel mermaid floats in a drink bottle. Drawing on her Catholic upbringing, Maw combines references from religious icon painting and contemporary popular culture to create a new type of icon. These figures and objects often emit a mysterious glow or sparkle, through colours, stars and light, as seen here in the mermaid’s barely visible cloudy halo and the snake in Young David Attenborough.

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Liz Maw studied at Elam School of Fine Arts, and works primarily in painting. She renders her works in a highly detailed and naturalistic style influenced by the European old masters.

Her works are often framed ornately in a similar grand style. In these two prints, replicated from the painted works, the frames have been included, further implementing their status as objects and new icons. The detailed and sensuous treatment of her subjects, such as a delicately painted plastic water bottle, celebrate and also question the distinctions between high and low culture.

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Liz Maw Young David Attenborough 2007 Giclée print on paper, 1/10 signed, dated and title inscribed 615 × 418mm

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Liz Maw Naiad Giclée print on paper, 1/10 signed and title inscribed 780 × 350mm est

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$1,800 — $2,800

$1,800 — $2,800

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Gordon Walters (1919-1995) is one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s most significant artists. He is revered for his fusion of European Modernism and indigenous Māori motifs. From the 1950s onwards, Walters experimented widely with Māori and Pacific symbols. This led to his synthesis of the hard-edged painting style of modernist abstraction utlising the organic form of the koru pattern, for which he became well known. The artist described his paintings as an attempt to make sense of the environment in which he lived.

Genealogy III and Tahi are prime examples of his signature stylised koru achieved through extreme reduction and repetition.

In these prints, Walters uses positive and negative relationships to suggest the rhythmic form of a koru. Derived from kowhaiwhai Webb's

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patterns, the koru refers to the endless cycle of birth, death and renewal in te ao Māori.

Genealogy III divides the composition into thirds: the koru pattern appears to cascade down the surface, decreasing in size in the lower two-thirds of the picture plane. In this manner, the work suggests the idea of lineage of whakapapa inherent in the title. Walter’s Genealogy series is considered one of his greatest achievements.

Similarly, Tahi explores the formal and symbolic registers of the word. Meaning both ‘one’ and ‘in unison’, Tahi uses a limited palette of yellow and black to create an elegant yet powerful drama across the art work’s surface. The works strike a keen balance between geometric purity and optically charged movement.

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Gordon Walters Geneology III 1971, printed 2020 screenprint on paper, edition of 100 indented with Walters Estate chop mark 1055 × 805mm

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$15,000 — $18,000

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Gordon Walters Tahi 1969, printed 2021 screenprint on paper, 61/100 indented with Walters Estate chop mark 1055 × 805mm $10,000 — $15,000

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Following his breakthrough at the 5th Sydney Biennale in 1984, Ralph Hotere (1931-2013) took up an artist residency at the University of Canterbury School of Fine Arts. There, he formed one of his most enduring artistic collaborations with the printmaker Marian Maguire, a relationship that spanned over 20 years. Hotere and Maguire formed a strong bond over lithography. He had already experimented with screen-printing since the early 1960s, and attempted to apply his angle grinder to etching plates. But through lithography he found a new medium for expression which he exploited for its characteristic oily blackness and inky depths.

Round Midnight ‘July’, 2000, was produced in collaboration with Maguire. The suite of prints totals thirteen works named after the months of the year plus one additional image. It took Hotere almost a year to complete the series, and the works were Webb's

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not created in chronological sequence. Instead the title derives from a jazz composition by the musician Thelonius Monk called ‘Round Midnight’, suggesting the intuitive and syncopated rhythm of Monk’s arrangement.

Round Midnight ‘July’ consists of black on black, yet is distinguishable through two main motifs: the double-barred Lorraine cross and the Latin cross. The cross reappears in untitled, 2002, this time forming an ‘X’ shape. Hotere was notoriously reticent about his own work, and provides no guidance about their visual relation to window frames, points of convergence or Christian crosses. Rather, both prints reiterate his refusal of words, taking solace in their monastic simplicity and sumptuousness of gesture and mark making.

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Ralph Hotere Round Midnight July 2000 lithograph on paper, 18/24 signed, dated and title inscribed 560 × 740mm

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Ralph Hotere untitled 2002 lithograph on paper, 13/22 signed and dated 620 × 505mm

$7,000 — $10,000

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$8,000 — $10,000

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Drawing inspiration from diverse sources such as prison tattoos, maps, and corporate catalogues, Aotearoa artist Tony de Lautour (b. 1965) has created a unique visual language through his art. His graphic works traverse media and genres in a cynical yet playful way.

