Katrina Strickland

The buoyant industry sentiment that propelled art auctioneers Sotheby's to a record $22.4 million sales earlier this week was evident again in Melbourne last night at deutscher and hackett's inaugural art auction where 8 of the first 10 lots sold above their estimate. Brett Whiteley's To Repeat Without Repeating (1973) went under the hammer for $165,000, compared with estimates of between $100,000 and $140,000. Chris Deutscher, who left rival Deutscher Menzies late last year with colleague Damian Hackett to set up their own auction house, yesterday said the booming market had drawn people who had been absent from the market for most of the past decade back into art. 'I think at the top end of the market there are a handful of very keen collectors who are clashing over a number of big workers, but we've seen as much interest in the lower end as at the top,' Mr Deutscher said.

In a positive sign for last night's auction of the more expensive lots which will go under the hammer over this week, the National Gallery of Victoria purchased the picture featured on the cover of the auction catalogue, paying $823,500 (with buyer's premium) for Robert Dowling's 1856 painting Masters George, William and Miss Harriet Ware with Aborigine Jamie Ware. Mr Deutscher welcomed the selling of the main work ahead of the auction and to a public institution, and gave assurances deutscher and hackett chairman Ian Hicks, who is chairman of NGV's fund-raising foundation, played no role in the gallery's purchase of the Dowling work. Among other major works on sale last night was an early Fred Williams work, Silver Landscape 1968, and Bronwyn Oliver's Tendril, the first work by the late Sydney artist to come up at auction since she died last year. Meanwhile the case between deutscher and hackett and Deutscher Menzies chairman Rod Menzies is due back in court next month. Mr Menzies took the pair to court over their use of Deutscher in their business name and of the Deutscher Menzies database. After initial Federal Court, Melbourne, proceedings earlier in the dispute, the deutscher and hackett partners were allowed to continue to trade under their registered business name, but were forced to give Deutscher Menzies back its database.

More than 250 people crammed into deutscher and hackett's inaugural art auction last night for the first part of its two-day $6.4 million to $8.4 million sale. Though lacking the $1 million-plus paintings that drove Sotheby's $22.4 million Monday night result, many painting exceeded their high estimate. The re-rating of late Melbourne artist Albert Tucker continued last night, with his 1957 painting 'Australian Girl In Paris' selling for $260,000 on the hammer, nearly three times the $90,000 high estimate. Among the other items for sale were works by Fred Williams, Jeffrey Smart, Gwynn Hanssen Pigott, Bronwyn Oliver, John Bracks, and Brett Whitely. deutscher and hackett was set up last year when Chris Deutscher and Damian Hackett left rival firm, Deutscher Menzies.