MOSSGREEN THE PETER ELLIOTT COLLECTION 30-31 August 2015 & 1 September

Mossgreen has gone all out on the sale of the collection of Dr Peter Elliott. The catalogue is a bumper volume including tributes from noted artworld figures to introduce Peter Elliott to the broader public. And the highlights of the almost 1,000 lot auction have toured widely, beginning in London in late June, then Perth, , and Brisbane before selling in Sydney at the very end of August.

Mossgreen are market leaders with single owner sales, as opposed to the more common mixed vendor sales. The prevailing wisdom is that having a discrete collection put together by a known and respected collector attracts the art buying public and adds an imprimateur to each and every work, based on the quality of the collection and the taste and discernment of the collector. Mossgreen had great success selling the very large collection of celebrated collector and gallerist Ann Lewis in late 2011, and the two sales from the collection of Colin and Liz Laverty have also shown the effectiveness of the single owner approach.

Like the Ann Lewis sale, the Peter Elliott auction has something for everyone, spanning (both indigenous and non-indigenous), tribal and oceanic art, Asian art and decorative arts. But considering the art in the sale work by work, it is clear that Peter Elliott did not aspire to a collection of great works, as did Ann Lewis or the Lavertys. He chose the right artists – Dobell, Miller, Nolan, Boyd, Smart, Blackman, Dickerson, Williams, Olsen, Whiteley, William Robinson – but very often he selected minor works or signature pieces. While not quite shopping, Elliott’s approach as a collector does not seem to have valued research or discrimination or a desire for the best. It is also reasonably obvious that he liked a bargain.

However, there are a reasonable number of quality works in the mid range and cheaper price levels which are worth considering. There is also a small group of very works in the indigenous section, several from Balgo, an area Peter Elliott obviously felt a strong connection to.

JOHN CRUTHERS rococo pop pty ltd 2. FREDERICK (FRED) RONALD WILLIAMS 1927-1982 Yarra Embankment 1970 gouache 46 x 23 cm $20,000 - $30,000

Fred Williams painted a steady stream of small through certain parts of his career. They provided an opportunity to respond directly to motifs and try things that he could use in more major works.

The current work is from the year in which Williams reversed his long slow move into minimal landscape and plunged back into colour, texture, impasto and naturalistic detail. Rivers, ponds and water in general played a major role in this return to nature, and so it is not surprising to see a corner of suburban Melbourne featuring in a work. Williams was probably attracted to the motif because it offered both gum trees and ferns and the stratigraphic section of soil produced as the Yarra River cut into the embankment.

Williams was equally attracted through his career to the use of circular, oval and lozenge shaped supports, which offered new compositional challenges. The current work is an attractive example without being a major work in size or ambition. But given that standard size gouaches, 56 x 76 cm, regularly sell for above $60,000, it could be quite good buying at the low estimate for someone wanting a distinctive Williams at a more affordable price. 10. ROBERT HENRY (BOB) DICKERSON Born 1924 Harlequins 1966 retro-reflective road signs on plywood 91 x 121.5 cm $30,000 - $50,000

Robert Dickerson was one of the more distinctive Australian artists of the1950s and 60s. His doe eyed children in urban streets were often the first works to catch the attention of new collectors, along with similar works by . Dickerson’s interest in such subjects came form his tough upbringing in depression era suburban Sydney. Later he was a boxer in travelling circuses and worked in factories to make ends meet, all the while struggling to keep and sell work. He stayed faithful to his humanist creed, painting a range of Sydney’s less fortunate people.

The current work, from a little later in his career, focuses on two performers in what is possibly a mime show. They wear heavy make-up which gives their faces a mask-like appearance, while their pink costumes isolate their heads and draw attention to the possible relationship between them, presumably mother and son. For Dickerson this is a very strongly composed, almost monumental painting, in which elements of performance and stylization are well captured and exploited. It has some gravity and I am not surprised it was included in a 1983 retrospective of his work in Sydney.

This painting may be just too odd for most people, but as a striking and original Dickerson it’s the kind of work I’d happily recommend. It is not expensive at estimates of $30-50,000, and should be buyable within this range. By the time I began looking at Australian art in the late , Sali Herman had already become characterised as ’s “terrace house painter”, and one of his scumble-surfaced Paddington slum scenes was on every local art collector’s shopping list. As time passed, these scenes became more and more dashed off and soulless – an example of an artist trapped by his success.

