30th March Important, Early & Rare Tue, 15 Mar 2011
International Art Centre's first Important, Early & Rare catalogue of 2011 can now be viewed online. A 120 page catalogue is also available ($25.00). Catalogues are available by call Toll Free 0800 800 322 or by request info@fineartauction.co.nz
The auction will be held 6:30pm Wednesday 30th March at our downstairs Scarborough gallery salesroom.
Auction is on view daily from 23rd March. A Lecture & Morning tea will be held 10:30am - 11:15am Friday 25th March - please R.S.V.P. jenny@fineartauction.co.nz or Phone +64 9 379-4010
Full viewing times:
- Wednesday 23rd March
9:00am - 5:00pm - Thursday 24th March
9:00am - 5:00pm - Friday 25th March
9:00am - 5:00pm - Saturday 26th March
11:00am - 4:00pm - Sunday 27th March
11:00am - 4:00pm - Monday 28th March
9:00am - 5:00pm - Tuesday 29th March
9:00am - 5:00pm - Wednesday 30th March
9:00am - 12noon
The auction includes a diverse range of work, some quality Contemporary pieces, 20th Century masterpieces and 19th Century pictures.
Our first catalogue of 2011 features a notably diverse collection of many outstanding works. 'Les Deux Amies', dated 1953 by Parisian born Dame Louise Henderson (1902 - 1995), is one of New Zealand's cubist treasures. This celebrated work is on the market for only the second time since 1954. Further entries include 'Lilypond', a major work by Peter Siddell while Grahame Sydney's Summer Night, Ida Valley, provides a fine example of New Zealand realism. Colin McCahon is well represented with three works from the late Brenda Gamble collection. Gamble, a close friend and colleague of the artist, worked with McCahon at Auckland City Art Gallery. Interestingly, these works are joyous McCahons of brightly coloured flowers.
The demand for quality historical works continues. Christopher Aubrey's 1891 view of Eketahuna and W G Baker's early view of Brooklyn, Wellington are of particular interest. Two oil paintings of Auckland by Sam Stuart are welcome offerings along with an intriguing collection of photographs from New Zealand's most important nineteenth century photographic studios, Dunedin based Burton Bros (1866 - 1914). Also of note is a major work by Marcus King (cover illustration), a dramatic 20th Century rendition of a historical arrival on the shores of New Zealand.
View this publication on the Issuu website
View the Catalogue as a slideshow
Louise Henderson by Dr Angela Mackie:
We were indeed fortunate that the larger-than-life Louise Etiennette Sidonie Sauze married New Zealander Hubert Henderson and hence brought her artistic skills, as well as her European personality, to the largely anglo-saxon based antipodean community in New Zealand.
She came here with aristocratic artistic credentials being the daughter of the secretary to Rodin. Her childhood memories included playing with small pieces of marble while her father and Rodin talked art!
Louise's inclination towards cubism, gleaned from her interest in Cézanne, Picasso and Braque, took another step forward following her close association with John Weeks and led to 12 months study in 1952 of figurative cubism in Paris with the cubist Jean Metzinger.
Les Deux Amies (The Two Friends) was produced a year later in 1953. The two friends are not merely joining hands; angular forms are repeated and interlock. The lower halves of each body are intertwined in geometric shapes which so intersect and overlap that the two appear inextricably one and share a common "apron" of white/blue splintered form, as does their dark hair.
Parallel lines formed by three upper arms hold them together while the right arm of the left figure provides an angular circle which is repeated by her left arm round the head and shoulders of her friend.
The two share tonal variations on the primary colours of blue and red while the differing colours of the two faces, one blue and the other a warm soft red/tan, serve to reveal the character of each sitter.
The negative space of the "background" is not divided in a cubist manner but is given a Degas-like geometric form on the upper right hand side with the middle and left hand plane divided into two blocks of colour reflecting the traditional Caravaggioesque division of background into light and shade.
Les Deux Amies (The Two Friends) is one of Louise Henderson's finest examples of figurative cubism.
Angela Mackie
