watson's the connoisseurs art collection - auction catalogue - august 11 2011
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The Catalogue for the coming "The Connoisseurs Art Collection Auction"TRANSCRIPT
1
www.watsonsauctions.com
The
Co
nn
oisse
urs A
rt Co
llec
tion
2011
Auction
Thursday 11 August 2011
Commencing at 7pm
The George Hotel
50 Park Terrace
Christchurch
New Zealand
Viewing
Watson’s Gallery
2 Oxley Ave
St Albans
Christchurch
p 03 366 0236
Opening Preview
Thur, 4 August, 6:30pm
Fri 5 10am - 6pm
Sun 7 1pm - 3pm
Mon 8 10am - 5pm
Tue 9 10am - 5pm
Wed 10 10am - 7pm
Thur No Viewing
Private viewing by appointment only
Contacts for this auction
Toby Macalister
c 021 925 333
Jacqueline Ballard
c 027 295 5735
Please Note
A buyer’s premium of 15% will be charged on all
items in this auction.
GST (15%) is payable on the buyer’s premium.
Totalling 17.25%
ForewordIn 1947 the eminent modernist architect
Mies van der Rohe made his famous statement
“Less is More”, words that could aptly be
applied to the enticing selection in this sale.
Whilst comprising just 25 works of varied media
by 18 different artists the choice includes an
array of quality works. The selection is all the
more remarkable when it is considered that
there is a representation from almost every
decade since the beginning of the nineteenth
century to the present. However it is also
very much a Canterbury oriented sale and
contains no fewer than 13 works by the finest
Canterbury artists of both local and national
significance. Artists like; W A. Sutton,
Doris Lusk, Rudolf Gopas, M T. Woollaston,
Michael Eaton, Trevor Moffitt and Quentin
MacFarlane. Many of the works in the
catalogue by these artists date from the 1960s
which is one of the most fertile, and sought
after, periods in New Zealand art. It is a lineup to
satisfy all tastes.
As with most art sales, works have been mainly
sourced from private collections but there is
also a noteworthy suite of etchings by the doyen
printmaker Barry Cleavin being offered out
of the corporate collection of Buddle Findlay.
This suite from the ‘Allegations’ series was also
published as a book in 1988 and is one of the
most impressive by this artist.
Among the works prominent from private
collectors are several that once belonged to the
late Dame Jean Herbison (1923 -2007) and
her sister Ruth. Dame Jean had an illustrious
career in education spanning many decades
took a keen interest in contemporary
Canterbury artists.
In contrast some of the earliest works in this
sale come from the collection of Mt Cook
Station, which was established by the Burnett
family in 1864.
Of importance among the works offered
from this collection is statuary after Bertel
Thorvalden and Antonia Canova, two of the
most acclaimed European neoclassical sculptors
of the early 19th century. Of equal importance
from this collection is an historically significant
watercolour by the colonial New Zealand artist
William Henry Raworth. Despite the strength of
New Zealand content two special works by
arguably Europe’s most celebrated 20th
century designer, Erté (Romain de Tirtoff) ,
stand out. Erté, whose career extended over
more than seven decades, also illustrated for
Harpers Bazaar from 1915 to 1937.
Between the two World Wars when Erté’s
career was at its height he designed costumes,
jewellery and sets for many of the most
important ballet, theatre and film productions
of his time.
Even though Christchurch has experienced
almost 12 months of continuous natural disaster
the enthusiasm that Cantabrians have for
the arts has not been daunted. The period of
enforced recess the art community has gone
through recently has offered time to reflect on
how rich the heritage of art and artists in our
region has been, and still continues to be.
Over the past two decades Canterbury has
certainly lost many of its major twentieth
century artists, several of whom are
represented in the present sale, although with
their passing others have taken their place.
Every year a new crop of graduates emerge
from the University of Canterbury School of
Fine Arts and Christchurch Polytechnic Institute
of Technology, and whilst not all will become
major artists, it all bodes well for the future.
5
Contents
2
Auction Information
3Viewing
4Foreword
6
Coming Auctions
8The Connoisseurs Art Collection Lots 1 - 25 Featuring
William A Sutton
William Henry Raworth
Doris Lusk
Frances Hodgkins
Trevor Moffitt
Sir Mountford Tosswill “Toss” Woollaston
49
Artist Index 50Terms and Conditions
the dame jean herbison collection of applied arts
Featuring:
Castle, Blumhardt, Smisek, Holland, Valentine, Fisher, Brickell, Stichbury.
spring
7
summer
coming auctions
veteran, vintage, sports & classic cars
Above: Teretonga Starting Grid 1965
4. Jack Brabham 7. Stirling Moss 47. Bruce McLaren
entries invited
l o t
0 1William A Sutton
Oil on Canvas Signed & Dated 1983 510 x 1070mm $20,000 - $28,000
Canterbury Nor’wester (Land and Sky series No. 5)
l o t
0 2William A Sutton
Watercolour Signed & Dated 1982 385 x 530mm $4,000 - $6,000
Orton Bradley Park, Autumn
9
Up until 1949 Sutton was largely concerned with making pleasant representations of the Canterbury landscape and other subjects in a pseudo
Impressionist style, following what he had
been taught at Canterbury College School
of Art. The school promulgated an art education
system where students were encouraged to
draw and paint what they saw and to formalise
composition as much as possible based on
accepted pictorial principles. This concern
for the outward appearance of things was
cultivated by teachers at the school such as
Cecil Kelly, Ivy Fife, Colin Lovell Smith and
Archibald Nicoll. All were artists that Sutton
greatly admired and was keen to emulate.
However after spending time overseas from
1947 – 1949 and experiencing first hand the
works of great artists such as:
Joseph W. M. Turner, Paul Nash, Stanley
Spencer and above all Paul Cézanne, whose
work had the greatest impact, Sutton realised
that there were other possibilities in painting.
Following his return to New Zealand he began
to see the Canterbury landscape with a
new vision. No longer was it the superficial
appearance that was important, but rather
its structure and the unique features of the
Canterbury environment. One of these was the
characteristic effect that the summer nor’west
wind had not only on the land forms of hills and
Canterbury Plains but also the distinctive cloud
patterns it created in the sky. The nor’wester in
Sutton’s painting played a major role for the first
time in his now pre-eminent work Nor’wester in
a Cemetery (1950) a painting that was also the
seeding ground for many ideas he progressed in
his various landscape series in the decades
that followed.
