Gael
Newton AM
Gibson's Auction: 20 August 2024
Prints & Multiples featuring select works from the Julian Burnside AO KC & Kate Durham Collection
This is a first piece about visiting auction houses to view their pre-auction exhibitions. (Except for the location photos, the individual images are taken from the Gibson's auction catalogue on their website.)
In August 2024 Paul and I made our way across town to Armadale to see the array of Wolfgang Sievers photographs in the preview for Gibson’s 20 August online auction Prints & Multiples featuring select works from the Julian Burnside AO KC & Kate Durham Collection.
Gibson's was not well known to me as a photographic arts seller. It was founded by furniture and decorative arts specialist, Jennifer Gibson in Melbourne in 2018. It is surely a first for a woman auctioneer as owner and CEO? Gibson’s speciality is decorative arts but has regular prints and multiples sales. The house also has a special interest in single owner sales across various media.
Various fairly modest priced photographs have passed through Gibson’s over time but the 2023 Prints & Multiples sale had a group of Australian and international works from part of the estate of well-known Melbourne gallerist and photographer Joyce Evans OAM (1929-2019) which did well even though a tranche had been sold by Deutscher + Hackett.
The Burnside collection had a stellar career wide group of Wolfgang Sievers prints. Sievers had strong political views and respected Burnside’s activism. The works sold very well mostly above very modest estimates.
I was bidding for a client who hoped the estimates would hold and for myself ( I know I know I shouldn’t ) as I had fallen for the extraordinary moody Lot 10 Cable Cars in Bourke Street, Melbourne 1938 taken not long after Siever’s arrival.
It went for a too modest A$850.00 against A$400 - A$600 but I had set myself a limit. It is slightly out of focus but relates so well to Harold Cazneaux, David Moore, Max Dupain and Mark Strizic’s moody canyon like street scenes of the 1930s-60s. These images symbolised uncertainties and hopes of the mid 20th century modern city. |
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# 10 Cable Cars in Bourke Street, Melbourne 1938 |
I had alerted a few collecting bodies to images such as Lot 28: Large Iron House in South Melbourne, Imported from Scotland 1956 which sold for $300. I think that remarkable structure has been demolished but a few days later we also took ourselves to South Melbourne to view the surviving iron houses under the National Trust care seen in Lot 29 which went for a modest $360 against an estimate of A$400 - A$600.
There were a few gasps among photo enthusiasts as three works set artist records for Sievers.
Lot 87 Galvanised Steel Production at John Lysaght Port Kembla NSW 1965, sold for $39,040, which was exemplary of his dramatization of industry and workers but surprised me a bit.
Lot 36 a colour print Country Women's of Australia's Annual General Meeting at Lennons Hotel Brisbane 1963 – a delightful time capsule from an era when women wore elaborate hats to functions, sold for $26,280 against an estimate of A$300 - A$500. The Country women was great fun but few would have picked it as a Sievers.
A striking profile black and white portrait of an Aboriginal woman Lot 57 Methodist Mission Station Weipa Cape York 1957, sold for $23,180 against an estimate of $200-$400.
Yet the next two lots with fine portraits from the same trip did poorly.
Being a valuer for the Cultural Gifts Program does not grant a crystal ball at all as I didn’t expect any of the three record price works to do that well. |
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# 57 Methodist Mission Station Weipa Cape York 1957 |
None were the most iconic industrial hero shots by Sievers images such as:
Lot 18, Sulfuric Acid Plant at Electrolytic Zinc, Risdon, Hobart 1959, sold for A$1,600.00 against estimate of A$100 - A$300,
and Lot 26, Rayon Loom Tuner, Bruck Mills, Wangaratta, Victoria 1950, sold A$4,200.00 against estimate A$200 - A$400.
One hopes the latter goes to Wangaratta eventually.
I was a treat indeed to have a mini Sievers retrospective to view, a man I knew personally and professionally. He loved diagonals and deep even vertiginous space.
