IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN &
INTERNATIONAL ART

New Zealand Herald  |  Benjamin Plummer

One of Charles Frederick Goldie’s rarest paintings, of a Ngāpuhi chieftainess, is set to go to auction in Syndey next month, potentially valued at more than $1.5 million.

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN &
INTERNATIONAL ART

The exhibition will be on view in Sydney from Monday 1 May – Tuesday 2 May, 10 am to 5 pm, at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

Among the highlights of the sale is Charles Frederick Goldie’s magnificent Reverie: Ena te Papatahi, a Ngapuhi Chieftainess (Ina Te Papatahi, Ngā Puhi) 1916 (lot 32, estimate $1,100,000–1,500,000, pictured above).  

As in the best of Goldie’s portraits, Reverie: Ena te Papatahi, a Ngapuhi Chieftainess (Ina Te Papatahi, Ngā Puhi) blends fidelity, dignity, respect and empathy to create a work that additionally possesses psychological tensions and sensitivities.  Goldie’s skill in depicting various contrasting surfaces and textures, including the wooden carvings, human skin and hair together with various fabrics, is convincingly and subtly conveyed.  The particular expression of the sitter, introspective and reflective, disengaged with the artist and the viewer, represents a tour de force in portraiture that is emotionally intuitive and intellectually incisive.

More than one century after it was created, Charles Frederick Goldie’s Reverie: Ena te Papatahi, a Ngapuhi Chieftainess (Ina Te Papatahi, Ngā Puhi) remains a work of great historical, social and cultural significance.

Reverie: Ena te Papatahi, a Ngapuhi Chieftainess (Ina Te Papatahi, Ngā Puhi) was most recently exhibited to great acclaim in Māori Markings: Tā Moko at National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, in 2019.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 2 May 2023.

For more information, please contact:

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART FROM THE SELWYN & RENATA LITTON COLLECTION

The exhibition will be on view in Melbourne from Wednesday 19 April – Sunday 23 April, 10 am to 5 pm, at 14-16 Collins Street.

Among the highlights of the sale is Arthur Boyd’s magnificent On the Banks of the Shoalhaven (1984) (lot 8, estimate $300,000–400,000, pictured above).

Bathed in a clear, crisp light, On the Banks of the Shoalhaven pays homage to the extreme beauty and solace that Boyd found in the natural environment: a landscape devoid of human habitation and intervention and an untouched natural wilderness where the imagination reigns free.  Boyd’s sustained series of the Shoalhaven landscape are amongst the artist’s most widely appreciated images and form an indelible part of twentieth century Australian landscape painting.

Originally acquired for the prestigious G.J. Coles, subsequently Coles Myer Collection, On the Banks of the Shoalhaven has long been regarded as amongst the very finest of the series.

Following Melbourne, the Sydney exhibition will take place from Thursday 27 April – Tuesday 2 May, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 2 May 2023.

For more information, please contact:

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN &
INTERNATIONAL ART

The exhibition will be on view in Melbourne from Wednesday 19 April – Sunday 23 April, 10 am to 5 pm, at 14-16 Collins Street.

Among the highlights of the sale is Sidney Nolan’s remarkable Soldier on the Beach (1962) (lot 31, estimate $400,000–600,000, pictured above).

Soldier on the Beach is one of Nolan’s most eloquent and poignant compositions on the Gallipoli theme that, through its piercing representation of a fallen soldier, transcends a specific time and place and becomes a symbol of the casualties, sufferings and sacrifices experienced in every war.

Soldier on the Beach is an image of brevity and power, tenderness and pathos, a hymn from one brother to another.  We are honoured to be entrusted with the sale of Nolan’s heroic masterpiece, offered for the first time for public auction.

Following Melbourne, the Sydney exhibition will take place from Thursday 27 April – Tuesday 2 May, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 2 May 2023.

For more information, please contact:

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART FROM THE SELWYN & RENATA LITTON COLLECTION

The exhibition will be on view in Melbourne from Wednesday 19 April – Sunday 23 April, 10 am to 5 pm, at 14-16 Collins Street.