In 1983 Sutton began his series Land & Sky
which was later attributed by him as likely
having been directly inspired by a work by
his friend and fellow artist Doris Lusk. Some
years later Sutton stated in an interview with
researcher Sarah Rennie that:
“Years ago Doris Lusk did a sketch on the Port Hills
while working with a group of learners, looking
down a gully and recording the wind patterns of
the tussocks as the nor’wester twisted and buffeted
them. This image is still with me and may have
influenced my Land and Sky series”.
Sutton initially made 7 paintings in 1983 of
which Canterbury Nor’wester is number 5 . In
these paintings he combined the dominant
features of the Canterbury Plains and its shapes
against the horizon of a nor’west sky. The
following year he extended the series exploring
and progressively refining each painting with
varying degrees of abstraction to achieve
imagery that symbolised rather than described
Canterbury, its sky, hills and plains.
Born in Christchurch in 1917, Sutton studied at
Canterbury College School of Art from
1932 – 1938. He began exhibiting at the
Canterbury Society of Arts in 1938 and first
showed with the Group in 1946. In April 1947
he held his first solo exhibition at the Pioneer
Hall in Dunedin prior to leaving for study
overseas. On his return to New Zealand after
nearly two years in England and Europe Sutton
joined the staff of the University of Canterbury
School of Art as a lecturer, teaching mainly
drawing and painting. He retired in 1979 and
the following year was awarded the CBE for his
service to art. Sutton died in 2000.
l o t
0 3William Henry Raworth
Watercolour Signed, Titled & Dated 1872 335 x 623mm $4,000 - $6,000
Mount Cook From Braemar
11
During the early part of 1872 Raworth spent time in the Mount Cook region painting. Among the subjects
that appears in several watercolours from this
time is the Jollie River Valley and Gorge.
This painting further back in the valley is
thought to depict the early homestead at old
Braemar Station looking up the Jollie River
Valley toward Mt Cook. Raworth has painted
the scene characteristically with a particularly
dramatic nor’west sky. Like his teacher John
Linnell the painting of skies was a good means
of expressing the forces of nature and adding
romantic atmosphere to a painting. At the time
this watercolour was made Braemar Station
had just passed out of the ownership of
John Hall, later Sir John Hall, Prime-Minister of
New Zealand 1879 -1882. Depicted dominantly
in the painting is thought to be the original
Braemar homestead which was once described
as comprising just three rooms. Often, on such
visits to the back country, Raworth would have
someone local as a guide and occasionally he
would include them in a painting. It is likely that
the shepherd standing with his dog was Raworth’s
guide on this occasion.
Born in Nottingham in 1821, Raworth became
a pupil and later assistant to his uncle the
celebrated London painter John Linnell
(1792 -1882). Linnell was a strong advocate of
naturalism which required painting as much as
possible on the spot out of doors rather than in
the studio. This is an approach that Raworth also
practiced after he came to New Zealand but in
contrast he did finish many watercolours in his
studio. Raworth married his cousin Elizabeth
Linnell (1824 -1880) in 1849 and they emigrated
to Canterbury on the Sir George Seymour the
following year. Within a short time of his arrival
Raworth had set up a studio in Lyttelton and
was advertising for pupils. However the 1850s
did not offer many prospects for professional
artists and within a few years Raworth had
moved to Australia. However opportunities
there were no greater for him and he returned
to Canterbury. Around 1868 he set up his home
and studio in Armagh St close to Hagley Park
and began advertising for pupils. Over the next
four years he also travelled extensively through
the South Island and early in 1872 spent time
painting in the Mt Cook region. By June of
that year Raworth was back in Australia again
where he held a major exhibition of some 100
watercolours of New Zealand Scenery at
Hines Gallery, Collins St, Melbourne.
The reviews of the exhibition which included
several Mt Cook paintings were full of praise,
with Raworth’s works being ranked the equal
to Nicholas Chevalier and John Gully for his
mastery of the picturesque.
After nearly a year in Australia he returned
to Christchurch but soon after moved south
to Dunedin in search of better prospects. The
few years Raworth spent in Otago offered
him much material for his brush but limited
remuneration and by 1878 he had moved
once again to Australia, this time to Sydney. In
1884 and 1885 Raworth had two successful
exhibitions respectively at Burlington Gallery
and Conduit St Galleries London. Back in Sydney
he continued to maintain his profile as an artist
in Australia until his death in 1904 .
Oil on Board Signed & Dated 1957 580 x1020mm $20,000 - $30,000
l o t
0 4Doris Lusk Night Drive Port Hills
Exhibited
The Group Exhibition, 10 -25 October 1959, Cat No 24
Contemporary New Zealand Painting and Sculpture, Auckland Art Gallery, April 1960
13
Doris Lusk spent her formative years as an artist in the 1930s in Dunedin. The environment of that city with its harbour
and hills predisposed her to being attracted to
landscapes that had strong bold structure. On
moving to Christchurch to live in 1942 she was
equally attracted to the features of the Port
Hills and geomophic of Banks Peninsula. From
the late 1940s regular family holidays were
spent near Akaroa and the landscapes that Lusk
exhibited at Group exhibitions during that time
and into the 1950s reflected those experiences.
Back in Christchurch the Port Hills were a
constant feature on the horizon and Lusk made
many representational paintings looking down
from these hills onto either the Canterbury
Plains or Lyttelton Harbour. However
towards the end of the 1950s no longer was
topographical accuracy was no longer important
and her interest in abstraction began to grow.
Her landscapes though based on a specific place
were reordered with all unnecessary detail
removed, and became more symbolic than
descriptive. This move toward abstraction on
Lusk’s part was not isolated just to her as it was
part of a general movement among the more
progressive New Zealand artists in the 1950s,
with many aligning themselves to a kind of
pseudo Cubism to achieve a more harmonious
abstract picture space. Lusk’s landscapes of
the late 1950s of which Night Drive Port Hills
is one, also have a slightly Cubist structure. In
Night Drive Port Hills there is more than the
mere formal revision of the picture plane, and
this brooding nocturnal scene could almost
be described as overtly surreal. The painting’s
composition fundamentally comprises a series
of interlocking curves and counter curves
dominated by the shapes of the road and hills,
the rhythms of which are echoed in the sky.
The eye is drawn along the lighted edge of the
road toward the glowing city beyond then to
moon that hovers almost as a counterbalance in
the painting’s composition. There is much in the
features of this painting that relate indirectly
to several surrealist landscapes by the British
artist Paul Nash. Like works by Nash in which
the moon has a commanding presence Lusk has
used it to effect not only in a night time scene,
but to add another dimension to the painting
which takes on a symbolic dreamlike presence.
