The art market is strong everywhere as this story from New Zealand shows. Dame Kiri Te Kanawa got a record price for her Charles Frederick Goldie painting of a sleeping Maori:
Forty Winks was the only painting Goldie did of Rutene Te Uamairangi, a Kingite Warrior of Taupo. It sold to a private New Zealand buyer for $573,000 – a record auction price for a Goldie. […]
International Art Centre director Richard Thomson said it was one of several paintings to sell for a record price in an environment largely unaffected by the recession. Mr Thomson said one highly encouraging aspect of the sale in the bidding for Dame Kiri’s Goldie was that there were so many genuine buyers in the $400,000 range.
“It is a very strong market.” Goldie paintings were as sound an investment as anything in the art market, he said. “I think it will be a million-dollar painting one day. “There is no sign of the recession in the art market. It is a solid and safe place to put your money.”
Big Spenders Drive Art Market to New Highs (New Zealand Herald)
