Daniel Thomas : Newspaper writings

"TELEGRAPH" 18 NOV 1962 Sydney, N.S.W. SUNDAY TELEGRAPH, NOVEMBER 18, 1962 59 The Week in Art by Daniel Thomas THE well -publicised auction of the Voss Smith collection at Geoff K. Gray's rooms last week fetched rather less than the £30,000 for which it was bought. Before one begins to feel sorry for the dune Gallery, which made 'he purchase, it shout Je remembered that (Ally a portion of the £30,000 collection was up for sale. The star items had bee:: sold well before the auc- tion. Paintings by Riopelle, Join, Jaw!ensky, Mathieu -modern European mas- ters-and by the Austra- lians Drysdale and Boyd were exhibited in the small selection sent by the Clune Galleries to Melbourne a few months ago. They were not seen at the auction in Sydney. Moreover, a good half of the collection was seen heaped on the floor of the Hungry Horse Gallery dur- ing its stillborn days when Major Rubin intended to become a dealer. These must have been his prop- erty by then. It can be assumed there- fore that in spite of the promotion costa, and the luxuriously printed cata- logue, the made a tidy profit. The prices made no sensational increase over the Schureck sale early this year, and even if they were sometimes lower, this does not indicate a busted art boom. The Schureck sale prices can be largely attributed to the presence of one wealthy private buyer - Major Rubin-with a vor- acious appetite for Dobell's paintings. Such large-scale private buying is a most exceptional affair, and this week's prices were normal considering the absence of such a buyer. There were a few sur- prises. however. The mar- ket likes Dobell best cer- tainly, but seems quite un- able to distinguish good from bad. A fairly large but trivial Wang! land- scape in enamels fetched 11150 guineas, when his study for The Dead Land- lord found only a single bid of 1000. Yet It Ls one of Dobell's really outstand- ing oils. Nolan's prices were close to the Dobell level, and some early St. Kilda paintings on cardboard (1945), were high at five to six huncLed considering their condition. Pugh, Perceval, Donald Friend and Salt Herman (up to 440) showed that the established contempor- aries are solidly appreci- ated. Among the older contemporaries there were some real bargains though "HUMET HEAD" by Henry Moore, from the permanent collection. --Grace Cossington Smith, for instance, at 25 guineas, or Eric Thake at five. From the earlier Austra- lians there were only minor works by McCubbin and by Roberts, Including the very charming little "Rainy Day" (changing hands for the third Urns this year) which has some- times been attributed to Nerli, a much rarer artist. It was surprising to see a late, commercial Streeton landscape still fetching as much as 400. Another surprise was 610 for a painting by Daw- son McDonald, a sub -Sall Herman from Melbourne, previously unknown to me. He and others were obvi- ously artists whom Mr. Voss Smith had outgrown. There were pictures, all by European artists, where Mr. Smith's taste was ahead of the Sydney mar- ket's, and some of these he re-purchased. Filippo de Pists for In- stance at 140 would fetch far more in Europe (there is a good example of his work in the Art Gallery of N.S.W.), Josef Herman at 110, Lowry at 510, Etty at 400, and the tiny Picasso drawing at 300 also went back to Mr. Smith. He willingly left the frankly decorative French furniture pictures to find their own level, The sale In short dem- onstrated that Mr. Smith has learnt quite a lot about art since he began collect- ing and that the Sydney market is not at all sure of itself when it comes to foreign pictures. BONE from "Found Objects" ex- hibition. Whoever bought the Gueldry, Lucrat, .Y o h n Piper and Henri Heyden should feel quite pleased with themselves. Exhibitions THE show by Nancy Borlase at the Barry Stern Gallery is solid and reassuring. If Miss Borlase worked in Perth or Adelaide or Bris- bane we would probably know her name quite well. Since she lives here in Sydney she is only one of a number of serious, stead. fly developing artists whose work one recognises with pleasure in various mixed exhibitions. Now in a one-man show of thirty non-figurative paintings one can see that although her stylistic de- velopment has been reas- suringly steady, her qual- ity can be - perhaps for this very reason - a little uneven. Perhaps she can become discontented with her own steadiness. Yet there are certain swinglug crescent forms, and certain deep blue and green colors, which are entirely her own. When she keeps to them there is a kind of perfec- tion, and a certain grand scale despite the small size. When her forms be- come more linear, or when collage is used, success Is less frequent at present. Dobell CATALOGUES of the work of three artists are being pre- pared, and if any owners of pictures or sculptures have not yet been con- tacted it would be appreci- ated if they could send full details to the people men- tioned below. Title of work (or if not known, a des- cription of the subject), measurements, medium, signatures and dates are required. John Perceval will be the subject of a book to be published by Georgian House, Melbourne, in their series of Australian Art Monographs. Details to the author, Miss Margaret Plant, c/o Department of Fine Arts, University of Melbourne, Victoria, William Dobell is the subject of a book to be published by Thames and Hudson, London. Most owners will have been con- tacted already. but If not details will be welcomed by the author, Mr. James Gleeson, c/o Art Gallery of N.S.W., Sydney. 2