I was lucky to be in Wellington last week, so was able to attend two of the three sales that made up the Fine & Applied Art Sale at Dunbar Sloane.  The Fine Art auction did well for some works, but the following day lunchtime sale of more affordable works was much better attended and seemed more bouyant.  

Lot 241, a work by Gwen Knight did very well.  The Goldfish Pond was a gouache on paper work, measuring 42 x 55 cm.  It  was estimated at $1,500. 

Knight was born in 1888 in Wellington and in 1929 at age 41 went to Europe to study art. A chance encounter with Frances Hodgkins in St Tropez lead to a long and happy friendship and introduced her to many of the movers and shakers of the European art scene.  Knight is the model in the work  "Pinewoods", by Hodgkins in Te Papa's collection. 

Hans Hoffman taught her painting in Munich.   André Lhote showed her the Cubist craft in Paris. In London she spent time studying under  Bissiére . 

Such a world class arts education profoundly affected her painting.

Thrown into war, Europe would  no longer be the exciting, thriving place to be for a 60 year old woman artist. Knight returned to New Zealand in 1948, where, together with Helen Stewart, she became an important element of the Wellington art scene  throughout the 50s and 60s.

Gwen Knight died in 1974.

On the secondary market her prices have been varied.  Works have been slow to the market with only one painting a year coming onto the market over the last 5 years. 

However, perhaps bouyed by her adjacency to Francis Hodgkins (who is "having her time in the sun"), this work raced above the top estimate of $2,500 to $4,900 (+BP). I suspect this was an institutional buy and it hopefully represents a heightened interest in our much under-represented woman painters.
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Excellent bio on Ferner Galleries website.
E.C.

Michael Parekowhai is always a favourite at auction.  Three works of differing media, were up for sale last week; a kowhaiwhai printed lightbox (at Art + Object), a large scale photograph and an unique hand finished bronze 'sapling' (at Webb's).  The Moment of Cubism (the lemon tree sapling) sold for $64,625 (incl. BP) against an estimate of $25,000 - $35,000.  The three editions that had sold previously at auction were all sold for around the $30,000 mark, so this was a great price.  The Bosom of Abraham light box sold for $14,415 (incl. BP & gst)  and Passchendaele a large scale c-type photograph sold for $20,562.50 (incl BP). These were both marginally lighter than the highest prices of previous versions at auction. Winter can keep some buyers away from the sale room, so I look forward to the effect of the coming warmer and lighter months on the art market.

Two record auction prices were achieved last night at International Art Centre's Important & Rare Art sale.  Firstly, lot 21 was an early Karl Maughan painting (1988), in a more realist style than his contemporary works, 'Marigolds and Sweetcorn' was part of the Telecom Collection, now the Spark Art Trust Collection. It is hard to tell whether its beautiful painted quality or its collection history added to its record price of $98,000 (hammer price, not including premium).  This beats the previous record of $96,113 (incl BP) for 'Rhododendron and Ponga' a work from the collection of Kiri Te Kawana, also sold by International Art Centre. 

Secondly, Lot 32 was Michael Smither's painting 'Saint Francis and the Wolf' and was estimated at $120,000-160,000.  Interest from bidders pushed this up to $240,000 (hammer price). This work also had very good provenance, coming direct from the artist's own collection. The previous record was $230,000 (assumed to be hammer price) for The Family in The Van, part of the Les and Milly Paris collection, which broke all sorts of records at Art + Object back in 2012.