The results, carried elsewhere on this page, of the Irish art auction conducted earlier in the week by Whyte's of Dublin show that while the current economic climate may be rather gloomy, so far at least the market is holding up.
Held in the RDS, the Whyte's sale was the third such event in as many weeks: Adams had a similar auction on September 26th followed by de Vere's a week later. The outcome from the second of these should be considered especially interesting, as the pictures on offer were predominantly by contemporary artists whose work until very recently tended to fare poorly at public auction.
The collection being sold by de Vere's had been put together less than 20 years ago by the GPA Group, which showed flair and imagination in its choice of purchases. But few private buyers tend to take such risks, especially with what, in the 1980s, were a group of relatively young artists and it was possible that the pictures might have gone for relatively low figures.
In fact, the reverse proved to be the case; a painting by John Shinnors called Bicycle, for example, which had been expected to fetch between £8,000 and £12,000 eventually managed to go for £16,000. Similarly, Patrick Scott's Chinese Landscape almost doubled its top estimate to make £13,000 and Shannon Approach by Camille Souter, with a pre-sale figure of £3,000-£5,000 far surpassed these sums to go for £11,500.
The results from Whyte's on Tuesday last were just as encouraging. There must be particular satisfaction that two pictures by Tony O'Malley performed especially well. Now in his late 80s, O'Malley is a universally admired artist in this country, but his work has never fetched astronomically high prices. His gloriously-coloured oil Black Line - Yellow Line, Maguez therefore carried what seemed to be a perfectly reasonable estimate of £10,000-£12,000 but in the event it made £21,000, which Whyte's believes to be the top sum yet for this artist at public auction. Another O'Malley, an oil on paper simply entitled Maguez and painted just four years ago, went 50 per cent over its top estimate to sell for £15,000.
This was by no means an isolated instance of a contemporary artist performing well. Both the de Vere's and the Whyte's sales contained a number of pictures by William Crozier and on the latter occasion, one of his oils on canvas, Vine and Rock Hill I sold for £3,200, which once more was higher than the upper estimate. This was also the case for Michael Mulcahy's Warrior's Song (£1,050) and the same artist's Two Heads (£1,500). Both Crozier and Mulcahy are abstract artists and therefore, it might have been thought, even less likely to find buyers in a market which traditionally has shown a strong preference for figurative work and landscapes.
Naturally, pictures of this kind also performed well at Whyte's. The day's best-seller was just such a work: Daniel O'Neill's Paddlers, Co Kerry which made £27,000, while his Girl in a Turquoise Dress and a Red Jacket also did well, fetching £13,000. Nevertheless, after these three art auctions, the first of the autumn season, the indications are that not only will the market survive any present economic nervousness but buyers are even becoming more adventurous in their choices.