The 1950s were without doubt one of the most
important decades in Lusk’s career as many
of the paintings made during this time attest,
reinforcing her place as one of New Zealand’s
most important 20th Century landscape painters.
Doris Lusk was born in Dunedin in 1916 and
studied art at the King Edward Technical
College Dunedin from 1933 to 1939. Following
her marriage to Dermot Holland in 1941 she
moved from Dunedin to live in Christchurch.
At that time she was a potter as well as a painter
and Lusk tutored pottery from 1947, and was a
foundation member of the Canterbury Potters
Association. From 1966 to 1981 she also
taught at the University of Canterbury School
of Fine Arts. After receiving a Queen Elizabeth
II Arts Council Travel Award in 1974, Lusk
travelled to Europe, Canada and the United
States, but it was the New Zealand environment
that remained the major influence upon her
work. Shortly after her death in 1990 she was
posthumously honoured with the Governor
General Art Award for her outstanding
contribution to New Zealand art.
Oil on Plywood Signed, Titled & Dated 1945 520 x 450mm $20,000 - $25,000
l o t
0 5Doris Lusk Botanical Gardens, Avon River
15
Botanical Gardens, Avon River (1945) was painted a few years after Lusk moved to Christchurch from Dunedin. During her studies at Dunedin’s
King Edward Technical College (1934-9), Lusk
was introduced to a modernist approach to
landscape painting and encouraged to paint
outdoors. She absorbed much from tutors
Charlton Edgar and R. N. Field and from the
mid-30s painted Central Otago subjects with a
rare perception and vigour. In the early 1940s
Lusk married Dermot Holland and moved to
Christchurch. Botanical Gardens, Avon River,
painted near the United Bowling, Tennis and
Croquet Clubs building (depicted in the related
oil Autumn, Avon River, 1944), appears almost
naïve in execution, yet harvests a subtle strength.
The subject of two small children playing in the
river reflected Lusk’s situation at the time as a
young mother with a toddler. The scale of the
children, somewhat dwarfed by the large tree on
the right of the composition, is held in check by
the placement of the three blue-green benches
and the sweep of both river and distant path.
Lightly executed in oil on plywood, this charming
painting is one of only four known oils of Hagley
Park dating from the 1940s.
The vistas, scale and texture of the terrain around Queenstown captured Lusk’s attention over several decades and
she returned to paint in this area throughout her
career. The aerial perspective, strongly evident
in the accomplished watercolour Queenstown,
(1957), is typical of a number of Lusk landscapes
and, in this regard, is reminiscent of her
important Waikaremoana series, executed in
the North Island the previous decade.
The detailed foreground houses and trees hold
the viewers attention in Queenstown as the
scene opens up across Lake Wakatipu, past
Frankton Arm, to the commanding drama of The
Remarkables, cropped at the top of the painting.
The broad washes illustrate Lusk’s command
of the watercolour medium and the forms and
shapes within the painting are underpinned by
strong observational drawing. Auckland Art
Gallery own the large related work, Frankton
Arm, Lake Wakatipu - a highly-stylised oil
executed in the same year. The watercolour
Queenstown, was one of two works (the other
an oil portrait) dated 1957 in Lusk’s 1973
Retrospective, held at the Dowse Art Gallery
(now The New Dowse), Lower Hutt.
The diversity of the exhibition, which included
sixty-five still life, landscapes and several
portraits, illustrated the depth of Lusk’s
explorations and vision. The show was well
received throughout the country and toured to
Dunedin, Christchurch and Auckland. Perhaps
most importantly it acknowledged Lusk’s
contribution to painting in New Zealand at a
significant time for the artist who by then was
a highly respected lecturer at the University of
Canterbury School of Fine Arts.
l o t
0 6Doris Lusk
Watercolour Signed & Dated 1957 380 x 575mm $6,000 - $9,000
Queenstown
17
l o t
0 7Michael Eaton
Acrylic on Canvas Signed and Dated 1977 615 x 615mm $1,500 - $2,000
Treescape 16
l o t
0 8Rudi Gopas
PVA & Oils on Board Signed & Titled c1965 1005 x 910mm $5,000 - $8,000
Space ( Galactic Landscapes )
19
This painting was first exhibited as part of an exhibition entitled Galactic Landscapes 1965-67 at the New Vision
Gallery as part of the Auckland Festival in
May 1967, the only time Gopas ever had a
one person show in Auckland. The painting
was number five in a catalogue of twenty
works and was given the title Unknown Regions. However on the back of the painting
the title is given (twice) as Unknown Region;
presumably the catalogue title is a misprint,
possibly by analogy with three works in the
catalogue given the title Uncharted Regions
I, II, and III. There is also a second title on
the back, namely Space, and the medium
is given as oil, not PVA (polyvinal acetate).
Presumably the work did not sell at the
Auckland show and Gopas chose to exhibit
it again under a different title. He may
have felt that Space was better outside the
context of the Galactic Landscapes exhibition.
The different description of the medium is
harder to explain. Perhaps before exhibiting
it again Gopas reworked the surface of the
painting with oil paints. In a catalogue note
for the New Vision exhibition, Gopas wrote:
‘The paintings presented here as “Galactic Landscapes” evolved from experiments
with Texture in PVA. The main aims I set
myself were: To use very tangible texture in
order to suggest something intangible; To
produce paintings for “Living Light” revealing
different aspects with the changing moods
of light; To suggest a state of Emergence
and Becoming, rather than to interpret
finalised forms…’ What is most revealing
about these comments is that the paintings
were to Gopas as much a depiction of ‘inner
space’ as of the ‘outer space’ suggested by
the exhibition title and the titles of individual
works which included (in addition to those
mentioned) Interstellar, Globular Cluster, Great Looped Nebula, Red Field and Milky Way – all
suggestive of astronomical observation.