De Lautour is part of a group of Christchurch artists characterised as the pencil-case painters, along with Bill Hammond, Shane Cotton and Séraphine Pick. These artists rejected traditional landscape-based realism and embraced a more grungy and unconventional style of painting. De Lautour’s works often give art historical or cultural symbols a darkly humorous twist: well-known Webb's

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logos are recreated ironically and op shop landscape paintings have additions of sink-holes and crocodiles.

Profile portraits and heads have long been part of art history and are a recurring theme in de Lautour’s work. Here, A Book of Heads features a series of often-faceless woodcuts with map-like trails and symbols, giving the impression of a cross section of the subject. Conversely, Head Count 9 gives faces and numbers to its lineup, alluding to a categorised collection of people. Created in de Lautour’s signature black and white palette, the two works combine art historical and low-brow cultural references with ease.

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Tony de Lautour A Book of Heads 2006 woodcut print on paper 1075 × 1005mm (overall); 290 × 205mm (each panel)

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Tony de Lautour Head Count 9 1999 signed, dated and title inscribed 1220 × 825mm est

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$17,000 — $22,000

$5,000 — $10,000

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Richard (Dick) Lyne (1927-2014) is a self-taught artist who turned his hand to painting in his retirement years. After a life-long career as a forestry worker, the artist began to bring his bush experiences to life through paint. With intensely vibrant colour and bold brush work, his paintings are an honest representation of his obvious connection to nature. Lyne’s paintings often feature his family members within their compositions. In this work Kauri Northland NZ we see a tiny figure before a gigantic Kauri tree showing the forest giants impressive girth, another small figure struts towards the central Kauri. This work also has a second painting on the reverse, another ode to nature. Lyne’s works are rarely seen and do not often come to market, although they are housed in major collections in New Zealand and have Webb's

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been exhibited internationally. Lyne’s work is paired here with a work by Japanese-born Tāmaki Makaurau based artist Claudia Kogachi (b. 1995), the combination offering contrasting takes on a naïve style of painting. Kogachi studied fine art at the University of Hawaii, finishing her tertiary studies at Elam; the young artist already has multiple awards and public exhibitions under her belt.

Her stylised works are bold and colourful, and riff on the tradition of folk or naïve painting while depicting honest representations of her life and family. Rollerskaters, painted in 2017, is part of a body of works that depicted Kogachi with her mother in various competitive sporting activities. The wobbly black lines encase the disproportionate blue figures of mother and daughter, each activity set upon a bold flat colour background.

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Richard (Dick) Lyne Kauri, Northland NZ oil on board signed and title inscribed 363 × 228mm

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Claudia Kogachi Rollerskaters 2017 acrylic on canvas 1090 × 1650mm

$800 — $1,200

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$4,000 — $8,000

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Allen Maddox’s (1948-2000) painting voice is unique. His distinctive matrices of crosses are instantly recognisable, the coloured X patterns and paint work speaking to a practice that was maintained over many years. Sometimes constrained, other times wildly chaotic, Maddox’s artworks employ paint in a way which demonstrates the versatility of the grid. His works remain clearly in his signature style, whether they are restrained or highly expressive.

Born in Liverpool, Maddox migrated to New Zealand as a teenager. He briefly studied at Ilam, before pursuing a career in advertising. Though art was in his veins, and painting remined his primary motivation. Maddox is often discussed in connection with his peers, Philip Clairmont and Tony Fomison.

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The trio are sometimes referred to as the ‘rat pack’, on account of their notorious bohemian lifestyle. Regardless of this, all three are firmly ensconced in New Zealand art history as painters of cultural significance.

Both of the paintings in this pairing feature his signature cross matrix, though one is monochromatic, while the other is highly colourful. This demonstrates one of the means by which Maddox was able to innovate and differentiate his works within the graphic constraint – the beguiling similarities between the works partially concealing the endless exploration. This constant reinvention of the motif is key to his mastery, and to the important role he played in New Zealand abstract painting.

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Allen Maddox untitled acrylic on linen 845 × 600mm est

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Allen Maddox untitled c1976 oil on jute 855 × 470mm

$8,000 — $12,000 est

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$8,000 — $12,000

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Louise Henderson (1902-1994) and Tony Fomison (1939-1990) may seem like an unlikely pairing. Henderson’s bold modernist style of painting tended ever further from the figurative toward the abstract over the course of her artistic output. She often employed a light palette with bold colour. Fomison’s work, on the other hand, remined figurative throughout. His tendency to darker subject matter and colour ranges was also a consistent feature.

