DH March 09 Aboriginal Art Auction Pt. 1 All eyes were on Deutscher and Hackett on the 25th of March with the Melbourne based art auction house conducting their very first dedicated Aboriginal art sale
News-Antique.com - May 13,2009 - All eyes were on Deutscher and Hackett on the 25th of March with the Melbourne based art auction house conducting their very first dedicated Aboriginal art sale.
The stakes could not have been higher for Deutscher and Hackett who not only faced the inescapable pressure associated with the beginning of any sort of new venture but also had to contend with the increased expectations of success that the circumstances (intentional or otherwise), under which the auction was conducted, created. What were these circumstances?. Well, first of all, the fact that Menzies Art Brands decided to include Aboriginal art in their general art auctions as opposed to having separate Aboriginal art sales at the beginning of 2008 leaving what many would consider a gap in the market. With Deutscher and Hackett seemingly aiming to fill that gap in the market one would expect that their auction would attract the extra business that was presumably up for grabs after Menzies Art Brands stopped conducting stand-alone Aboriginal art sales. Secondly, the abundance of lower priced works in the catalogue meant that the expectations of success were even higher due to the general affordability of the catalogue. And last, but definitely not least, was the rather bad decision by DH to hold their auction on the same night as the major Menzies Art Brands auction that took place in Sydney. The Menzies Art Brands March 25 major fine art auction would have been tough competition for any other auction let alone an inaugural dedicated Aboriginal art sale that doesn’t have any history or track record to attract business.
I am not entirely sure whether it was Menzies Art Brands or Deutscher and Hackett who were the first to announce their sale on the 25th of March but the Jan-March edition of the Australian Art Collector magazine had an advertisement announcing the Deutscher and Hackett Inaugural Aboriginal art auction as the 18th of March and not the 25th of March. The 18th of March had been announced as the date for the Deutscher and Hackett auction as early as December 2008. Funnily enough, the Menzies Art Brands March auction took place on the 18th of March in 2008 and was also advertised as taking place on the 18th of March in 2009 until they changed the date to the 25th. So here we have two auction houses who originally advertised the date for their auctions as the 18th of March and then both changed the date for their auction to the 25th. I am not sure who decided to run their auction on the 25th of March as opposed to the 18th of March first but it does seem kind of odd that two different companies would advertise their auction on the same date and then change the date of their auction to another date which also happens to be the same date again. I am not suggesting that anything sinister is going on but it is rather unusual all the same and I will
