Peter Fish

The Sydney Morning Herald

ARTSMART

FLEDGLING art auctioneer deutscher and hackett has embarked on its maiden outing and seems to have wasted little time making an impact on what some would say is a wildly overheated art market.
The firm's first pictures sale - held on May 9 and 10 in Melbourne but also aired in Sydney at the firm's near-city Surry Hills gallery - raised $8.6 million. That included no less than 24 works that sold for $100,000 or more, most of which also sold well above estimate.
Among the successes was the unusual colonial work by Robert Dowling, Masters George, William and Miss Harriet Ware with the Aborigine Jamie Ware, sold prior to the auction to the National Gallery of Victoria for $810,000.

Other estimate-busters included Fred Williams's Silver Landscape at $456,000, Albert Tucker's Australian Girl in Paris at $312,000 and Arthur Boyd's Evening, Pulpit Rock, Shoalhaven at $240,000. Two other Boyd Shoalhavens - which are regarded as almost an art field in themselves - fetched $180,000 and $156,000.

The firm's principals are Chris Deutscher and Damian Hackett, both of whom jumped ship from the rival Deutscher-Menzies art auction business, to which Deutscher lent his name. Confused? So are we - they're still fighting in court over who gets to use whose name and client list. Chairman of the new operation is businessman and art patron Ian Hicks.

The $8.6 million figure is pretty respectable in art sale terms. It might be overshadowed by the $22.5 million Sotheby's raised from a very much out-of-the-ordinary offering in Paddington on May 7 but it certainly won't please the deserters' former boss, contract cleaning king Rod Menzies. Left doing much of the wheeling and dealing himself over at Deutscher-Menzies, his last sale on March 13 raised $7.3 million.
Coming in behind what now appear to be the "big three" auctioneers after Christie's fled the field is the $4.1 million raised by Bonhams & Goodman on April 23 and the $3.1 million raised by the newly revitalised Melbourne-based Joel's on March 26 (figures courtesy Australian Art Sales Digest). Arguably Deutscher-Menzies's Sydney stablemate Lawson-Menzies deserves a mention, with a $1.65 million sale on May 2 - actually $2.3 million if you wrap in their "Art of War" collection on April 30.