Of course Gopas was himself a passionate
amateur astronomer, and states in the New
Vision catalogue, ‘Indeed, I do not remember what I produced first (at the age of 12 or 13) – my first painting or my first (rather flimsy) astronomical Telescope.’ Around the mid 1960s
Gopas’s work had undergone a major change
of direction from boldly coloured marine
studies of Kaikoura and Lyttelton, with strong
links in style to German Expressionism, to
various forms of abstraction. Paintings like
Space were an attempt to translate into the
medium of pigment, the vast landscapes of
deep space that Gopas was nightly exploring
through his home-made telescope. But while
abstraction was a means of exploring outer
space it was, at the same time, a means for
exploring inner space. It is this intersection
of the microcosm with the macrocosm, inner
space with outer space that gives Gopas’s
work of the 1960s its distinction. Technically
speaking, by mixing glue-like PVA with
sawdust, grit and various kinds of studio
detritus, Gopas was able to create textured
surfaces which caught the light differentially
and were thus able to suggest star sprinkled
cosmic spaces as well as creating intriguing
objects for the meditation of mental travellers.
l o t
0 9Romain de Tirtoff (Erté)
Gouache 200 X 270mm $7,000 - $9,000
Aventurine
From the private collection of a former circle fine art director.
The work is based on his painting for the cover of the March 1919
issue of Harper’s Bazaar.
‘Aventurine’ was the first of Ertés jewellery designs to be realised as
an art to wear work. It was released in 1979 and became the most
popular of the artists jewels.
Refer Erté Art to Wear - The Complete Jewelry. Featured on The Cover
and pages 38 - 41.
21
l o t
1 0Romain de Tirtoff (Erté)
Gouache Inscribed “from La Toison d’or” 140 x 110mm $7,000 - $9,000
La Courbe
From the private collection of a former circle fine art director.
Refer Erté Art to Wear - The Complete Jewelry. Featured pages 106 & 107.
l o t
1 1Frances Hodgkins
Watercolour Signed c1912 435 x 565mm $75,000 - $100,000
Young Ladies in Conversation
23
The date, setting and circumstances of this lively and delightfully informal work, are revealed by its close similarity to two other works which share precisely the same subject. They are The Convalescent, watercolour, 1912,
(see Ascent 5: Frances Hodgkins Commemorative
Issue, 1969, p. 31) and Two Girls in Conversation,
watercolour, c. 1912 (Frances Hodgkins 1869-
1947, Whitford and Hughes, London, 1990,
catalogue no. 3). All three watercolours depict
the same two girls or young women in the same
simply furnished room. In all three one of the
girls is either lying in or sitting on the bed. In
The Convalescent the second girl is sitting on the
bed talking to the one lying down; in Two Girls
in Conversation, the convalescent is sitting cross
legged on the bed while the other girl is seated
on a chair beside the bed but leans on the bed
with her right hand propping up her head. In the
work in this catalogue, which can also be dated
to 1912, the convalescent (which we now know
she is) sits bare-legged on the bed, while her
visitor (possibly a sister, possibly a friend) sits on
a chair close by, cradling a kitten on her lap.
The simply furnished room with an iron
bedstead is possibly in a hospital or infirmary,
though the presence of the kitten perhaps
makes a non-domestic setting less likely.
The rosary beads hanging on the wall, visible in
two of the works, probably locate the setting of
the three works in France, where Hodgkins was
mostly resident between 1908 and 1912, when
she returned for the last time to New Zealand.
The watercolour medium was almost exclusive
to her work prior to her return to Europe in
1913. It was common for Hodgkins throughout
her career to depict two people in the same
picture, whether husband and wife, mother and
child, sisters, or female friends. Some of her
most famous works take this form, such as the
Tate Gallery’s Loveday and Anne, or Auckland
Art Gallery’s The Bridesmaids.
Another watercolour from the pre-war period
which has such a double focus is The Window-
Seat (1907) in the Art Gallery of New South
Wales. Writing of that work, art historian
Michael Dunn, has said, “There is perhaps a
recollection of the Intimiste interiors of French
painters such as Vuillard whose works she could
have seen in Paris” (Frances Hodgkins, Paintings
and Drawings, AUP, 1994, p. 98). The same could
be said of the work under discussion, which
shows a similar freedom in the handling of the
watercolour medium. Common to all three
works is the striking intimacy and informality
of the situation. Residence in France gave
Hodgkins access to more advanced painting
styles than were available to her in New Zealand
or England. At the time this work was painted
she was still under the spell of Impressionism, in
her preoccupation with light and shadow, and
the suggesting of forms by long fluid lines of
colour. Here soft blues and browns predominate
in the light coming from the window over
the bed.
l o t
1 2Ann Robinson
Lead Crystal Glass #1 Signed & Titled 2008 300 x 535 x 305mm $9,000 - $12,000
Hemisphere Vessel 2008
Slight Imperfection on Base
25
l o t
1 3Richard McWhannell
Oil on Linen on Board Signed, Titled & Dated 1200 x 950 mm $8,000 -$10,000
‘Richard - Fedora’
l o t
1 4Trevor Moffitt
Oil on Board Signed, Titled & Dated 1971 900 x 1200mm $20,000 - $30,000
The Only Catch of the Day
27
Trevor Moffitt’s ‘Big Fishermen’ paintings hail from the late 1960s and early 1970s, and they embrace an activity
that was a big part of the artist’s recreational
life. When Moffitt relocated from Southland to
Timaru in 1962 he seized the opportunity to fish
the Opihi and Rangitata. His later permanent
base in Christchurch gave him access to the
famous salmon waters of the Rakaia and it was
there that he became acquainted with the many
angling protocols surrounding the Canterbury
river-mouth. These would have been a
revelation to someone like Moffitt, whose
primary angling experience came by way of the
somewhat solitary nature of stalking trout on
the rivers and lakes of Southland.
Expanding further on the successful figures-
in-the-landscape theme that featured so
prominently in the earlier Goldminer and
Mackenzie series’ of the mid 1960s, Moffitt
demonstrates a knowing eye when depicting
the stance of these anglers and the distinctive
colours of the snow-fed Rakaia River. These
local colours are essentially ‘absorbed’ by the
figures on the river banks, and almost this entire
series takes on a very distinctive grey-to-
turquoise colour range. This limited palette,
along with his characteristic lacquer finish and
forthright signature combine to resolutely,
and unmistakably, define these paintings
as ‘Moffitts’.
The painter is clearly not presenting us with a
narrative sequence about the delicate art of fly-
fishing; rather these are hard men and women
with robust gear, feet firmly planted on gravel
banks fraught with dangers.
Unlike other types of angling, salmon fishing at
the mouth of this particular river can be both
communal and fiercely territorial. There is a
staunch camaraderie but at the same time strict
adherence to one’s place within the pecking
order of this river bank. Their focus is often
massive fish - heading up-river from the sea to
spawn. For its participants this can be a cold and
very physical pastime, so this end the painter’s
treatment of his subjects is often as rough-hewn
as the blokes themselves.