In the instance of these two works, however, the visual simpatico is clear – both feature faces, staring back from the picture plane coupled with expressive applications of paint.

That said, the colour ranges are perhaps the inverse of what one might expect. Henderson’s untitled work features a feline face surrounded by dark and moody streaks of paint, perhaps as if the bodiless cat was hovering in the dense undergrowth of a forest. The paint is generously applied in some areas, Webb's

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while more sparing in others. Surface scumbling shows a raw, energetic approach to the painting process.

In Fomison’s Ready To Go, the figure is presented airily, in blue white and ochre oil paint brushily applied to the surface.

Fomison’s consummate ability to work paint into stylised representation is demonstrated here, with a loose and gestural approach to the artwork. The lightness of touch evident in this painting belies the technical skill of its creator.

Together, these paintings are both contrasting and resonant. They demonstrate the mastery of two of New Zealand’s most significant 20th Century painters.

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Louise Henderson untitled oil on canvas signed 595 × 695mm est

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Tony Fomison Ready To Go 1988 oil on canvasboard signed, dated and title inscribed 250 × 495mm

$15,000 — $25,000 est

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$40,000 — $55,000

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Born 1949 in Nelson New Zealand, Laurence Aberhart is one of the country's most celebrated photographers. Internationally renowned for his distinctively styled photographs of buildings, Aberhart’s long-standing career and quality of output is a beacon for aspiring and seasoned photographers alike. With a repertoire of subjects stretching far beyond the industrial, Aberhart has in many ways set the bar for photography in New Zealand.

His oeuvre also includes portrait photography and illustrious renderings of significant New Zealand landscapes.

Aberhart's technical skill and eye for captivating scenery are evidenced by the truly remarkable gelatin silver print Webb's

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photographs Taranaki from Oeo Road Under Moonlight (1999) and Taranaki, Midhurst (1991). Captured exquisitely, these works are exemplary of Aberhart’s technical skill; gelatin silver print processes are both time consuming and difficult to master. An expert craftsman with a clearly defined aesthetic sensibility, the artist captures the rugged beauty of New Zealand with indiscernible effort. These works showcase the excellent eye of an artist who has come to define New Zealand photography.

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Laurence Aberhart Taranaki from Oeo Road Under Moonlight 1999 gelatin silver print dated and title inscribed 395 × 430mm

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$5,000 — $8,000

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Laurence Aberhart Taranaki, Midhurst 1991 gelatin silver print dated and title inscribed 395 × 430mm $5,000 — $8,000

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Vera Cummings (1891-1949) received a scholarship at the tender age of 11 to attend the Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland where she trained under Charles Frederick Goldie (1870-1947).

Goldie was New Zealand’s leading painter at the time, known for his remarkably detailed and lifelike paintings of Māori subjects.

After graduating from art school, Cummings continued to paint alongside Goldie and often depicted the same models – as is the case with these two portraits.

Harata Rewiri Tarapata (Ngā Puhi) was depicted by Goldie in 1903 and 1904 and Atama Paparangi (Te Rarawa) in 1938.

While Cummings’ depictions of these venerable subjects are not, strictly speaking, copies, they do conform to the Goldie formula of head-and-shoulders with the subject looking wistfully out of Webb's

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the frame and not making eye contact with the viewer. In this way, both Goldie and Cummings were able to invest the subject with a constructed narrative dimension. Goldie’s earlier depictions of Harata Rewiri Tarapata carried titles such as Meditation, Memories and The Widow while Cummings’ depiction of her is sometimes known as Suspicion.

Cummings was adept at imitating Goldie’s late style from the 1930s when he painted in a much freer manner. She, nonetheless, pays close attention to the subjects’ moko, kaitaka, sharkstooth earings and hei tiki, capturing them in detail. In both of Cummings’ works the subject is framed by carved panels which evoke a wharenui which belies that fact that both models usually wore European clothes and lived in central Auckland.

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Vera Cummings Harata Rewiri Tarapata oil on canvas signed 305 × 255mm

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Vera Cummings Atama Paparangi oil on canvas signed 305 × 255mm

$10,000 — $20,000

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$10,000 — $20,000

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Joseph Gaut (1860-1934) was a painter of landscapes and Māori subjects and was based in Auckland in the early-mid 1880s. He advertised himself as an art teacher in Auckland in 1883 and he exhibited at the Auckland Society of Arts in 1884 and 1885. By 1887, he was domiciled in the Wairarapa town of Masterson. His view of the Pink Terraces entitled Nature’s Adornment, Umbrella Buttress, Pink Terrace, Rotorua, was painted from a Burton Brothers photograph in 1884 just two years before the Tarawera eruption which destroyed the fabled Pink and White Terraces on the shores of Lake Rotomahana, then considered one of Eight Wonders of the World and a major tourist attraction.

