Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

PRICE and value don't have much connection with each other in art. And I think there's no need ever to get indignant about art prices. If people want to pay a lot that's their business. There's always plenty of excellent art around that costs very little, only it's either too modern, or too old-fashioned, or too unfamiliar for those who are happy to pay high prices. The only time to get indignant is when a work is wrongly attri- buted, or in poor con- dition. A de -der will usually guard /As reputation by arni.g his customers 01. n.ese matters. An auctioneer has no such responsibility. It's the buyer's risk. All an auctioneer like Christies will do (and it's more than Lawsons or Gray's do) is indi- cate in the catalogue whether they think a painting is genuine or not. The way they do this is to print all the ar- tist's names in full if they think the work is genuine, but only the initials, or even only the surname, if they have doubts. An "Arthur Merric Bloomfield Boyd" is probably genuine, but "A. Boyd" not, is probably I think some buyers at ()bristles' Australian auction this week were innocent of these con- ventions, which are fully explained at the front of the catalogue. Otherwise, how does one account for a paint- ing b,' "C, Martens," long waiting around the local art market, fetch- ing as much as $6000? Unless perhaps the buyer recognised it es being by some 19th century painter with a big local reputation in Canada or Yorkshire or Wales or somewhere? The art world is al- ways surprised when commonplace works by obscure artists fetch high prices, like Ludwig Becken's 1851 view of Port Arthur, a TficillEUI- Ian convict station, which brought $1100. They forget that there is . a history market, Which is really quite separate from the art market, and if the sub- ject is interesting, els! provides an historical record of a place or a person, then it doesn't matter who painted it. And above minimum levels of competence, it doesn't matter how well it's painted. Such pic- tures are collected by the Mitchell Library and the National Library. Of course, it's always interesting t o s e e whether the good pic- tures get the high prices. One of Dickerson's very best works, a "Re- surrection," seemed low at $2000. A small Jus- tin O'Brien seemed very high at $4200. When artists condemn a previous generation we shouldn't listen to them. Roberts and Streeton now seem so wrong about Von Guerard. that I won- der whether today's flat, color painters should try to work out just which of our 1950s abstract - expression- ists they have too has- tily rejected. Design and Craft from Finland, at Farm- ers, reminds us that al- though we've admired Swedish and Danish design for a generation or two, Finland only joined tails big league in the 1950s. The pale, cool glass- ware seems outstanding design; that is, a per- fect marriage between materials, function, and apwarance. There are ceramics, jewellery, rings, print- ed fabrics (Metsovaara but no Marimekko). And most interesting are the frankly orna- mental ceramic and glass plaques of Bigger Kaiplainen. Somehow their design principles seem closer to needlework in heavy woollens, than to cera- mics, and their style, like se much Scandina- vian alt,, refers both to folk art, and to A r t Nouveau. In fact, they look like major examples of post - Art -Nouveau (these days called Art Deco) still being carried out in the present. ART with Daniel Thomas Portraits, except Do - bell's, have never been much liked by the local markets, so $14,000 for a Tom Roberts portrait (admittedly a very pretty little girl) is a new recognition of art- istic merit, The same artist's large national subject, "A Mountain Muster"- an unresolved, but im- portant rarity, much altered by the art'st himself-brought only a little more at $15,000. It was interesting that a highly typical Drys- dale brought $30,000, the record price, when a number of Nolans and Boyds remained below 35000. This is partly be- cause of the large num- ber of the latter s works which are available, and the scarcity of Drys - dales. Painterly artists. like John Passmore and Rupert Bunny, seem to be getting higher prices. Bunny's French land- scapes are arotmd $3000, Pammore's Millers Point was $4800, and some of his drawings wer e around $1000. Auctions, it seems, are no place to sell good abstracts. Belson at 050 for a geometric and $1500 for a spotty ab- stract was much under- val led if artistic merit were to match price. Eusen von Guerard, was, I think, the best artist working in Aus- tralia when he arrived in Melbourne in the 1850s. By the time he left, in the 1880s, Louis Bu- velot had also arrived, had become more ad- mired by the younger artists, and to this day Buvelot is habitually praised as the best Aus- tralian artist in the period before Tom Rob- erts, Streeton and Con - der. Buvelot was more up to date in his own time, which would have made him more interesting to his young' fellow -artists. Von Guerard was cer- tainly old-fashioned by tl:e time he left Aus- tralia, but this doesn't mean he deserved to be nearly forgotten. The Clune Galleries' museum -style research staff has unearthed a group of Von Guerard's sketchbooks, from the 1830s to 1900. They make a fascinating ex- hibition, and tell us more about the artist than we ever knew be- fore. They show that it is best to think of Von Guerard as a contem- porary of John Glover, not of Louis Buvelot - as a romantic, not a realist. There are p en c i 1 sketches of snake -like gumtrees in pastoral landscapes, which are extraordinarily like Glover's. There is above all his typically North- ern attitude to the warm romantic South. Von Guerard and Glover both provide late footnotes to this romantic tradi t I o n. They push even farther south than Italy, to Australia no less. Frequently they add Aboriginal groups. to make an Antipodean epuivalent of the nymitphss andap earth- spir which ar in Italian romanticpe land- scape. It's the buyer's risk at auctions "TELEGRAPH" Sydney, N.S.W. 70 SEP 1970