‘The Only Catch of the Day’ from 1971 is
however a more contemplative image where
the viewer is unsure if the subject is harbouring
feelings of triumph at the size of his catch, or
disappointment at the singular nature of it.
Where some of the other works from this series
such as ‘Dead Quinnat‘ have been described by
artist Bill Sutton as ‘a harsh statement of death,
put down in uncompromising terms’, this is a
much more subtle statement about life, death and
the human condition. Ralph Hotere’s comment
that Moffitt could paint 10 miles with a single
brushstroke’ certainly resounds through this
work as it also delivers a profound sense of
depth and distance.
‘The Only Catch of the Day’ is one of a unique
series of 47 works by a singular New Zealand
artist. This is not a cursory glance at a key New
Zealand pastime, but a boots-and-all celebration
of it by the Big Fisherman himself.
Key Source:
Trevor Moffitt – A Biography
Chris Ronayne
David Ling Publishing 2006
l o t
1 5Trevor Moffitt
Oil on Hardboard Signed & Dated 1966 580 x 530mm $20,000 - $30,000
Mackenzie With Dog Swimming in the Clutha River
29
When Southland born Trevor Moffitt decided in 1964 to produce a series of paintings depicting the famous sheep-stealer James Mackenzie, he started on a path that 40 years later would lead him to be regarded as one of New Zealand’s most significant narrative artists.
Born in Gore in 1936, Trevor Moffitt was raised
in Waikaia and grew up around the Switzers
mine tailings. He was educated at Waikaia
School and it was through this community that
he absorbed stories relating to the many deeds
and legendary characters that helped mould
Southland’s rough-hewn colonial history.
The painter came from hardy working class
stock; with a heritage of hard physical work,
yet Trevor harboured a desire to further his
education at the Canterbury College of Art.
This ambition was met with a hostile reception
at home. A now famous Moffitt portrait hangs
in Christchurch Art Gallery. It features his
father Bert with ‘Best Bets’ in one hand, his other
hand pointing accusingly at the would-be artist.
The painting is entitled ‘No Son of Mine Goes to
University’. Trevor did go to University and his
father refused to speak to him again for several
years. After successfully graduating art school
and teachers’ training college, he returned
again to Southland, to work as an art educator
in InvercargilI.
Although he would finally leave Southland for
good in 1964, it transpired that Southland would
never leave this particular artist. His first major
series of landscape paintings were appropriately
called ‘Southland Series I’ and they explored the
rugged profile of his native province. He would
go on to give presence to another Southland
landscape with his ‘peopled’ ‘Goldminer’ series of
almost 90 paintings - informed by his childhood
memories of Waikaia and the associated gold
history still resonating amongst its tailings and
abandoned mines. But it was this marrying of
figures with the landscape that would give rise
to Moffitt’s most recognised and nationally
significant body of work.
The ‘Mackenzie Series’ was produced from
Moffitt’s new base in Timaru and these
paintings would finally give a face to one of
the most famous figures from South Island
folklore. Mackenzie himself had strong links
with Southland and his footfalls in certain areas
of the province predated recorded European
settlement. This Gaelic speaking outlaw’s legacy
was also tempered in the far south by a degree
of affection and respect that certainly
wasn’t accorded him in Moffitt’s new base of
South Canterbury.
In an interview with Gregory O’Brien for
‘Land & Deeds’ – Profiles of Contemporary New
Zealand Painters’ Moffitt spoke of that legacy:
‘Where I came from, Mackenzie was a hero. He
helped the poor Scottish settlers who, having
spent what little money they had on land, found
it impossible to get any stock. When the English
settlers in Canterbury wouldn’t sell them any,
Mackenzie stole them, and they’re certain he
moved two or three major mobs down to Southland
because suddenly sheep appeared all over
the place’.
The artist further noted that… ‘when I moved to
Timaru I was able to investigate him a bit more’.
When you consider what little is known of
James Mackenzie, it is easy to see why Moffitt
was so attracted to this subject. From the early
1850’s the Highland Scot and his remarkable
dog covered enormous distances driving stolen
sheep through some of the most inhospitable
country in the South Island. Mackenzie himself
has been variously described as having;
’these mad eyes and sandy hair, jet black hair
and blue eyes, or bright red hair.’
Clearly a villain in the eyes of Canterbury
landowners, Mackenzie was pursued and
eventually arrested. He was prosecuted and
incarcerated in Lyttelton prison, from where
he made three unsuccessful escape attempts
(being wounded during one of them). It was
from his prison cell that he imparted critical
information to fellow Scottish visitors seeking
to take up pastoral leases in the far south. It was
to one particular future Southland run holder
Alexander McNab that Mackenzie imparted
detailed descriptions of the river valleys in the
far south suitable for sustaining livestock, but
he also described the varied physical challenges
settlers would have to overcome in going there.
From personal experience, Mackenzie’s
principal challenge (apart from the law) would
certainly have been the Clutha River. Even a
cursory glance at its brooding turquoise depths
confirms the dangers inherent in attempting to
cross it. This is not, and has never been, a river
to wade or ford. In the absence of any ferry a
traveller would have to swim, and probably take
their life in their hands doing so. Especially if
one was also trying to drive a mob of sheep to its
southern banks! For Trevor Moffitt, ‘the painter’
there was the potential to develop a near tragic
scenario, but for Trevor Moffitt ‘the angler’,
who knew this river, those attractive folklore
elements would be tempered by a heightened
respect for Mackenzie’s ability as a shepherd.
Moffitt was never a romantic artist and
his paintings are generally devoid of any
sentimentality. However in ‘Mackenzie with
Dog – Swimming the Clutha River’ the solid, stoic
figure of Mackenzie seems to acquire an almost
Pre-Raphaelite grace as he moves against the
dangerous current. The scene is bristling with
trepidation and the subject’s manner is clearly
tempered by an obvious abiding concern for
not only for his own safety, but for that of his
precious dog.
l o t
1 5Trevor Moffitt Mackenzie With Dog Swimming in the Clutha River
(Continued)
31
True to form, Mackenzie’s disappearance
from New Zealand’s colonial history was as
mysterious as his arrival. At the conclusion
of his prison sentence he seemingly wasn’t
released into New Zealand, but rather put on a
boat to South America. To this day there is no
reliable physical description of this remarkable
character, so it was fitting that fellow artist and
critic Don Peebles once wrote of Moffitt’s 1964
series; ‘it doesn’t matter what Mackenzie actually
looked like, this is what he is going to look like form
now on’.