Gaut’s Miroa and Ratima Te Rongo were likely painted from photographs rather than from live models. This was common practice with artists of the period. For example, most of Lindauer’s portraits of Māori sitters are based on photographs.

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The rigid frontality of Ratima Te Rongo, is clear evidence of the use of a photograph. Gaut, like many of his contemporaries, exploited the almost insatiable demand for picturesque images of Māori subjects at a time when it was generally believed that Māori were on the brink of extinction. Though this was a fallacy, it played into the desire to capture such imagery. Raut’s Miroa, the Captive Maiden, depicts a young rangatira with a baleful look – the now enslaved spoils of a fictional inter-tribal conflict. Her flowing tresses offset the naked shoulder making her an object of desire for the presumably male viewer.

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Joseph Gaut Miroa, the Captive Maiden 1904 oil on canvas signed, dated and title inscribed 665 × 495mm

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Joseph Gaut Ratima Te Rongo, Chief of Wairarapa, NZ 1904 oil on canvas signed, dated and title inscribed 645 × 490mm

$25,000 — $35,000

2022

$25,000 — $35,000

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Though created two decades apart, Pat Hanly’s (1932-2004) Child Afraid and End of the Golden Age speak to the artist’s enduring social conscience. Both were made in response to momentous movements in New Zealand, at the peak of their significance.

Hanly was fervently opposed to nuclear weapons and testing in the Pacific, particularly charged by his time in Cold War Europe.

Child Afraid speaks to the threat of nuclear holocaust that the World teetered on the edge of. Hanly attempts to make clear the terror of this through the depiction of the most vulnerable in the throes of despair. Subdued tones and uncannily skeletal subjects add to the poignancy of the image.

The later work, End of the Golden Age, reflects the more graphic and saturated style Hanly’s work grew into. Though Webb's

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it continues to hinge thematically on the artist’s concerns for social issues. In this, he references the divisive Springbok rugby tour of New Zealand in the 1980s. Conflict over the morality of entertaining representatives of an apartheid country split New Zealand society, as illustrated by the colour that bisects the screenprint.

Each work, visually and in spirit, displays connections to earlier European movements of art and their favourite sons. The figure leaping across the divide in End of the Golden Age recalls Henri Matisse’s cavorting group in Dance, but rather to comment on the end of joie de vivre in the cultural mindset. Child Afraid is akin to Pablo Picasso’s mammoth Guernica, both striking images calling out the abject horror of the scene.

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Pat Hanly Child Afraid 1961 oil and graphite on canvas signed and dated 605 × 545mm

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Pat Hanly End of the Golden Age 1981 screenprint on paper, 14/50 signed, dated and title inscribed 560 × 760mm

$28,000 — $36,000

2022

$5,000 — $8,000

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Michael Smither (b. 1939) was born and raised in Ngāmotu New Plymouth, where the looming figure of Taranaki and the black sand beaches would provide a constant source of inspiration for his paintings and prints. Known as an artist, conservationist and composer, Smither’s subject matter is as varied as his creative interests. Smither began exploring the connection between colour and music in the 1970s, connecting the visual spectrum with the musical scale.

The untitled figurative work here depicts a woman named Polly, who was a friend of the artist and the poet Elizabeth Harrington, his wife. This work is an early painting of the artist’s and was created during the time that Smither and Harrington lived in Brooklands Park and painted the portraits of many family friends. Polly is turned towards a window which casts strong Webb's

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sunlight onto her lap. The rest of her torso is bathed in a cool reflected light, yet the entire surface of the painting is animated

by Smither’s energetic brushwork.

Untitled, 1969, is another early work, this time a study of what would become a recurring motif in his work. The rocks and flowing water depicted show the influence of Rita Angus and A. Lois White, two painters who would have an indelible influence on his emergent, hard-edged style. In this painting, the rushing water and rounded boulders becomes a dense mass of simplified shapes, prefiguring his luminous, hyperrealist paintings, as well as his highly sought after landscapes. Both paintings point towards the exciting developments that would occur in the following decades of his practice.

