Tui stone sculpture sells for $83,000, smashing previous record at Taranaki auction

A “stunning” sculpture crafted on the foreshore of New Plymouth has more than trebled the previous record price for work created at the biennial Te Kupenga Stone Sculpture Symposium.

Tui on the Kowhai, a piece by Pirongia artis Bill Devoy, sold for $83,000 in front of hundreds of onlookers on the Coastal Walkway on Saturday.

Devoy’s work had been the focal point for a number of people in the community, with some even urging the New Plymouth District Council to purchase the piece.

“It was the talk of the town before the auction,” Te Kupenga Stone Sculpture Symposium spokesperson Renate Verbrugge said.

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“We knew it was going to be a very popular piece.”

Just who purchased the work remains a mystery, although auctioneer Peter McDonald said it was a local.

Even with the widespread interest, Verbrugge admitted organisers were surprised just how much it sold for.

“We were because I think the previous highest price was, I think, $25,000,” she said.

“But it is a very good price for this sculpture, it was definitely worth it.

“And that’s what an auction does, it creates this because if two people have the money and want it then the sky is the limit, really.”

McDonald estimated there were up to 600 people at the auction, with a lot of focus on Devoy’s work.

“That was a stunning piece and worth every penny,” he said.

Verbrugge described the auction as the “best one ever” with an unparalleled standard of work and interest.

“It was a combination of a lot of things that made this happen,” she said.

“We haven’t had an auction for three years (because of Covid) and we’ve been doing this for so long now, people know about the auction and know there are good sculptures to be had there.”

She said the symposium was also popular with artists because it was one of the few in the world that had such a high volume of pedestrian traffic everyday it was on.

Overall, just three of the 42 works that were crafted did not sell following the month-long symposium which featured artists from Japan, Macedonia, Portugal and Australia, as well as sculptors from right across New Zealand.

The artists had three weeks to make up to two pieces before they were on public display for the next week.

The artists then receive 80% of the sale price, with the remaining 20% retained by the Te Kupenga Stone Sculpture Society.