Deutscher and Hackett First Auction
Published May 18th, 2007
The firm’s first pictures sale – held on May 9 and 10 in Melbourne but also aired in Sydney at the firm’s near-city Surry Hills gallery – raised $8.6 million. That included no less than 24 works that sold for $100,000 or more, most of which also sold well above estimate.
Among the successes was the unusual colonial work by Robert Dowling, Masters George, William and Miss Harriet Ware with the Aborigine Jamie Ware, sold prior to the auction to the National Gallery of Victoria for $810,000.
Other estimate-busters included Fred Williams’s Silver Landscape at $456,000, Albert Tucker’s Australian Girl in Paris at $312,000 and Arthur Boyd’s Evening, Pulpit Rock, Shoalhaven at $240,000. Two other Boyd Shoalhavens – which are regarded as almost an art field in themselves – fetched $180,000 and $156,000.
The firm’s principals are Chris Deutscher and Damian Hackett, both of whom jumped ship from the rival Deutscher-Menzies art auction business, to which Deutscher lent his name. Confused? So are we – they’re still fighting in court over who gets to use whose name and client list. Chairman of the new operation is businessman and art patron Ian Hicks.