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Michael Smither untitled acrylic on board signed 906 × 753mm est

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Michael Smither untitled 1969 oil on board signed and dated 378 × 744mm

$15,000 — $20,000 est

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$8,000 — $12,000

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Known as a painter skilled in screen-printing, lithography and a master of iconography, Canterbury born Dick Frizzell (b. 1943) is one of New Zealand’s most celebrated artists. Prolific in production and enigmatic in his style, Frizzell’s work is some of Aotearoa’s most sought after. A monolithic figure of the New Zealand art world, Frizell’s paintings are held in all of New Zealand’s major corporate, private and public collections and he has exhibited widely throughout the country.

Frizzell’s incredible career - defined by a background of 15 years working in advertising - gives these particular pieces, Webb's

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both untitled (oil on board, 1994) their unexpected edge. More ‘billboard’, than ‘mural’. In the past, these works have been exhibited in a variety of locales, both in public thoroughfares and housed by private collections. As two sections of a much larger multi-panelled billboard work, these works stand out for their bold design and are a reminder of Frizzell’s unparalleled career and contribution to New Zealand art and art history.

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Dick Frizzell untitled 1994 oil on board signed and dated 1825 × 810mm

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Dick Frizzell untitled 1994 oil on board 1825 × 810mm est

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$6,000 — $10,000

$6,000 — $10,000

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Imogen Taylor’s (b. 1985) work is immersed in painterly and bodily pleasure. Her works reclaim modernist tropes through the queering and destabilising of rectilinear forms, utilising joyously applied colour and soft curves to counteract the masculine self-seriousness of European geometric abstraction. Her works attempt to explore ‘herstory’, specifically queer women narratives that are often excluded from the cannon of art history, or existing quietly beneath its surface. In Baste, 2020, Taylor employs pinks and a 'sapphic’ grass-green hue applied in thick, wet layers to playfully introduce unexpected bodily forms. The title Baste is used to conjure double meanings, both humorous and ignominious.

Her works also suggest the inherent plurality that Cubism and queer theory share, a unique disposition that encourages multiple viewpoints and non-binary values.

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Similarly, Arie Hellendoorn’s (b. 1980) mosaic-like paintings interrogate portraiture and genealogies of representation.

Hellendoorn divests the human form of meaning through the application of decorative surfaces. His works often reference portraits sourced from books, photography or online, as well as influence of music, creating a conflict between their desired meaning and their new context. Inside Out 6, 2018, conceals the images of two figures so that there is no division between interior and exterior. Instead, the viewer is drawn into the mesmerising, exuberant interplay of surface patterns, of improvised daubes, fractured lines and intersecting forms. The effect is op-art-like, psychedelic and shifting. In both paintings, Taylor and Hellendoorn play a game of visual hide and seek, in turns revealing and concealing the subject endlessly.

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Arie Hellendoorn Inside Out 6 2018 acrylic on canvas signed, dated and title inscribed 660 × 500mm

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Imogen Taylor Baste 2020 acrylic on hessian signed, dated and title inscribed 320 × 265mm

$3,000 — $6,000

2022

$6,000 — $8,000

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The rich colours, glossy lacquer and bold shapes of Max Gimblett’s (b. 1935) jewel-like paintings have captured Aotearoa’s attention for decades. Born in Auckland, Gimblett left New Zealand to travel in the 1960s and has been based in New York since the 1970s.

This intertwining of cultures is evident in his daring but consistent use of colours, shapes, and imagery. The untitled work on paper here employs one of Gimblett’s touchstones, a skull, partly obscured behind a calligraphic inky-blue swoosh. While the mark making appears energetic and swift, there is a careful precision to the different layers of paint that create the composition. This is heightened further in Traced Upon Her Brow, where bright red, purple, green and sky blue are layered with shiny gold to create an intricate map of brushstrokes.

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Gimblett’s work is heavily influenced by Eastern and Western religions including Zen Buddhism. This is evident in his gestural brushstrokes and painting process, in which his entire body must be engaged in an attempt to stop the mind from overthinking. His famous quatrefoil shape is also entrenched in Eastern and Western religion and is often thought to symbolise a rose, window, cross or lotus. The intrinsic history of Gimblett’s shaped canvases and gestural mark making is expertly balanced by the contemporary colours and finish of the artist’s inimitable works.

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Max Gimblett Traced Upon Her Brow 2014 acrylic, aquasize and gold leaf on board signed, dated and title inscribed 640 × 640mm

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$24,000 — $34,000

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Max Gimblett untitled 2011 watercolour and graphite on paper signed and dated 253 × 655mm $7,000 — $10,000

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At face value, Wellington born Gordon Walters (1919-1995) and Christchurch born Bill Hammond (1947-2021) share one obvious thing in common: their impact on New Zealand art history and culture. As painters born in this remarkable land, there is hardly a conversation to be had about New Zealand painting that does not include mention of both of their names. They are master painters and graphic artists, and they are household names. Discussed to a lesser extent in the lives of these two giants of recent New Zealand art history are their print works.