But earlier in his career Herman was a strong painter. A Swiss Jew born in 1898, he came to Australia in the late 1930s. In Europe he’d been an art dealer, but in his new country he decided to try his hand as an artist, and began classes with well known Melbourne teacher George Bell. Later he moved to Sydney, and his early paintings showed a lively city captured in wartime. He enlisted in the army in 1941 but continued to paint. In 1944 he won the Wynne Prize for McElhone Stairs, a wonderfully fresh painting of the long staircase connecting Potts Point to Woolloomooloo. He was to win the Wynne Prize three more times in his career. In 1945 he was appointed an official war artist and served with distinction in the Pacific and New Guinea. His war paintings were characterized by a feeling for humanity, whether friend or enemy, and infused with a sense of 17. ARTHUR BOYD 1920-1999 the pointlessness of war. Nautilus 1965 pastel on paper After the war Herman returned to Sydney and continued 46.9 x 62.6 cm painting inner city views, interspersed with portraits $10,000 - $15,000 and still life paintings. The current work is typical of its genre, with a slightly melancholy ambience as the two street singers ply their trade, their only audience a dog. Although not large, this work has a fineness of execution and a genuine soulfulness, which is what Herman’s work lost as he became the “terrace house painter”.

Herman’s market is not strong and I wouldn’t be surprised to see this work struggle to reach the low estimate. But it’s a nice thing, and if bought well it would 22. SALI (YAKUBOWITSCH) HERMAN 1898-1993 be a good addition to a collection of post war painting. Street Singers 1947 oil on canvas on board 34.5 x 39.5 cm $15,000 - $25,000 Italian born, George Baldessin came to Melbourne with his family in 1949. They lived in Carlton and his parents worked in factories. In 1958-61 the young Baldessin studied painting at Royal Melbourne Technical College, but was drawn more to print- making and . He worked his passage to London in 1962, where he attending print-making classes at Chelsea School of Art. In 1963 he studied under the sculptor Marino Marini in Milan.

In 1964 he returned to Melbourne to teach printmaking at RMIT and prepare for his first solo exhibition. Between 1966-75 his prints were shown in the United States of America, Yugoslavia, Poland, England, South East Asia, New Zealand, India, Japan and at the XIII Bienal de Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he represented Australia. He worked at such a high level of achievement that in 1974 – a mere 10 years into his working life - he was accorded a retrospective, after which the National Gallery of Australia acquired 279 of his prints and etching plates.

From 1975 Baldessin and his wife lived in Paris, where he continued to develop new print-making techniques. In Paris he also met the Australian conceptual artist Imants Tillers, with whom he did a notable series of collaborative etchings. He died unexpectedly as the result of a motorcar collision in 1978, aged 39. He remains one of Australia’s most prodigiously talented and influential printmakers, with a legacy that has generated three further retrospectives and two publications. His is an art that has continued to speak to audiences long after his death.

The current work is an etching, aquatint and colour stencil from 1972. It combines three of Baldessin’s most common motifs – pears, flags and the idea of enclosed space. Pears particularly are a Baldessin trademark, and one of the first artworks the viewer sees when approaching the NGA in is his group of seven very large pears cast in bronze. It is a superb entrance piece and the pears themselves are fittingly entrancing. This print 38. GEORGE JOSEPH VICTOR BALDESSIN 1939-1978 places the pears into a walled enclosure with a flag, also depicting Pears (Yellow Version) 1972 a pear. It seems to be a wry statement about the need felt by all etching, aquatints and colour stencil ed. 25 species to stick together and proclaim their identity. It is one of 60 x 59.5 cm Baldessin’s more significant images, using a full range of print $3,000 - $5,000 techniques to create a work that is at once stylish, slightly odd and quietly suggestive. It has been included in three surveys of his prints and reproduced widely. Baldessin’s prints continue to attract collectors and this will not pass in. But at mid-estimates it would be good buying. Strongly recommended. Over the last three or four years I have several times recommended the painted assemblages of this artist, who entered the Sydney art scene with a big splash as one of the Annandale Imitation Realists, a group of three radical young art students determined to seize art back from the gracious homes of Sydney’s eastern suburbs and return it to the streets. As youthful idealism goes it was quite successful, and certainly led to the increased inclusion of everyday objects from popular culture into the vernacular of fine art, about five years in advance of the pop art movement.

Lanceley worked at an equal level of sophistication in his drawings and prints. He was accomplished and urbane, living overseas for over 15 years and showing regularly at leading commercial galleries in London and New York. The monograph on him and his work was written by his great friend Robert Hughes, also an Australian who made good in New York. Lanceley died early this year and his passing generated positive and respectful obituaries by leading critics such as John McDonald.

