Lot 9 is Sidney Nolan’s The Disguise, 1964, with an estimate of $700,000 to $900,000. The painting was among the works previously collected by Mertz, an American who, advised by Kim Bonython, acquired hundreds of Australian paintings in the 1960s and 1970s that were eventually gifted to the University of Texas, Austin.
After languishing unseen for decades, the Mertz collection returned to Australia for sale in 2000. The Nolan painting was among those under the hammer in what was described as the “art event of the decade”. Two years later The Disguise was on the market again and was snapped up by the Canberra collector for $282,000 (including buyer’s premium).
In the same year, 2002, the Canberra collector purchased Brett Whiteley’s painting Lavender Bay in the Rain, 1974, at a Deutscher-Menzies auction for $470,000 (including premium). Just over 24 years later, the painting is the cover lot in what will be only its second time at auction, with an estimate of $900,000 to $1.2 million.
While the elegant painting features one of Whiteley’s favourite subjects, Hackett describes it as “wonderfully restrained … it’s a Sydney Harbour painting that does not rely on cliched blue water and white sails; on shiny this and shiny that”. It also features some experimental work with long drops of “rain” painted onto the perspex that covers the oil painting.
In the catalogue essay, Kelly Gellatly notes that the artist’s wife Wendy Whiteley has described the Lavender Bay paintings as “confessions”. Wendy said: “He tells you in code what’s happening. So there’s an element of trouble in them, but it’s not so in your face that people have to think about it every time they look at them. People who know the paintings, it changes the way they see the subject itself.”
A second Whiteley, the more familiar-looking Blue River, 1977, will also be auctioned, with an estimate of $350,000 to $450,000.
Lot 17, Bronwyn Oliver’s Unity, 2001, has an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000. Deutscher and Hackett has high expectations, given the keen market appetite for Oliver’s works. The auction house has sold the work twice before, in 2010 for $132,000 (including premium), and then in 2019 for $402,600, to the Canberra collection, after it was offloaded following a divorce.
“We do have high hopes for this work. It is absolutely sensational and says so much about what Oliver does so well; it’s very fine and delicate, almost like lace and yet it’s very robust copper; it seems organic and yet it’s metallic,” Hackett said.
There are other links of time and place through the collection. Lot 5, Arthur Boyd’s Shoalhaven Landscape, c1980, estimated at $100,000 to $150,000, reflects the artist’s extraordinary focus on the geography around the Shoalhaven River, a couple of hours south of Sydney. He purchased a property on the riverbank in 1974 and proceeded to devote the next quarter-century to painting the Shoalhaven and surrounds. Lot 6, William Delafield Cook’s startling Bundanon – midday, 1998, estimated at $250,000 to $350,000, is named after the celebrated Boyd property. Cook visited Bundanon in February 1998.
The collection also canvasses different stages in the careers of some of Australia’s best-known artists, including Fred Williams. Lot 12 Landscape with hillock, 1969, is a minimal, horizon-less abstract painting in yellowy orange. It’s estimated at $400,000 to $600,000. Lot 13 Hillside, You Yangs, 1974, is a similar size at about 1 square metre, but shows a different palate and carries a lower estimate at $350,000 to $450,000.
If the job of an auction house is to meet the market, Deutscher and Hackett is well-placed to do so after selling five other Fred Williams paintings in their big mid-year sale on August 28. Among them, Two green clouds, 1967, went to auction with an estimate of $1 million to $1.5 million and sold for $1 million on the hammer ($1.225 million with premium). Paraburdoo landscape, 1981, was scooped up for $270,000 after failing to reach the low end of its $300,000 to $400,000 estimate.
The Canberra collection also features three works by Jeffrey Smart, including Lot 15, Waiting for the hovercraft, Boulogne, 1986-87. The catalogue essay by John Macdonald notes this is an unusual painting by the artist in that it features three figures in motion. Macdonald has identified the key figure, the yellow-clad gymnast, as Cosima Spender, a daughter of Smart’s friends and neighbours in Tuscany, painter Maro Gorky and sculptor Matthew Spender. Cosima would go on to be a prominent documentary filmmaker. The painting carries an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000. Another Smart, Containers at Pisa airport, 1998-99, a larger work employing the artist’s characteristic mix of classical and industrial imagery, carries the same estimate.
The three works by John Brack in the collection are both diverse and complementary. Lot 25, Standing nude with screen, 1981, estimated at $20,000 to $30,000, contrasts with the visual trickery inherent in Lot 19, Four pairs and a single, 1971, and the animation of Lot 20, The performance (seven figures), 1989, both estimated at $400,000 to $600,000.
After being on view in Melbourne last week, the collection is on show in Sydney from 8 October until Tuesday. The auction will be the first for Deutscher and Hackett in Sydney since May last year.
