Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

Peso "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. 2 8 SEP 1969 1ART PRICES .AND ART VALUES PRICE and value are very different things of course, but usually there's some connection between the price of a work of art and its artistic merit. The connection breaks down in the lower price range of the art market, when little nothings get bought, only as decoration, or as furnishings, at higher prices than good but diffi- cult work. The connection also breaks down when a picture happens to be a historical document. One of the worst paintings in Christie's auction on Wednesday fetched the highest price, 320.000. It was a large oil, painted in 1880 in Melbourne, by an amateur art- ist, as a copy of a drawing done in 1837 by another amateur. It showed Melbourne's first. Govern- ment House, some tents, and Abo- rigines chatting with early Vic- torian gentlemen. Being a later copy, it isn't even authentic his- tory, It's a souvenir of Melbourne's history. There's nothing wrong with spending $20.000 on a sou- venir of your own city, as long as you don't start claiming it's good art. History versus art accounts for the difference between two water- colors by S. T. Gill. A crowded view of a Horticultural Show in Adelaide in 1848 was $4000; an unidentified but very beautiful landscape, like a late 1940s Arthur Boyd, was $1800. It's curious that Queensland and Western Australia produce nothing for this market. The decoration market will not usually affect auctions. But when it becomes a social even-there were about 1000 rather glossy people at the Bonython for Chris - tie's auction --some foolish person might chance to be there and pay more for a trivially -pretty Wil- liam Drew ($450) than it would coat at your neighborhood art shop. But otherwise things are much as one expects - except that the two excellent paintings by Phillips Fox shouldn't have been placed at the end of the list. By 11.30 p.m. buyers were sleepy or im- poverished, and the prices were only $3000 and $1100. Bunny at $5500 for a woman at her toilet, $450 for a landscape sketch, showed the new price levels established by the dune Galleries. ART with Daniel Thomas Roberts was variable. $5000 for a full length portrait, $9000 bid innsuccessfully/) for his end -of - school composition of a sculptor's studio (lt was fatg.80 at Sothebys in London a year ago), $3000 for a good small panel portrait of Stree- ton, half as much for a less good panel, same size, of a musician. A small bush scene of 1928 was $1500. "T. Roberts" instead of "Tom Roberts" in the auction catalogue means there's no certainty It's by Roberts, but the sea shore thus catalogue (which might be oy Neril) still brough WO. Streeton: nice small early Syd- ney Cove was $4200. but it's sur- prising to find the late, slick Streetons still bringing $9500 (Olinda 1925) or $4500 (Hobart 1938, with an aeroplane in the blue - four times the sire of the Olinda, but then Hobart has fewer people to compete for Stree- tons than Melbourne). Nolan. MOO for a 1948 pros- pector, $8000 for a 1948 banana flower; small later works on paper $750 to $2200. Arthur Boyd. $5000 for an out- standing 1944 bit of violence and horror seemed a reasonable price. I suppose prettiness Is always pre- ferred. McCubbingot a reasonable $3000 for a Brighton orchard, about 1895. Fairweather's $3500 for a lady with a bottle seemed hish for the art market has never liked Fair- weather as much as the art world; perhaps it was the curious sub- ject. Dobell: $3000 for a sketch of a nude boy, $11.000 for a seated businessman, $4500 for a London landscape. Drysdale $12.000 for a landscape of 1950, his "oleogranh" period; $15,000 for Cooktown figures 1953, Si400 for a simple pen IPA wash drawing. Passmore $3600; Godfrey Miller $2600 to $3200. EARLE Stephen Earle (Watttrs). 23 large canvasses, partly about top- ography, for the titles tell you it's Sydney Harbor, Botanic Gardens and Domain, and I can easily re- cognise the U-curve of Farm Cove, an idea of enchanted walled gar- dens, trees and flowers. But I wonder if it's also about topology? I don't know what topology is, but I know it exists, and perhaps it's the study of relative positions; again there are titles that must be clues, "The view from up here," "What is It like to be where you are?," "Place." 'The pictures are fresh, radiant, vivid.. Soft, dappled mosaics, or ragged strips, act as pulsing cur- tains to be held down or con- tained by flat -striped borders or grids. Push and pull goes on all the time both across the surface (often diagonally) and in depth. And always the opposing tensions are equal, The result Is very like being in two (or more) places at once. It is like electricity in a circuit. It is the baste issue in painting; to hold the Image down on the literal plane of the canvas with- out becoming absolutely flat. If these prices sometimes seem low, oompared with the Nolan, Dryadale and Roberts prices that desiers have been making in the past year, well perhaps the higher pi ices were being asked for better pictures - and, anyway, who is to know whether the price a dealer asks is eventually received? But the main thing to remember is .hat the auction price is always less ;han a dealer's price, WHAT'S ON Art Gallery of N.S.W.: Lloyd Rees (Thurs.). Commonwealth Savings Bank. Martin Place: Blake Prize (Thurs.). David Jones: Rodin (20 cents, groups by appointment). Farmers: Sydney Printmakers. Macquarie: Justin O'Brian (Wed.). Central Street: Rollin Sehlicht (Wed.). Watters: Stephen Earle. War Memorial Gallery, UM, of Sydney: Stephen Earle. Stern: Mixed. Gallery A: Mixed. Helen MeTwrn: Vottsf Asar. Bonython: Elwyn Lynn, Good- stein -Shapiro, Barbara Nippress, Greg Irvine. Komon: Eric Smith. Holdsworth: Helen Marshall, Phillip Martin. Frances Jones: Mabel Hawkins. Villiers: Joe Rose. Aladdin: Contemporary New Guinea Art. Potters: Mixed. Design Centre, Bridge Street: Craft Association. E ducation Dept., Bridge Street: Royal Art Society. Rocks: Piers Bourke. Beard Watson: Gilt Peir. Mosman Art Corner: Francis Lymburner. B uilding Centre: Drummoyne Art Society. (redly Adams, Castlecrag: Geof- frey Anderson. Artarmon: Mixed. Start Mittagong: Annual Craft Exhibition (Sat.). Berrlma Gallery: Art Society (next Sunday). Von Bertouch, Newcastle: Kevin Brereton. Newcastle City Art Gallery: Contemporary Japanese Prints (Wed.). .1