Moffitt had put a face to a name and personified
a legend. An image from this series would go
on to grace the cover of James McNeish’s
important historical novel ‘Mackenzie’ and other
works housed in major museum collections
which would cement the face of this shadowy
folk hero in the minds of generations of New
Zealanders. For the prodigious painter that he
was, the Mackenzie Series is remarkably small by
Moffitt standards. It seems only 13 works were
ever produced – along with a small selection
of lino-cut prints. Without question, Moffitt
was our most distinguished narrative painter
and he doggedly prospected and celebrated
many marginal aspects of New Zealand’s social
history when it was unfashionable to do so. Yet
even when considering his many remarkable
and substantial bodies of work that the painter
was to produce over the next 40 years; it was
Mackenzie who helped Moffitt strike the richest
vein in the mine of New Zealand folklore.
Trevor Moffitt died in Christchurch on
4 April 2006, aged 70.
Key sources:
Lands & Deeds – Profiles of Contemporary
New Zealand Painters
Gregory O’Brien
Godwit 1996
Trevor Moffitt – A Biography
Chris Ronayne
David Ling Publishing 2006
l o t
1 6Jonh Gibb
Oil on Canvas Signed & Titled 1892 500 x 745mm $18,000 - $24,000
Mill House Near Christchurch
33
The 1860s and 70s saw a boom in grain production on the Canterbury plains, and as much of this was for local consumption there was a need in most country districts for a means of processing crops quickly which gave rise to the building of many mills. These were mostly set up beside streams and
rivers to enable a waterwheel to power the
various pieces of machinery that the mill ran.
Many were dual purpose, milling not only
grain but also flax to accommodate an equally
burgeoning flax fibre industry.
The loction of the mill depicted in Gibb’s
painting is not certain but is likely somewhere
in North Canterbury possibly in the Ashley or
Balcairn area. It is however typical of the kind
of watermill that would have been operating in
the back country in earlier years, but by the time
Gibb made this painting the use of waterpower
had already been mostly superseded by steam
and such mills were being retired and becoming
something of a rarity.
Although Gibb is best known for his work
as a marine artist he also did paintings of
contemporary rural life and industry including
many of homesteads. Most of these were
commissioned and this may also have been the
case for Mill House Near Christchurch.
By the 1890s Gibb’s career as a painter had
matured and he had achieved much popularity
due in no small measure to the regularity
he exhibited his paintings throughout New
Zealand. At this time he was also progressing
his keen interest in photography, and was using
more frequently his half-plate camera imagery
as an aide memoire in preparation for his studio
paintings. It is possible that Mill House Near
Christchurch may have originally been based on
such an image.
Born in Scotland in 1831 Gibb had shown a
natural inclination for drawing and painting
and by 1849 was receiving tuition in the
studio of the Scottish painter John Mackenzie
of Greenock The subjects of Gibb’s early
work during the 1850s, 60s and early 70s
were focused on the Highlands the Clyde
River and the environs of the Firth of Clyde.
A traditionalist Gibb aligned himself with the
picturesque style of such Scottish artists as
Alfred de Breanski Snr., Joseph Farquarson and
Sam Bough. He followed the academic practice
of sketching the landscape and gathering
information which was later worked up in the
studio with intense attention to detail.
Gibb emigrated to New Zealand late in 1876
and settled in Christchurch. Within weeks he
was out painting and soon after held the first
show of his work at a picture framers shop in
High St. As there was no local art society, he
initially exhibited at the Otago Society of Arts
exhibitions in Dunedin. When the Canterbury
Society of Arts was eventually formed in 1880,
Gibb was a foundation member and by the time
of his death in 1909 he had exhibited more than
200 works with the Society. Gibb also showed
in Auckland and Wellington from the early
1880s and sent works to all the international
and inter-colonial exhibitions beyond New
Zealand. By the 1880s he was regarded as one
of New Zealand’s major professional artists.
The painting Mill House Near Christchurch is
not only a fine example of the full effect of
decades of experience and skill as an artist, but
historically this work is a significant record of a
rural industry that no longer exits.
l o t
1 7Barry Cleavin
Complete Suite 1-13 all numbered 9/20 Inscribed & Dated 1988 660 x 490mm each $3,000 - $4,000
Allegations Series Suite
35
l o t
1 7Barry Cleavin Allegations Series Suite
(Continued)
37
l o t
1 8Quentin Macfarlane
Liquitex, Acrylic Paint on Canvas Signed 770 x 620mm $2,000 - $3,000
Estuary Cold Light
Exhibited
“The Group Show” Christchurch 1970. Catalogue number 85
39
l o t
1 9Dame Eileen Mayo
Screen Print Signed, Titled & Numbered 485 x 350mm $1,500 - $2,000
Springing Fern
l o t
2 0Sir Mountford Tosswill “Toss” Woollaston
Oil on Board Signed & Dated 1991 1190 x 1000mm $30,000-$40,000
Las Meninas (after Velázquez)
41
The riches of the Prado (Museum) became a whirling reprise, revealing new possibilities for his own painting.... Velázquez’s Las Meninas (1656) exercised a special fascination. Woollaston haunted the room where it was installed.(1)
In February 1987 Toss Woollaston travelled
to Spain in the company of Wellington art
dealer Peter McLeavey, intending to renew
his acquaintance with the works of European
Old Masters; Francisco Goya, Diego Velázquez
and El Greco. As the recipient of a grant from
the New Zealand Government’s Arts Advisory
Council in 1962, (2) Woollaston was already
familiar with Velázquez’s Las Meninas from a
previous visit to the Prado Museum in Madrid,
admiring the complexity of its composition and
its realism. (3)
On his return to the Prado in 1987, the work
assumed even more importance as Woollaston
became preoccupied with Velázquez’s depiction
of the infant Margarita Teresa, daughter of the
King and Queen of Spain, her ladies in waiting
and the artist’s treatment of interior space.
