Smith & Singer In the News

Condobolin Argus  |  Melissa Blewitt

A piece of Melbourne Cup history complete with a link to Condobolin is set to go under the hammer later this year.

Thoroughbred News

One hundred and seventeen years after it was awarded, the 1899 Melbourne Cup Trophy will be presented by Sotheby’s Australia for auction on 6 April 2016 in Melbourne.

The Age | Andrew Stephens

When Arthur Streeton visited Lorne with his family in 1921, there was no Great Ocean Road. Visitors went the back way, strenuously, from Winchelsea railway station on a bumpy coach service. If you wanted to visit Lorne – and many knew it as a popular tourist destination – you had to really want to go there.

The Melbourne Cup of 1899 was described as one of the most disappointing events Flemington had ever witnessed.  A deluge of rain had discouraged attendances and the track was under water before the start of the race.  Named after a lagoon near Condobolin in New South Wales, the winning horse Merriwee lived up to his name and seemed to appreciate the billabong conditions, leaving the gates in ninth position and by the final straight was in the lead.  Merriwee became the fifth horse to win the Victoria Derby / Melbourne Cup double.

Held in the same private collection for over 80 years, the trophy was first awarded to Mr Herbert Power in 1899.  One hundred and seventeen years after it was awarded, the 1899 Melbourne Cup Trophy will be presented by Sotheby’s Australia for auction on 6 April 2016 in Melbourne.  Comprising a silver presentation tray together with a tea and coffee service, the trophy’s original value was 100 sovereigns and will be offered for sale with an estimate of $60,000-80,000.

The Age  |  Kylie Northover

Australian artist John Kelly loves his home in Cork, Ireland, where he and his family have lived for the past 12 years, but there's one thing he misses: Vietnamese food. We meet at Co Do, (arguably) the best Vietnamese restaurant in Sunshine, where Kelly grew up, and where his parents still live, to talk about Kelly's newest artwork.

The Australian  |  Michaela Boland

A modest landscape by little-known Heidelberg School-era artist Jane Price stole the show at Sotheby’s Australia’s Important Australian Art auction in Sydney when it sold for five times more than expected.

Rayner Hoff was a champion of depictions of physical perfection that referenced classical imagery and placed these within a contemporary context.  During the 1920s and 1930s the popular view of Australia as a modern day Arcadia was articulated and promoted by Hoff, who declared: ‘The call to sun and surf, the great open roads and wonderful bush is all too strong for any to resist.  Hence we are active, virile and well… Few nations can show such an advantage of bodily perfection.’

The relationship between health, exercise, sexuality and nationalism is exemplified in Pacific Beach.  In Deborah Edwards’s exhibition catalogue on Rayner Hoff she comments: ‘Pacific Beach portrays the crowded activities of contemporary “Australian Hellenes” on a Sydney beach, in a frieze-like tableaux which moves towards iconic representation.’  The central motif is of bronzed and rippled male and female swimmers, flanked by a male surfer and surrounded by men, women and children.

Rayner Hoff contributed significantly to Australian public sculptures and buildings, some with a level of controversy for their morality of the form.  Sydney’s Hyde Park Anzac Memorial remains incomplete (and the casts now lost) due to the concern of the naked presentation of men and women.  Other public sculptures are housed at the War Memorial, Dubbo, National War Memorial, Adelaide, and the King George V memorial, Canberra.

Following Hoff’s premature death in 1937 at the age of forty two, Pacific Peach was included in the artist’s memorial exhibition in Sydney the following year, where it proved an obvious inspiration to Charles Meere, whose Australian Beach Pattern (1940, Art Gallery of New South Wales) shares both formal and conceptual similarities and has become one of the most iconic images of Australian beach culture.

Once thought lost and possibly destroyed, the powerful and evocative wood sculpture by Rayner Hoff has re-emerged after almost 80 years.  Consigned to Sotheby’s Australia’s Important Australian Art sale Pacific Beach (circa 1930-1932) (estimate $25,000-35,000, lot 1, pictured) will be auctioned on 24 November at the InterContinental Sydney.