Kura by Walters presents his koru motif in a layered grid of alternating black and white and coloured sections. The 1982 Webb's

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work is from a sought-after edition of 150. Singer Songwriter by Hammond presents a compelling example of the artists print work. A host of his signature bird figures are arranged around a central figure in a striking black and white image. The work is instantly recognisable as Hammond’s.

These prints made by two of New Zealand’s greats are not overshadowed by their magnificent catalogue of paintings.

Rather, they are complemented by them, each as stylistically engaging. The mastery of image making demonstrated by these prints shows that these artists, both of the highest calibre, are in a league of their own.

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Gordon Walters Kura 1982 screenprint on paper, 25/150 signed, dated and title inscribed 600 × 470mm

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Bill Hammond Singer Songwriter 2001 lithograph on paper signed, dated and title inscribed 680 × 820mm

$18,000 — $26,000

2022

$7,000 — $14,000

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Nigel Brown (b. 1949) has been established as one of New Zealand’s leading narrative artists. His paintings often address social and political quandaries. Tackling issues of spirituality, physical and mental isolation and the relationship between humans and their environment, his works resonate across the decades. Brown’s paintings employ his signature schematised brushwork and muted palette. His paintings appear flattened in the manner of early Futurist or Cubist painting, with figures boldly incised as if hewn from the land itself.

Table Series XVI, 1975, is an early painting of Brown’s and depicts a scene at the breakfast table, a subject that would recur throughout this practice. These paintings demonstrate the significant influence of Colin McCahon on Brown’s work.

A large black cross is formed by the four-panel window in the Webb's

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background. A child sits forlornly with its head bowed to one side, a pose derived from church paintings. This creates a solemn and contemplative atmosphere, whilst connecting Brown to the legacies of New Zealand modernist painting.

In Stanley Palmer’s (b. 1936) From Awana Road, Aotea, 2007, we find the artist recreating long expanses of classic New Zealand coastline, untouched by human presence. Constructed through a personal vision of specific locations – in this case, Awana Bay on Great Barrier Island – Palmer investigates notions of memory, history and cultural and environmental loss. The fragility and drama of Great Barrier’s iconic ecosystem is made present, yet the stillness of the painting invites contemplation.

Like Brown, Palmer asks us to reflect on our relationship to place and land, on our collective histories and future.

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Nigel Brown Table Series XVI 1975 oil on board signed, dated and title inscribed 1183 × 795mm

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Stanley Palmer From Awana Rd, Aotea 2007 oil on canvas signed and dated 785 × 1830mm

$8,000 — $12,000

2022

$20,000 — $30,000

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British born painter Robert Ellis (1929-2021) is one of Aotearoa’s most well-known and celebrated painters. He began his formal training at Northampton School of Art in 1944 before attending the Royal College of Art on a scholarship from 1949 to 1953. In 1957 Ellis moved to New Zealand to take up a teaching position at Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland. He left, though remained Professor Emeritus, in 1994. Ellis’s contribution to painting is impressive not only through academia, but a wider and developing artistic community. He passed away in November 2021 at the age of 92 and has left a legacy of painting and artistic advances that will continue to resonate. Most well-known for his paintings, Ellis’s works traverse themes of urbanism and development, spirituality and Māori-Pākehā relationships, concepts that are captured in an abstracted style. City Through the Curtains painted in 1964 is a stunning example of the Webb's

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artist’s work, stylised land forms in umber and red are framed by translucent curtains on either side. Both Robert Ellis and his contemporary, Milan Mrkusich (1925-2018) have been awarded a New Zealand Order of Merit. Both were tremendously influential painters who sit together and demonstrate different approaches to painting. Mrkusich directly referenced a European style abstraction and pioneered a New Zealand distinction to this.

Working alongside Gordon Walters, Ian Scott, Richard Killeen and Stephen Bambury, Mrkusich was a part of a group of abstract painters known as the Vuletic circle. These artists all exhibited at the Petar/James Gallery operating 1972-76. Arcs & Lines on Grey (Diamond) from 1983 is exactly as the title describes. Upon a flat grey background a perfect and multi-coloured arc floats minimalistically across the central plane.