Woollaston’s study, Las Meninas (after Velázquez)
1991, highlights a number of important and
fundamental aspects of his practice. It also
belongs to a wider body of watercolours,
sketches and oil paintings by Woollaston of
works by the Old Masters that share much
in common with his landscapes and portraits,
revealing his commitment to modernism and its
concern with the integrity of ‘painterly truths,’
in representing the real world on the two-
dimensional picture plane. (4)
How was Woollaston’s enthusiasm for
Velázquez nurtured in New Zealand? In 1958,
Woollaston received a grant of £500 from the
Annual Fellowship of the Federation of
New Zealand Art Societies, allowing him to
travel to Melbourne and Sydney to study
first-hand, paintings by Rembrandt and other
European artists.(5) At the National Gallery of
Victoria, Nicolas Poussin’s The Israelites Crossing
the Red Sea drew Woollaston’s attention
to the formal qualities of his own painting,
encouraging his interest in completing further
study of works he admired in Western art. In
doing so, his response assumed a life of its own,
with his studies occupying as important a role
in his practice as his landscapes and portraits.
Woollaston’s biographer, Gerard
Barnett observed: Woollaston returned to make
drawings and watercolours of Poussin’s large oil
painting,... fascinated by the structural logic of its
composition. Soon his copies which had begun
as an exercise for sharpening perception, evolved
into more engrossing study – no less exacting than
drawing from nature. (6)
Indeed, Woollaston made little distinction
between his Old Master studies and his
treatment of the New Zealand landscape:
‘Poussin... he’s like nature in that he gives you
plenty to do without suggesting that you merely
copy him.’ (7) Appreciation of Woollaston’s
studies was equally apparent in a solo exhibition
of his work held in June 1988 at the Peter
McLeavey Gallery in Wellington with the
artist exhibiting a study of Las Meninas, (8) as
well as works by Canaletto and an anonymous
fifteenth-century Spanish painting. (9)
Woollaston’s first experience of Goya and
Velázquez at the Prado Museum equally
informed his portraiture from the early 1960s.
On his return from Madrid in 1962, he began a
series of ambitious paintings that gave greater
consideration to the composition of his subjects.
Most notably, his complex spiral grouping of
the figures in The Buchan Family (1963-1964),
and the psychology of the family in a moment
of ‘domestic tumult,’ shares an empathy with
Goya’s group portraits of the Spanish
royal family. (10)
When he returned to the Prado in 1987,
Woollaston was 76 years of age and no doubt
his visit was an opportunity for him to consider a
lifetime of his own work beside the Old Masters.
(11) However, his letters to his wife Edith and
her sister Margaret Alexander reveals the spell
that Velázquez’s Las Meninas continued to hold
over the artist. He was fascinated with a work
that directly addressed essential questions
about the deception of painting’s representation
of the real world; the artifice and intelligence
of its composition, its treatment of space and
the viewer’s relationship with a work of art. He
frequently returned to view the painting, his
obsession frustrated by the constant flow of
tourists and school groups to the Museum.
He wrote to Margaret Alexander: I have spent
a lot of this morning comparing - Las Meninas –
with a [Giovanni Battista] Tieolo round the corner
to which I repaired whenever Las Meninas got
overcrowded... Japanese school parties as well
as Spanish ones, and ordinary guided adults, left
only odd short moments when I could look from
a favourable position. The space construction is
beautiful – the easel a near rectangle cutting in
from the left into a much larger one downward
& from the right – the ceiling and 2 walls – with
a cornucopia of figures coming inward & upward
from the lower right. Full of varying emphases, the
sharpest in the centre of the large rear deep-space
rectangle, where the man goes out of the door &
looks back as he does so. This thrust both ways is
also at the lower right in a different form, where
the child puts his (her) foot on the dog’s rump and
the dog puts his weight into resistance – a bit of
sideplay if you like, in illustrative terms – but more
importantly a formal element in the construction of
the picture. (12)
Further correspondence with Edith, reiterated
that Velázquez’s painting had won him over:
‘Marvellously this afternoon I got several sessions
alone with Las Meninas. The talkers and their
listeners crowd the room but only stay briefly.
You can’t get nearer than about 12 feet from that
painting because of the ropes, which makes it
harder to turn the naturalism into paint itself, as
you can in most of the others. Things we have seen
in reproduction necessarily only a fraction of their
size are thick with paint, added to, altered and
changed – just as a real painter does! It is good to
see miracles properly clothed in material.’ (13)
At one point, Woollaston considered a series
of works based upon Las Meninas, commenting
to Edith: ‘Trios from Las Meninas – a theme has
occurred to me. The figures dispose themselves in
so many different trios. Fascinating.’
It is this shifting relationship between
the figures and the spaces they occupy
that Woollaston considers in Las Meninas
(after Velázquez). Tutored by Flora Scales
in Nelson in 1934, her knowledge of Hans
Hoffman’s modernist theories and emphasis
on the reduction of aerial and mathematical
perspective systems were fundamental to
Woollaston’s practice. (15) The compositions of
his paintings were typified by the construction
of overlapping planes and passages of paint that
directed attention to the edges of the canvas,
reducing spatial recession and leading the
viewer’s attention back to the surface of the
picture plane.
In his detailed description of Las Meninas to
Margaret Alexander, Woollaston expresses
his admiration for Velázquez’s exposure of the
trickery of painting, noting the placement of the
artist’s easel close to the edge of the canvas,
(reminding his audience of the painting they are
also viewing), the central figure bathed in light
l o t
2 0Sir Mountford Tosswill “Toss” Woollaston Las Meninas (after Velázquez)
(Continued)
43
who turns and directs attention back to the
foreground, and the positioning of the child and
dog which also serves to frame the work. Las
Meninas (after Velázquez), particularly reveals
Woollaston’s interest in Velázquez’s treatment
of light and the way in which it equally
illuminates both foreground and background
figures, drawing the viewer’s attention
back to the foreground and further denying
spatial recession. It’s the kind of textbook
lesson in modernism familiar to Cézanne’s
landscapes, with Woollaston reconciling the
reduction of space on the picture plane with his
characteristic, gestural treatment of form and
robust composition.
On the advice of Peter McLeavey, Woollaston
had extended the scale of his landscape painting
in 1971, and become increasingly concerned
with the challenges of diverting the viewer’s
attention away from the centre of the painting,
(where attention more instinctively resided),
to distribute interest democratically across the
picture plane, creating a ‘surface that conducts
the eye to the outer limits of the painting.’
