Of artistic importance
The latest Menzies' auction held live for in-room bidding, as well as online, telephone and absentee bidding.
Menzies, one of Australia’s most respected auctioneers and valuers of fine art, will be holding an auction on Thursday, March 31 for its March 2022 catalogue of Important Australian & International Art.
Menzies’ first auction of the year will include an impressive selection of late 19th- and early 20th-century art, with major works by John Glover, Haughton Forrest, Arthur Streeton, Agnes Goodsir, Elioth Gruner and Horace Trenerry.
With the auction held live for in-room bidding, as well as online, telephone and absentee bidding, Menzies’ March catalogue highlights an exciting group of contemporary paintings that will be exhibited in Melbourne from March 17 to 20, and in Sydney from March 24 to 30.
Featured in the upcoming auction are four highly covetable works by Australian artist Ben Quilty – Self Portrait as a Budgie 2004 (lot 17, $70,000-$90,000); Grey Skull 2006 (lot 18, $30,000- $50,000); Australian Landscape No. 6 2005 (lot 26, $70,000-$90,000); and Untitled No. 1 (Paris) 2014 (lot 39, $35,000-45,000).
Another key contemporary work of the sale is The Verandah 1987 by Cressida Campbell (lot 22, $140,000-$180,000). Depicting the home of Lynne Drysdale (daughter of artist Russell Drysdale), The Verandah is one of Campbell’s most significant images of the 1980s rendered in a distinctive vertical format.
A large and important painting by Australian painter John Brack, The Wedding Breakfast 1960 (lot 30), will form the centrepiece of the catalogue. Created in preparation for the 1960 Helena Rubinstein Travelling Art Scholarship Exhibition, The Wedding Breakfast is the central painting of Brack’s Wedding series and has featured in every major survey exhibition of the artist’s work since the 1960s. Rendered in generous impasto, The Wedding Breakfast captures a joyful moment of marital union – the cutting of the wedding cake.
An additional feature of the upcoming auction will be Melbourne-born impressionist painter Emanuel Phillips Fox’s intimate subject painting, En Déshabillé c1911 (lot 33, $100,000-$150,000). Painted in the artist’s home at 65 Boulevard Arago, Montparnasse, En Déshabillé epitomises the carefree elegance of pre-war Paris.
Coinciding with the artist’s celebrated survey exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia, the sale also presents four works by Jeffrey Smart, including Pylon I 2006 (lot 29, $500,000-$700,000) – an excellent later work revealing the unrivalled finesse of Smart’s approach to composition, perspective, colour and surface.
Adding to an impressive offering of Australian pieces, Menzies will continue its market leadership for international prints with the offering of David Hockney’s Lithograph of Water Made of Thick and Thin Lines and Two Light Blue Washes 1978-80 (lot 21).
For more information on the exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney, to view the online catalogue, and to register for online bidding, visit menziesartbrands.com.
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