The current work shows Lanceley in dialogue with the art of early surrealist painters like Arshille Gorky, Andre Masson and Robert Matta. The various biomorphic forms echo body parts floating in an otherworldly beachscape. It is playful and charming as a late contribution to surrealism – although it no doubt helps an appreciation of the work to know the artists and works with whom Lanceley is in conversation.

Besides its quality, the other thing to note is the price. At estimates of $1,000-2,000, it’s a large sheet size coloured drawing at one third of the price of a 113. COLIN LANCELEY 1938-2015 Baldessin print. I know Lanceley’s work is not flavour Kite Flying 2004 of the month, but this is extremely good buying. I’d ink, crayon and pencil estimate the retail price on the work would have been 57 x 76 cm roughly $6,000 back in 2004 when it was first sold. $1,000 - $2,000 So for a collector on a budget, but wanting classy artworks by superior artists, this is worth a bid to the top estimate. In the Australian art world of the 1960s, Donald Friend was often described as one of the country’s finest draftsmen. No less a critic than Robert Hughes sung his praises, and in the book he wrote on Friend and his work, drawing was a particular focus. Probably the purest expression of Friend’s graphic skill is the series of illustrated diaries and books he kept for most of his working life. While the content was often scurrilous – Friend was a waspish critic of social pretension – the line work was superb. Many of these diaries and related books are in the collection of the National Library of Australia, and several have been released as facsimile editions.

Jungle with Lizard shows Friend’s graphic fluency. The beautifully drawn and coloured jungle is filled with floating eyes, suggestive shapes and trees exploding in foliage. It’s almost like a stage backdrop for a surrealist opera. Although it is reasonably subtle, there is a definite hint of ecstatic sexuality in these forms. Very few Australian artists could match this deftness of touch – Francis Lymburner comes to mind, and Brett Whiteley, but few others.

Compared to his prices in the 133. DONALD STUART LESLIE FRIEND 1915-1989 and 80s, Friend’s drawings are Jungle with Lizard 1959 now relatively affordable. At the watercolour and ink Sotheby’s auction on Tuesday night, 33.5 x 50 cm large format watercolours topped $5,000 - $8,000 out at $8,500 hammer, while smaller works sold around $5,000. The estimates for this work feel a tiny bit high, and it would be good buying anywhere below the low estimate. 200. MILLIGA (NAPALTJARRI) Circa 1921-1994 Artist’s Country (Wakalpukka) 1992 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 100 x 50 cm $7,000 - $18,000

I have recommended three in the desert before walking into sought after, and the handful that early works by key painters from the Pallottine mission at Balgo in have come to auction have made Wirrimanu, the community now the 1950s. She was not a prolific solid prices, up to $30,000 for the better known as Balgo, situated painter, but from the earliest days best examples. I regard the current just south of the Kimberley, on of her art she produced work that work as one of the better works I’ve the border with the Great Sandy was absolutely distinctive. Rather seen. It is also of a reasonable size Desert, near to the eastern end than using iconography of the for Milliga, who was not physically of the Canning Stock Route. The various sites she depicted, she capable of working on a large people of Balgo are desert people relied on dotting – fields of dots scale. and their art is studded with desert in a range of bright colours which iconography similar to that found she applied with her shaky hand to The published estimates of in the work of their kinsmen at produce a tactility of surface that $7,000-18,000 are not regular Papunya Tula, Yuendumu and was aesthetically very pleasing auction estimates. The painting Martumili. to western eyes and collectors will definitely exceed $7,000, of contemporary non-indigenous but I doubt it will get to $18,000. Milliga was one of the original abstraction. This smeary, trembly More accurate estimates would painters at Balgo when painting dotting – also present in the be $12,000-18,000. To me this began there in the early . painting of other first wave Balgo is close to the best indigenous Men began first, followed by artists like Eubena Nampitjin and painting in the Peter Elliott sale and women around 1984. It is Wimmitji Tjapangati - became the I recommend it strongly enough customary for men and women hallmark for collectors looking for to be worth chasing to the high to paint separately, unless they the best in Aboriginal art, especially estimate. It truly is a wow painting. are married, when couples can in the early when the APY paint together. The breakthrough and NPY Lands emerged as art exhibition for the Balgo artists was producing areas. An artist’s dotting Aboriginal art of the Great Sandy style can now almost function as Desert, held at the Art Gallery of a signature, so expressive and WA in 1986. Buoyed by the positive individual is the touch of some reception to their paintings, and artists. many sales, the artists banded together to form a company, Milliga was the opposite of prolific, Warlayirti Artists, to start an art and when she died in 1994 her centre, facilitate the production of oeuvre numbered in the dozens, paintings and market the finished rather than the hundreds like works to capital city galleries. Eubena or the thousands like Emily. And yet her best work bears Milliga was over 60 at this point, comparison to these two senior having had a traditional upbringing women artists. So her work is quite 207. NYULA MUTJI NUNGURRAYI 1945-1993 Artist’s Country (Mutjul) 1993 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 119 x 59 cm $7,000 - $10,000

And so is this one. Double wow in fact, double because for the majority of Aboriginal art collectors, the artist will be a new name.

