The idea for Locker 227 was born in the year 2005, when I missed out on buying some paintings at auction because I did not know that they were being auctioned. One painting was a Roland Wakelin landscape, which was up for auction at Christies in Melbourne, and the others were small surrealist landscapes by James Gleeson, from John Williams Auctions in Alexandria, Sydney.
When trying to find a service that could notify me when paintings of my favourite artists were coming up for auction, I found that the websites available at the time were either USA and Europe focussed, and the ones that were Australian based didn't show future auctions, didn't cover the smaller auction houses and were too expensive anyway.
And so Locker 227 was created - an Australian based website of art auction records, with a 'future auction' function, covering the smaller auction houses, and available at an affordable price (with lots of free functionality too!)
The smaller auction houses in particular can be great places to find a bargain painting. Maybe it has been poorly presented and in poor condition (but could be restored). Or maybe the vendor, and the auction house are not aware of its true value.
This may have occurred recently with a Guy Grey-Smith painting. For those who are unfamiliar with the artist, Guy Grey-Smith was a well respected, and now highly collectable Western Australian artist. Revered in his home state for his colourful representations of the landscape, he is less well known to the general public in other states. Being a Western Australian myself originally, I remembered being fascinated with his work at the Art Gallery of Western Australia and the Holmes a Court Gallery in East Perth. So I was excited to see that there was a large Guy Grey-Smith painting titled 'Pink Hills' to be auctioned at Aalders Antiques in Erskineville, Sydney. I made sure I attended the viewing, but I was a little disappointed when I viewed the painting. It was very different to his textural bees-wax emulsion works I admired at the galleries, and different to the flatter 'geometrical' works from the 1950's. But it did bear some similarity to many of his works on paper, especially works depicting grass trees with long curvy lines depicting the leaves. It was in poor condition, with areas of paint loss, and areas of flaking paint throughout. It was fixable, but if I bought it, I imagined it might disintegrate if I hit a bump in my car on the way home. Did I like it? It was 'interesting', and I think I only liked it because it was a 'Guy Grey-Smith'. I thought that it had some value as an 'experimental work' at best. Definitely worth more that the $1,500 - $2,500 estimate, but the poor condition was the factor in the end that made me decide to give it a miss.
The result in the end would prove that I still have a lot to learn. It sold for $10,350 (incl. buyers premium), but then on 1 December 2009 it sold for $65,240 (incl. buyers premium) at GFL Fine Art in Perth. It had been restored, re-framed and possibly even trimmed down (117 x 190 at Aalders compared to 110 x 183 at GFL).
To make sure you don't miss out on one of these bargains, ensure that all your favourite artists are added to your watchlist. I aim to have all the auctions that happen on a Friday or over a weekend for these smaller auction houses added to Locker 227 by the Thursday prior, by 7pm Eastern time. So Thurday nights are a good time to log in and check your watchlist.
Premium members can also subscribe to watchlist email alerts, to receive an email when artwork coming up for auction by artists on your watchlist is added to the site. Click on 'email alerts' under the watchlist menu to subscribe (note: only visible to Premium Members).
You can also follow us on Twitter, where we also add a 'tweet' when a new auction has been uploaded. Search for username Locker227. We also post an update to our Facebook page when new auctions are uploaded. Click on the 'like' button from the Facebook page to have these feeds added to your Facebook home page.
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