Among the highlights of the sale is Howard Arkley’s spectacular Psychedelic Head 1990 (lot 12, estimate $250,000–350,000, pictured above).

Arkley’s Psychedelic Head has long been regarded as one of the artist’s most idiosyncratic and iconic compositions – an image that summarises Arkley the man, as well as the artist.  A highly arresting composition, Psychedelic Head remains as startling and compelling today as when it made its public debut more than thirty years ago.

Following Melbourne, the Sydney exhibition will take place from Thursday 27 April – Tuesday 2 May, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 2 May 2023.

For more information, please contact:

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN &
INTERNATIONAL ART

The exhibition will be on view in Melbourne from Wednesday 19 April – Sunday 23 April, 10 am to 5 pm, at 14-16 Collins Street.

Among the highlights of the sale is Brett Whiteley’s magnificent The Paddock - Early Morning 1979 (lot 35, estimate $2,000,000–3,000,000, pictured above).

Brett Whiteley is widely and appropriately celebrated as one of Australia’s great cultural identities: both a charismatic artist pop star and a phenomenally gifted draughtsman and painter.  Versatile and expansive, his oeuvre encompasses a wide range of media and subjects – in 1978, the year before The Paddock – Early Morning was completed, Whiteley became the first and only artist ever to win all three of the Art Gallery of New South Wales’ prestigious painting prizes; the Archibald (portraiture), the Wynne (landscape) and the Sulman (subject/genre).

In 1979 Whiteley stayed in a small cottage on the outskirts of Oberon, New South Wales, and created his most significant body of works devoted to the district, his focus being on a single paddock.  With its reductive and predominant palette of pale yellow hues, with touches of deeper yellows and blues, The Paddock – Early Morning is one of the most lyrical, elegant and eloquent on the theme that pulsates with an energy and radiance that, like Van Gogh, presents a landscape that seems alive, vital and quivering.  It is a scene that is both physical and metaphysical, real and imagined.  Saturated and bathed in a golden light, the canvas catapults the viewer to a heightened state of reality.  It is a subject known and experienced by Whiteley.  It is Whiteley making Van Gogh his own.

Following Melbourne, the Sydney exhibition will take place from Thursday 27 April – Tuesday 2 May, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 2 May 2023.

For more information, please contact:

IMPORTANT JEWELS & WATCHES 

Financial Review  |  Elizabeth Fortescue

Wealthy art collectors have plenty of works to splash their money on in Smith & Singer’s auction of Important Australian and International Art, whose catalogue went online this week.

IMPORTANT AUSTRALIAN ART FROM THE SELWYN & RENATA LITTON COLLECTION

The digital catalogue for the upcoming Important Australian Art from the Selwyn & Renata Litton Collection auction at Smith & Singer is now available to view online, lots 1–13.

Among the highlights of the sale is Fred Williams’ remarkable Green Landscape (You Yangs) (1966) (lot 6, estimate $450,000–650,000, pictured above).

Since their creation in the 1960s, Williams’ You Yangs compositions have been acclaimed by critics, historians and collectors as representing a defining moment in the history and development of Australian art.  When they were initially shown in Williams’ solo exhibitions at Georges Gallery in Melbourne (April) and Rudy Komon Art Gallery in Sydney (May) in 1964, critics were unanimous in their praise that at times bordered on the reverential.

Created at a crucial moment in Williams’s career, Green Landscape (You Yangs) possesses the spareness and rhythm, elegance and poise, intelligence and pathos of his finest works; compositions that redefined – for his as well as successive generations – an appreciation for and an understanding of the local Australian landscape.

The exhibition will take place in Melbourne from Wednesday 19 April – Sunday 23 April, 10 am to 5 pm at 14-16 Collins Street, and in Sydney from Thursday 27 April – Tuesday 2 May, 10 am to 5 pm at 30 Queen Street, Woollahra.

The auction will be held at the National Council of Jewish Women of Australia, 111 Queen Street, Woollahra at 6.30 pm on 2 May 2023.