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Robert Ellis City Through the Curtains 1964 acrylic on board signed, dated and title inscribed 610 × 915mm

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Webb's

Milan Mrkusich Arcs & Lines on Grey (Diamond) 1983 acrylic on canvas signed, dated and title inscribed 2250 × 2250mm

$20,000 — $30,000

2022

$30,000 — $40,000

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Tame Iti (b. 1952) and Robyn Kahukiwa (b. 1938) are two artists that use their painting practice as a vehicle for communicating injustices within Māori-Pākeha relations in New Zealand. Highprofile activist and artist Iti grew up in Ruatoki at the foot of the misty Urewera ranges. Iti has connections to several iwi, including Ngāti Hauā and Ngāti Wairere but is mostly associated with Tuhoe. Te tini me te mano (The multitudes) was painted in 2012 during the artists incarceration at Waikeria Prison. Amidst rumour of terrorist activity, Police infamously set up unlawful roadblocks around Ruatoki in what was later termed the Urewera Raids of 2007. Iti was one of 17 people who were arrested at the time. He was later found guilty of illegal possession of firearms and served 30 months in prison. Te tini me te mano (The multitudes) is paired here with a 1993 work by artist Robyn Kahukiwa, titled We Listen To Our Heartbeat. This painting is a stunning simplified portrait Webb's

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of a figure with head tilted slightly as if in contemplation. Painted in 1993, the work is inscribed “In celebration of the UN year for indigenous peoples 1993” the heart to the right in the foreground resonating its beat with repeated lines stretching across the background. Kahukiwa is an Australian-born New Zealand artist of Ngāti Porou, Te Aitanga-a-Hauiti, Ngāti Hau, Ngāti Konohi and Whanau-a-Ruataupare descent. Kahukiwa’s works are housed in all of New Zealand’s major collections and are celebrated for the discourse they contribute to around issues facing contemporary Māori.

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Tame Iti Te tini me te mano (The Multitudes) 2012 acrylic on canvas signed, dated and title inscribed 457 × 607mm

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Webb's

$15,000 — $22,000

2022

Robyn Kahukiwa We Listen To Our Heartbeat 1993 oil on canvas on board signed, dated and title inscribed 350 × 355mm $10,000 — $15,000

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These two late-twentieth century works each portray a different New Zealand mountain - perhaps a defining feature of our unique landscape. While each artist has treated the subject matter differently, both works have been painted with enthusiasm. Known for their landscape works, both Michael Smither (b. 1939) and Toss Woollaston (1910-1998) demonstrate how and why great landscape paintings have endured throughout art history.

Mountain with Clouds and Hills in Foreground by Michael Smither is a bold work, with confident swathes of bottle green, sharp white and thick blue lines that define the mountain.

Smither’s paintings are often recognised by their hard-edged, realistic depiction of everyday kiwi domestic scenes. Born Webb's

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and raised in New Plymouth, Smither features the Taranaki landscape in many of his works. In this 1975 work the artist gives just a brief glimpse of his familiar Mount Taranaki slinking behind the strong clouds and hills.

In contrast, Toss Woollaston’s Rangitoto Auckland is a beautifully soft watercolour. Woollaston was also born in Taranaki, and then attended art school in Canterbury and Dunedin, before later settling in Māpua. Woollaston’s works deftly capture the unruly New Zealand landscape around him through simplified shapes, creamy tones and loose lines.

Rangitoto Auckland layers washy browns, purples and blues in a way that carefully creates the shoreline and mountain, yet maintains a wonderful lightness.

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Michael Smither Mountain with Clouds and Hills in Foreground 1975 oil on board signed, dated and title inscribed 300 × 345mm

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Toss Woollaston Rangitoto, Auckland 1990 watercolour and ink on paper signed and dated 290 × 400mm est

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Webb's

$6,000 — $8,000

$16,000 — $22,000

2022

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Raymond McIntyre (1879-1933) was an expatriate New Zealand painter known for his stylish images of street scenes and portraits in the manner of James Whistler. Born in Christchurch, where he attended the Canterbury College School of Art, McIntyre moved to London in 1908 and encountered the work of Whistler, which had a deep impact on him. Cobbled Street with Horse and Cart shows this influence together with the work of the French Impressionists. The high viewpoint recalls the urban street scenes of Monet and Manet as does the rapid brushwork.

McIntyre signed with work with his distinctive monogram – a practice that he borrowed from Whistler.

