The record auction price for Australian art has been smashed with a Brett Whiteley painting from the artist's iconic Lavender Bay series selling for more than $6 million.
The price exceeded the $5.4 million paid for a Sidney Nolan painting of bushranger Ned Kelly, a record that had stood for a decade, as the Australian art market continued to defy economic gloom.
Bidding for the Henri Matisse-inspired canvas Henri's Armchair started at $4.5 million in the auction room of Menzies Art Auctioneers in Kensington on Thursday night. The auction took about four minutes with three telephone bidders and one absentee bidder moving at increments of $100,000.
Brett Whiteley's Henri's Armchair was auctioned by Menzies head of art Justin Turner on Thursday evening.Credit:Wolter Peeters
The painting was sold to a private collector from Sydney for $5 million, with the auction house premium taking the total price to $6.136 million and setting a record for the Australian art market and for a Whiteley painting.
In the room was Elizabeth Evatt, whose husband, the defamation barrister Clive Evatt, QC, acquired the painting in 1975 and kept it until his death in 2018.
Mrs Evatt said she felt emotional to see the painting move into new hands as it had been with her and her husband for as long as their relationship and had hung in the study of their Turramurra home.
She said her husband regarded Henri's Armchair as Whiteley's finest painting. Mr Evatt and Whiteley, she said, had a "push me pull me sort of relationship". Her husband came to acquire the painting when he called in on the artist after the races and found him "upset, angered and in a turmoil".
"It transpired the painting had been commissioned by a gallery and they had asked [Whiteley] to paint over the matchbox and the evidence of a heroin habit. You can't ask a real artist to paint things out that are disagreeable," Mrs Evatt said.
In response to Whiteley's fury, Mr Evatt offered to buy the painting.
"Brett said that would require a boot full of money and Clive took him upstairs and opened the boot of his car," Mrs Evatt said. Whiteley counted the money on the floor and when a gallery representative returned to say they had changed their minds and wanted to buy the painting, the artist said: "it's gone mate".
Henri's Armchair, by Brett Whiteley, painted in 1974 and 1975.Credit:
Menzies chief executive Coralie Stow said the sale was a good moment for Australian art.
"Everyone involved in Australian art would be pleased to see a new record being set. It calls attention to art, encourages people to think about art and I think that's all for the good."
Henri's Armchair was painted in 1974 to 1975 fusing oil, ink and charcoal on canvas, and shows the domestic interior of Whiteley's studio-home with its views to Sydney Harbour.
Only a year later, Whiteley, at the peak of his artistic powers, won the Archibald Prize for Self Portrait in the Studio, which challenged definitions of portraiture.
Fellow painter Lloyd Rees apparently sent Whiteley a congratulatory telegram describing Henri's Armchair as a masterpiece.
Whiteley paintings are coveted by collectors of Australian art and very few major, museum-quality paintings are ever released for sale, price estimates had ranged from $5 million to $7 million.
The auction price underlines the resilience of the fine art market and its capacity to defy the economic downturn caused by the pandemic. At least 20 new artist price records have been set at auction in 2020.
Brett Whiteley was extraordinarily prolific.Credit:Graham McCarter
In 2007 Brett Whiteley's sexualised landscape The Olgas for Ernest Giles sold for $3.48 million. Whiteley's My Armchair (1976) sold for $3,927,270 in October 2013.
Justin Turner, head of art at Menzies, said Henri's Armchair was rare for a Whiteley work of its scale, subject matter, provenance, exhibition history and literary referencing to come onto the public market.
"It was acquired in 1975 and has not been offered for sale since. The term we would use in the auction market is freshness to market," Mr Turner said.
Most Viewed in Culture
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMigAFodHRwczovL3d3dy5zbWguY29tLmF1L2N1bHR1cmUvYXJ0LWFuZC1kZXNpZ24vYnJldHQtd2hpdGVsZXktcGFpbnRpbmctc21hc2hlcy1hdXN0cmFsaWFuLWFydC1hdWN0aW9uLXJlY29yZC0yMDIwMTEyNi1wNTZpNzQuaHRtbNIBgAFodHRwczovL2FtcC5zbWguY29tLmF1L2N1bHR1cmUvYXJ0LWFuZC1kZXNpZ24vYnJldHQtd2hpdGVsZXktcGFpbnRpbmctc21hc2hlcy1hdXN0cmFsaWFuLWFydC1hdWN0aW9uLXJlY29yZC0yMDIwMTEyNi1wNTZpNzQuaHRtbA?oc=5
2020-11-26 08:25:00Z
52781208352850
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar