Dangers Of Paintings Market

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32321, 12 June 1970, Page 1

Dangers Of Paintings Market

Many buyers of early New Zealand paintings had already burned their fingers, an Auckland art dealer, Mr Peter Webb, said in Christchurch yesterday.

When they came to sell purchases made during the past two years, they would find in many cases that they had paid far more than the work was worth. “There was a Baker sold in Wellington last year for $1500,” said Mr Webb. “I would think that was about 10 times what it is worth. “When a painter is neither important in the history of th? country, nor rare, nor possessed of artistic merit, there is no reason for him to fetch stich prices.” Mr Webb said that an upsurge of interest in early

New Zealand art had been encouraged by auctioneers and dealers, many of whom lacked the expertise to guide buyers. “Painters like Perrett, Baker and Vera Cummings quickly got a sort of reputation because they kept popping up at auctions. It was like the coin craze of five years ago. I’m not a coin dealer, but 1 understand that very few New Zealand coins are now worth much more than their face value. A few years ago people were paying five times their face value." Mr Webb said that another feature of the boom in paintings had been the willingness of people to pay high prices for work of questionable origin. “A worthless bit of paper” —a small water colour signed “John Constable” —had been known to be spurious when auctioned five years ago, but had been sold several times

since with the price rising to $2700 at the latest sale. “It illustrates the proneness of New Zealanders to buy without question," said Mr Webb. “Usually they are businessmen who would never buy a property without thoroughly investigating it”

The market was now settling down, Mr Webb said. Many former buyers had withdrawn their support. Professional dealers and the art galleries were very glad to see the change, as it was difficult to cope with an unstable market. Asked if the current price for a Goldie was not too high, Mr Webb said this artist was in a different category. “What he did was original —in so far as no-one else had done It—he did It very well, and his paintings are rare. It’s unlikely that Goldies will ever come down in price. 'There are few on the mar-

ket, and fewer all the time. They are sold to companies for their board rooms, and given to public galleries, and these paintings don’t come back on the market." Goldies were also something of a status symbol, said Mr Webb. “When you’ve made your million, you’ve got to have one. It won’t be long before they are bringing $lO,OOO, and we’ll see them go up to $20,000.” At the same time, said Mr Webb, there had been far too much publicity given to Goldie paintings. It was time to restore the balance by paying more attention to painters who were largely unrecognised except by galleries. Mr Webb thought that there must be some early paintings by Grace Butler in private hands: and he expected that the next time a Rita Angus work came on the market it would fetch $lOOO.