Peter McIntyre, OBE (1910-1995) was New Zealand’s official war artist during the Italian Campaign in the Second World War. As the allies pushed their way slowly up from the south of Italy, they encountered entrenched German resistance at Monte Webb's

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Cassino, a rocky hill crop about 130 kilometres southeast of Rome and the site of the great Benedictine monastery. The battle for Monte Cassino was especially brutal resulting in over 50,000 Allied casualties and the complete destruction of the monastery

by Allied bombing. McIntyre’s watercolour shows a tranquil scene prior to the offensive with the town and monastery in the distant mid-ground. The only signs of activity are the truck to the left and the tent and jeep in the right foreground. There is little to suggest the horror that will soon be unleashed, which McIntyre captured in his official images of the battle.

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Raymond McIntyre Cobbled Street with Horse and Cart c1913 watercolour on paper signed 405 × 490mm

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Webb's

$20,000 — $30,000

2022

Peter McIntyre Monte Cassino 1944 watercolour on paper signed lower right edge 430 × 575mm $15,000 — $20,000

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Paul Hartigan (b. 1953) and Anton Parsons (b. 1968) share parallel considerations of communication forms in their work. Both are striking in their crackling, staccato nature, like visual popping candy. The pair of works presented here are akin to optical codes - Parsons’ work tends to riff on braille or some sort of binary, while Hartigan’s work balances in the area between hieroglyph and wingdings. Parsons’ Analogue is a metallic length, with red blips along its edges. The varying levels are reminiscent of the pins of a music box. The work is winking, inviting the viewer to decode its message. One cannot help but wonder how it would translate to the audible.

Hartigan, who aligned his work with the Pop Art movement, hinges on references to the modern and popular. Dictionary is made with enamel paint, which fashions the flat and outlined shapes arranged on the picture plane. Some of these are Webb's

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recognisable, like a crescent moon, though others are less clear biomorphic forms. It is like looking through a microscope to an invisible dancing world, or the pulsing, floating squiggles at the corners of your vision. The title hints at the work functioning as a reference, perhaps an internal codex for the artist. The electric nature of the work is a clear lead into Hartigan’s later practice of painting with neon too. The shapes have a soft white halo, as if luminescent themselves.

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Anton Parsons Analogue 2004 stainless steel and aluminium 6000 × 350 × 350mm (widest points) est

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Paul Hartigan Dictionary 1979 enamel on board signed and dated 277 × 428mm

$18,000 — $28,000 est

Webb's

2022

$10,000 — $18,000

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Ann Robinson (b. 1944) is without doubt one of the world’s leading glass artists. Her cast-glass vessels are instantly recognisable and are to be found in private and public collections throughout New Zealand and in prestigious overseas collections such as the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne.

These two works have been made using the lost-wax method of casting which Robinson first learned as an art student working with bronze. However, she adapted the technique to casting glass and after much experimentation, she found that glass with a 45% lead crystal content produced the best results.

Although lost-wax casting is an ancient technique, it was revived for casting glass in the 1920s by the legendary French glass artist, René Lalique (1860-1945). It is worth noting here that the vendor is also a major collector of Lalique glass.

Robinson’s Plain Pod, from 1996, is cast in what the artist has called “methylated spirits purple” – a colour which very difficult to achieve. The shape is based on Pacific plant forms which very much locates her practice in this part of the world. Similarly, Landscape Vessel, from 2009, evokes the landscape forms that one finds in the paintings of Robin White and Colin McCahon “[The New Zealand light] is reflected in my work. Sharp, clear, even hard, colours: strong sun yellows, yellow green forest, dark copper blue evening skies, light blue summer skies, deep blue-green seas." Ann Robinson, 1995.

Webb's

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Ann Robinson Plain Pod 1996 glass and lead crystal signed, dated and title inscribed 340 × 370 × 210mm (widest points) est

$20,000 — $25,000

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Ann Robinson Landscape Vessel 2009 glass and lead crystal signed and dated 400 × 465 × 205mm (widest points) est

$25,000 — $35,000

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Auction & Viewing

Evening Preview Tuesday 22 February

6pm - 8pm

Viewing

Auctions Private Sales Valuations

Wednesday 23 February

10am - 5pm

Thursday 24 February

10am - 5pm

Friday 25 February

10am - 5pm

Saturday 26 February

10am - 4pm

Auction

auction@webbs.co.nz +64 9 529 5600 33a Normanby Road, Mount Eden, Auckland 1024, New Zealand

Sunday 27 February Sunday 27 February

Webb's

2021

Art to Date Select

2.00pm 6.00pm 51

33a Normanby Rd Mount Eden Auckland 1024 New Zealand webbs.co.nz Webb's

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