It was special to see family and early portraits of Sievers in Germany and Australia and a bit sad those archival images have not gone to a public archive.
Notwithstanding that many buyers had a personal emotional reason to want to acquire a piece with Julian Burnside provenance, all in all it was a positive picture of interest in photographic arts and a credit to Gibson’s team.
Single owner sales are also an insight into the collectors.
The Burnside/Durham collection ranged widely from historic NASA photos to 1920s pin up girls as well as famous name Australian artist prints but a particular eye or approach was not that apparent ( they must have a big house or big cupboards). |
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#18 Galvanised Steel Production at John Lysaght Port Kembla
NSW 1965 |
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| #26 Rayon Loom Tuner, Bruck Mills, Wangaratta, Victoria 1950 |
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I was interested in several artists I didn’t know. Australian multimedia artist Robert Hague’s (b 1967) was represented by a very compelling lithograph The Golden Fleece after Namatjira 2015. I looked him up and while I liked Anita Klein (born 1960) Monday Morning 2012 that sold A$380.00, her other prints online did not match up. I liked Joan Russell’s flat patterned lithographs but can’t find out anything about her. She worked into the 1980s born 1905 died 1991.
It was great to see Craig Tuffin, a favourite of mine with a big colour work from his Super Heroes series. It sold for a modest $3500 within estimate of $4000-$6000
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| # 188 Craig Tuffin, Super Heroes 2021 |
As with all exhibitions it is my experience that many insights into the content or style of the work only comes through due to chance conjunctions in different spaces different lights and next to or in the sight line of other works including in other mediums.
I have always thought how good it would be to do the catalogue after exhibition has closed and you have reaped the visitor’s perceptions and responses and repeated opportunities to wander through and think. Every display is a new performance in concert. It is always something to see the sheer sustained professional excellence, energy and creativity of the gifted photographer. It’s a craft and art demanding great physical energy to go out and perform and deliver.
The works are online and worth a visit (links below). The auction showed that you can afford works of art to love at home.
There were a few very nice Max Dupains at Gibson’s but I also followed the Menzies online sale of Dupain’s Sunbaker that sold within estimate at $44,000 surprisingly low for one with such good provenance as an early print.
At Gibsons, we chatted with associate specialist Sarah Gerracht who was astute, informed and understanding about photography in the art market.
We also visited Deutscher and Hackett to look at the paintings and sculpture works. This we did as we had realised that these auctions were mini-museum shows beautifully displayed. We had a brief chat with Damien Hackett about how they fared through and after covid and that the new spacious gang of prime works was an affirmation of quality and rarity.
The Art Gallery of New South Wales, National Gallery Australia and National Gallery of Victoria have closed their designated display spaces for photography and the Sydney has abandoned any curatorial positions at all. As well funding bodies are cutting support for photographic venues and events deemed superfluous now the medium accepted as art. For those of us for whom photography is a culture not just a medium, art has it seems has made photography over in its own image rather than been enriched by recognition of difference.
The auction results and other seller’s reports are that photography is still strong and Festivals like Head On and Ballarat are inundated and courses like Ellie Gold at Goldstreet are sold out. Photography will survive and flourish.
If it had depended on art museums, the medium would have expired in 1839. People make and collect photographs because they want to and have to. The world is still there. But to see original prints is tricky.
In times of diminished access to vintage prints in particular no opportunity should be missed to see originals.
Given we are now enjoying the treat of viewing auction previews, such visits should be a regular occasion for anyone keen to see works that would otherwise not be available through the usual public institution's exhibitions. These action house exhibitions are to be enjoyed. They are fun and also great learning centres.
Very practically too, they are free, often in a suburban area where parking can be had and you get to see a lot of works that are lesser known as well as familiar.
Links
Gibson's auction catalogue on their website
Gibson's listing on Invaluable
Paul's blog on our visit with other comments about photography collections
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