A number of world records tumbled on Thursday May 7, at Summer Place in Hyde Park, Johannesburg, at the auction of the late Roger Brett Kebble's art collection. The auction, led by seasoned auctioneer Graham Britz of Graham's Fine Art Auctioneers, netted a total of R53 763 050, with 93.23% of the 133 lots selling.

The auction saw telephone bidders from the UK, the USA, Bermuda and Australia participating, along with the 800-strong crowd that gathered at this upmarket Northern suburbs venue. As the auction progressed, world records began to fall, including a R3.85M for Alexis Preller's Christ Head, and R660 000 for 'The Valley of the Kaffirkuils near Riversdale' by Jan Volschenk. Works by George Pemba, Irma Stern and Maud Sumner also achieved big-ticket prices.

Calling the sale a 'watershed', Britz said, 'the best prices were realised for many of the works, which directly illustrates the value of the individual pieces' we could clearly see the market's change of taste to Modernist Post War paintings'. Britz said this is proved by the results seen for Douglas Portway's Abstract Landscape (R418 000); Norman Catherine's Dreamwalker (R330 000) and Stanley Pinker's Trapeze in the Sky (R495 000).

Despite this success, Britz, who also runs Graham's Fine Art Gallery, was cautious in discussing the state of the market. 'People who want to realise the best prices for their works will have to be patient and wait for each annual sale, so that the market is not oversupplied with mid-range works. In the Bearish market that we are seeing now, patience is the key. In the anticipated Bull market, I would like to see us increasing to two sales annually'.