Nyula was one of the children of the first marriage of Eubena Nampitjin, now widely regarded as the finest painter to come out of Balgo. After the death of her first husband, Eubena married Wimmitji Tjapangati, a senior tribal leader and very traditional man in his adherence to Aboriginal custom. The family moved into Balgo around 1959, and Nyula painted at Balgo alongside her mother and step-father, until her premature death from meningitis in 1993.

Not surprisingly Nyula’s work shows the influence of her parents, especially the early work of Wimmitji. But Nyula also had her own aesthetic. Her looping linear iconography and repeated rows of dots extend the style of Wimmitji in new directions. She is also able to include areas of Milliga-like dotting, visible lower right and upper left and centre.

I was very impressed with this work in the flesh. I’m sure there will be competition for it as very few of Nyulu’s works have come to auction, and with her pedigree and obvious talent she will attract attention. But in the current flat market it will hopefully be buyable at the top estimate or a bid above. Strongly recommended. 208. WIMMITJI (TJAPANGATI) circa1925-2000 Artist’s Country (Wantjanmurra) 1992 synthetic polymer paint on canvas 120 x 85 cm $20,000 - $30,000

The similarities between this work and I’ve recommended and bid unsuccessfully the previous one are quite obvious, on major early paintings by Wimmitji suggesting that Nyula looked carefully in both the Laverty sale and the Alan at the way Wimmitji constructed his Boxer sale this year. There was strong paintings and applied the paint. competition for both and from memory each made upwards of $40,000. The Artist’s country (Wantjanmurra) comes current work is not quite so spidery or towards the end of Wimmitji’s strongest glittering as those two works, so it could period of painting, which I’d date at 1989- be a little cheaper. I expect it to sell within 93. His spidery dotting style developed estimates and it would be good buying to and he began to mix areas of neater mid estimate. If you like the artist and want linear dotting with passages of smeared a major work, the only reason not to bid is paint. He also grew in confidence in that you’d be willing to spend more for a terms of depicting a great spread of slightly earlier work that shows Wimmitji’s country in each work, which is a feature dotting to better effect – not that there is of the current work. I particularly like the anything wrong with the current work at four small red spots made in each of all. Recommended. the white segments running down the painting’s right hand side – the burrows of the dreamtime bilby whose country this is. I also really enjoy his use of pink, which came later in this period as the art centre manager at Balgo introduced a new range of bright colours. 282. EMILY KAME (KNGWARREYE) circa 1910-1996 Untitled (Wild Yam Awelye II) 1991 synthetic polymer paint on linen 121 x 60.9 cm $6,000 - $8,000

The market is about to be hit with an avalanche of works by Emily, courtesy of the Thomas Vroom sale at Bonhams early next month. But from a brief look at the catalogue, the Vroom offering includes very little from this early period. The works begin later in 1991 and into 1992 and 1993.

What this timing means in terms of the development of Emily’s style is observable by a close look at the work. Look particularly past the fields of dots in the foreground and you will see the tracery of white paint outlining the yam tracks that are Emily’s primary dreaming. She would lay these down first and then add the dots over the top, the dots being the surface of the landscape – flowers, plants, soil – that cover and largely obscure the yam tracks. By 1992 Emily had stopped using these as the underlayer of her painting, focusing instead on the overlapping of dots and the treatment of the surface.

So this painting is a reasonably rare thing – a work from Emily’s first period, albeit late in the first period – that shows the combination of under and over-painting held in her typically elegant balance by the weighting of the dots and the extent to which she allows the merest suggestion of yam tracks to show through.

In terms of provenance, in common with the majority of works by Emily that pass through the Australian art auction system, it was commissioned by Don and Janet Holt. The Holts were owners of Delmore Downs pastoral station, adjacent to Emily’s homeland at Utopia, and are one of the two best provenances for Emily.

At the height of the Emily boom this would have been a $20-25,000 painting. Buried in this sale and with very low estimates, it could be a pretty nifty buy. Recommended to the top estimate.