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Bill Hammond’s artwork “Melting Moments I” has sold for $1.715 million.
A painting from late Christchurch artist Bill Hammond fell short of its projected sale price that would have made it the most expensive New Zealand artwork ever sold.
Before Monday night’s auction at Webb’s in Auckland, Melting Moments I was expected to fetch more than the previous high-water mark of $2.45 million set by a Colin McCahon piece.
It had been listed for between $1.5 and $2.5m, but ended up fetching $1.715m once the paddles were put away.
Webb’s director of art Charles Ninow had previously said the painting could surpass the McCahon price, but admitted afterwards he was “having some fun” with the upper estimates.
Bids in the millions “are not placed very often in New Zealand auction rooms”, Ninow said.
“It’s an exceptional result, and it’s a new record for Hammond,” he said.
“There are so few paintings that have ever sold [in New Zealand] for anything in that range.”
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The 1.6m by 2.14m piece fetched nearly double what any Bill Hammond painting had previously gone for.
In October 2021, the work’s sister piece, Melting Moments II, sold for $940,000, far higher than its estimated price tag of $350,000 – $550,000 – the most ever paid for a Hammond piece.
The piece, which Ninow said was the most significant by Hammond to come up for sale, was a masterpiece that was “enmeshed” with New Zealand’s culture.
“There are not a lot of these left in private hands,” Ninow said before the auction.
“Most of these are in museums. This is not an opportunity that will be repeated any time soon.”
The winning bid came from an online bidder, which Ninow said was becoming a more common occurrence, especially since Covid-19.
Peter Meecham
Webb’s director of art Charles Ninow said it was an exceptional result.
“People love it because they can do it from anywhere.”
The 1999 painting had been in the hands of a private owner since it was bought from Christchurch dealer Judith Gifford the same year it was painted.
Ninow said the work was relatively new when compared to the other artists whose pieces have fetched similar sums.
Hammond moved to Lyttelton in the mid-1970s and created many of his paintings in his studio housed in a former masonic lodge in the Canterbury port town.
The distinctive bird people that populated many of his paintings were inspired by a 1989 trip to the remote Auckland Islands.
RYAN ANDERSON & JASON DORDAY/STUFF
It is more than 100 years since the birth of one of New Zealand’s most important artists, Colin McCahon. This video was first published in August 2019.
McCahon’s 1982 painting Is there anything of which one can say look this is new? went for $2.45m last September.
Works by other notable artists such as Charles Frederick Goldie, Gretchen Albrecht, Tony Fomison, A. Lois White, Teuane Tibbo, Adele Younghusband, McCahon, and Louise Henderson also went under the hammer alongside Hammond.
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