(16) The decision represented an important
maturity in his practice. As Barnett observed:
‘The large gestural works of the fifties and sixties
can be seen as forays into the expansive rhythms of
the baroque. Consummately, his large landscapes
of the seventies and eighties fuse a romantic sense
of vitality and grandeur of nature, with a classical
concern for pictorial structure.’ (17)
Barnett’s commentary directs attention
to Woollaston’s appreciation of the Old
Masters, particularly Velázquez, revealing the
significance of the Spanish artist’s work as both
an expression of Woollaston’s intentions as a
painter, (18) and his mutual empathy for the New
Zealand landscape and European traditions
of painting.
[1] Gerard Barnett, Toss Woollaston, Wellington:
National Art Gallery, 1992, p. 95.
[2] Gordon Brown and Hamish Keith, An Introduction
to New Zealand Painting 1839-1980, Auckland:
Bateman and Collins, 1982, p. 156.
[3] Barnett, p. 108.
[4] Tony Green, ‘Toss Woollaston. Origins and
Influences,’ Gordon H. Brown Lectures, Wellington:
Victoria University, 2004, p. 3.
[5] Brown and Keith, pp. 154-156.
[6] Barnett, p. 63.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Woollaston to Kerry Aberhart, 21 November 1987,
Jill Trevelyan, [ed] Toss Woollaston. A Life in Letters,
Wellington: Te Papa Tongarewa, 2004p. 436.
[9] Trevelyan, , p. 431.
[10] Barnett, 74.
[11] Trevelyan, p. 256.
[12] Woollaston to Margaret Alexander, 11 February
1987, Trevelyan, pp. 420-421.
[13] Woollaston to Edith Woollaston, 12 February
1987, Trevelyan, p. 422.
[14] Barnett, p. 21.
[15] Brown and Keith, p. 158.
[16] Barnett, p. 87.
[17] Barnett, p. 91.
[18] Barnett, p. 81.
l o t
2 1Sir Mountford Tosswill “Toss” Woollaston
Watercolour Signed & Dated 265 x 350mm $4,000 - $6,000
Horoirangi from Mapua
45
l o t
2 2Sir Mountford Tosswill “Toss” Woollaston
Watercolour Signed & Dated 1966 230 x 300mm $4,000 - $6,000
Tasman Bay from Mahana
l o t
2 3After Antonio Canova
Mid 19th Century Height 1070mm $10,000 - $15,000
Italian white marble figure group “ The Three Graces”
Antonio Canova’s (Venetian, 1757 -1822 ) statue “The Three Graces” is a neo-classical sculpture of
the mythical three charities and daughters of Zeus, Euphrosyne, Algaea and Thalia, who were said to
represent beauty, charm and joy. An original marble version of the Three Graces is in the
Hermitage Museum.
From The Mount Cook Station Collection
47
l o t
2 4After Bertel Thorvaldsen
Mid 19th Century Height 910mm $5,000 - $8,000
Italian white marble figure of Venus
Bertel Thorvaldsen (Swedish, 1770 - 1844) was widely considered the greatest neo-classical sculptor
after Canova. Thorvaldsens Venus was commissioned by the Russian Countess Irina Vorontsov
as part of a series of gods and goddesses. An original marble version of Venus with the apple by
Thorvaldsen is in the Louvre.
From The Mount Cook Station Collection
l o t
2 5Eion Stevens
Oil on Canvas Signed, Titled & Dated 1987 760 x 760mm $4,000 - $6,000
Explaining art to a dead Hare (3rd version)
49
Artist Index
1 William A Sutton
2 William A Sutton
3 William Henry Raworth
4 Doris Lusk
5 Doris Lusk
6 Doris Lusk
7 Michael Eaton
8 Rudi Gopas
9 Romain de Tirtoff (Erté)
10 Romain de Tirtoff (Erté)
11 Frances Hodgkins
12 Ann Robinson
13 Richard McWhannell
14 Trevor Moffitt
15 Trevor Moffitt
16 John Gibb
17 Barry Cleavin
18 Quentin Macfarlane
19 Dame Eileen Mayo
20 Sir Mountford Tosswill “Toss” Woollaston
21 Sir Mountford Tosswill “Toss” Woollaston
22 Sir Mountford Tosswill “Toss” Woollaston
23 After Antonio Canova
24 After Bertel Thorvaldsen
25 Eion Stevens
By Lot Number
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Terms and Conditions
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16 Monies Received All moneys received by the Auctioneer will be held in trust for the credit of the Vendor, but the Auctioneer may deduct fees (whether the liability of the Vendor or Purchaser), expenses and any moneys necessary to perfect title to the Purchaser or to ensure compliance by the Vendor of any other warranty or undertaking to the Purchaser.
17 Licence The Auctioneer warrants to all persons that the Auctioneer is the holder of a current Auctioneers Licence pursuant to the Auctioneers Act 1928.
18 Vendor Warranties The Vendor has warranted to the Auctioneer that they have the power to sell the Property and that at the time of delivery the Property shall be free of all encumbrances.
19 Watson’s Payment Conditions(a) Credit cards accepted are Visa and MasterCard;
they will attract a 2.5% charge on top of the Hammer price plus buyer’s premium. A buyer’s premium at the stated rate + GST is applicable to all Lots sold.
(b) Watson’s are happy to give condition reports on specific Lots to the best of our ability, but they are only given as a guide not as a statement of fact refer clause 18(a).
(c) All Lots are to be taken away at the buyer’s expense within TWO days from the date of sale.
Auction conducted by W.T Macalister LTD, Licensed Auctioneers. A member of the Macalister Group of Companies
Terms and Conditions
C H R I S T C H U R C H N E L S O N W E L L I N G T O N A U C K L A N D S Y D N E Y
www.DuncanCotterill .com
The Art Of Law
Credits
Essays Written By.. Neil RobertsWilliam A Sutton - Canterbury Nor’wester (Land and Sky series No 5)
William Henry Raworth - Mount Cook From Braemar
Doris Lusk - Night Drive Port Hills
John Gibb - Mill House Near Christchurch
Grant BanburyDoris Lusk - Queenstown
Doris Lusk - Botanical Gardens, Avon River
Peter SimpsonRudi Gopas - Space ( Galatic Landscapes )
Frances Hodgkins - Young Ladies in Conversation
Jim GeddesTrevor Moffitt - The Only Catch of the Day
Trevor Moffitt - Mackenzie With Dog Swimming in the Clutha River
Dr. Warren FeeneySir Mountford Tosswill “Toss” Woollaston - Las Meninas (after Velázquez)
55
Auction
Thursday 11 August 2011
Commencing at 7pm
The George Hotel
50 Park Terrace
Christchurch
New Zealand
www.watsonsauctions.com
The
Co
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2011