>View e-Catalogue entry for Rayner Hoff's Pacific Beach (circa 1930-1932)

>View Important Australian Art e-Catalogue

Illustrated
RAYNER HOFF 1894-1937
Pacific Beach (circa 1930-1932)
wood, 58.5 x 106.7 cm
Estimate $25,000-35,000

In 1967 Brett Whiteley won a Harkness Fellowship Scholarship to study and work in New York where he met other artists and musicians. 

New York 3 (estimate $50,000-70,000, lot 21) was drawn from Whiteley's window of the Chelsea Hotel, where he recorded a unique aspect of the Manhattan skyline.   The work was included in Whiteley’s breakthrough 1968 solo exhibition at the Marlborough-Gerson Gallery which propelled his international reputation.

‘A precursor to Whiteley’s synonymous views from his window at Lavender Bay, New York 3 provides a valuable insight into understanding his compositional structures and his appreciation of his domestic environment.  The work has been retained in a private New York collection since it was first exhibited in 1968.  Australian’s have the first opportunity to view this graphically stunning and detailed work by Whiteley of the Manhattan skyline.’ Said Geoffrey Smith, Chairman of Sotheby's Australia.

Never before seen in Australia, Brett Whiteley’s rare New York 3 (1968)  will be auctioned by Sotheby’s Australia on 24 November at the InterContinental Sydney. 

>View e-Catalogue entry for Brett Whiteley's New York 3 (1968)

>View Important Australian Art e-Catalogue

BRETT WHITELEY 1939-1992
New York 3 (1968)
charcoal, pencil, ink and paper on composition board
122 x 131 cm
Estimate $50,000-70,000

Financial Review  |  Jane O'Sullivan

One of Arthur Boyd's most romantic brides is coming out of hiding for Sotheby's Australian art sale in Sydney on November 24. Boyd gave the painting to his brother-in-law, the painter John Perceval, in the late 1950s. It has passed through other private collections since then, but it has never been seen at auction.

A private moment between mistress and maid is will be auctioned by Sotheby’s Australia on 24 November at the InterContinental Sydney.  Rupert Bunny’s exquisite Hair Drying (circa 1908) (estimate $280,000-380,000, lot 29) belongs to the artist’s most highly acclaimed and revered group of paintings that depict women engaged in various leisurely pastimes.  

‘Rupert Bunny combined his fascination with the feminine form with an Impressionist style and his paintings capture the intimacy of daily life.  In his renowned compositions, collectively titled ‘Days of Nights of August’, his women pose in summer sunshine or balmy evening, engaged in idle conversation, listening to music, in complete emotional and intellectual repose, or suspension.  Hair Drying remains one of Rupert Bunny’s most significant paintings from this series remaining in private hands.’ Said Geoffrey Smith, Chairman of Sotheby's Australia.

The most striking subjects of Bunny’s were those that depicted the strong, warm sunlight filtering through the boldly striped blinds drawn to the edge of wooden balcony railing.  A contemporary review in 1911 by The Sydney Mail singled out Hair Drying: ‘Another splendid effect is produced in the study “The Hair Drying”.  A lady in a white dress and red morning gown is sitting on a white chair, against the back of which her head leans, whilst the maid … is engaged in combing her mistress’s hair.  The balcony is shaded from the sun by a screen and by the red and white broadly-striped blind, which is frequently repeated through the artist’s paintings.  The whole effect is culminated in a few small brilliant rays piercing through and flickering on the lady’s neck and dress.’

>View e-Catalogue entry for Rupert Bunny's Hair Drying (circa 1908)

>View Important Australian Art e-Catalogue

illustrated
RUPERT BUNNY 1867-1947
Hair Drying (circa 1908)
oil on canvas
65.1 x 91 cm
Estimate $280,000-380,000