‘I’m excited by the chase’
Andrew Grigg tried to have a life that didn’t revolve around art and antiques, but he couldn’t ignore his upbringing.
Andrew Grigg tried to have a life that didn’t revolve around art and antiques, but he couldn’t ignore his upbringing.
Andrew Grigg takes seriously his temporary custody of other people’s art and objects – the precious and often fragile items entrusted to him for auction are moved and handled “as if they’re babies”. He is equally concerned with where paintings, pottery, books and even the odd singlet come from.
The Auckland art and antiques dealer has amassed his own comprehensive collection of New Zealand art and pottery. He knows the provenance of each piece and often the person who created it.
Grigg is the owner of John Cordy, one of Auckland’s longest-established auction houses, known as Cordy’s.
His parents owned Gordon’s Antiques in Hamilton, and young Andrew could often be found helping out behind the counter after school. When customers suggested he might one day have his own antique business, Grigg insisted his future lay anywhere other than among old china, glass, art and books.
He studied Earth sciences at the University of Waikato and completed a BSc, earning a bit of money on the side “wheeling and dealing in antiques”. Whether it was nature or nurture, Grigg now wryly admits he “just wasn’t into science”. Eleven years ago, after working his way through the art and antiques business, he bought Cordy’s, a business with a distinguished pedigree.
Three Mondays of each month, bargain hunters turn up for the general auctions where a wide variety of items, from fridges to books, go under the hammer. The fourth Monday is reserved for the antiques and art auction, which attracts more serious collectors and dealers.
All auctions are presided over by Grigg and his team, providing entertainment, excitement, satisfaction and, for some, disappointment.
Your standard Webb Corbett or Stuart crystal may have been cherished, but it’s worth just $25.
At the time the business started, there wasn’t anyone named John Cordy, so where does the name come from?
There were four original owners: Peter Webb, Hamish Cordy Keith, Colin
John McCahon and a lawyer named Michael Draffin. So the name came from McCahon and Keith’s middle names.
After that joint ownership, Peter Webb had the business by himself, then sold it to Erika de Atzell, who did the accounts for him. She ran it for a long time before passing on ownership to John Maconie. I bought Cordy’s from him, and he still works here four days a month. When John sold the firm, he didn’t just stick an ad in the paper. He engaged a gentleman to find someone who would be the right person to take it on. He wanted it to remain as a private, stand-alone company and carry on with old-fashioned values.
Do you deal in McCahon’s work?
We have sold McCahon, but because of the high dollar value of the likes of McCahon, Goldie and Hodgkins, that market is very competitive and the other houses fight for those top works. We recently had a good early Don Binney we sold for $90,000 and also two Indian pop art paintings from the 60s, discovered in a basement, that sold for $102,000 each.
What sort of items make their way to your general auctions?
Every day we hear “our children do not want this stuff”. Waterford Crystal will sell quite well, but your standard Webb Corbett or Stuart crystal – a cut crystal bowl, a beautiful piece, with rainbow colours through it and singing like a bell – might go for $25. It might have been given as a wedding present in 1956, been cherished and kept in the china cabinet, which you weren’t allowed to open and the key was hidden, and now it’s worth just $25.
What’s your advice to people who rarely use or even display their china or crystal?
Use it. Put it in the dishwasher – if the gilt comes off, just keep using it. That dinner set that was cherished and bought at an equivalent cost of $3000 today – we are going to get maybe $200 for it. It’s a no-brainer. Don’t go and buy a cheap one from Briscoes. Use and enjoy your beautiful dinner set, and put it in the dishwasher if you want to.
What’s the most interesting part of your business?
The history behind the pieces. Some have extraordinary stories: who that medal was awarded to and for what, the diary of a dog handler on Scott’s expedition to the South Pole, Maori artefacts, the China tea trade, even a humble pottery field tile and how it helped drain the land to develop the farm. I am also excited by the thrill of the chase, what’s coming in next.
You are constantly checking provenance, so how did you get caught out with the Peter Snell singlet (the sale was voided after auction when the singlet was shown not to be the one Snell wore at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics).
You have to question yourself when something like that happens. I still believe that name tag in the back, Snell PG, was real and probably taken from his roll of name tags for the Tokyo Olympics. But it was proven that the singlet itself and the number on it weren’t right. Provenance becomes such a huge thing. The provenance we had was limited. No one, through any of the viewings, came forward and said anything. No one said, “No, I have the original one.” It was only at the end, comparing it with singlets of other athletes from the same Olympic Games, that we could see that it wasn’t right. There is no point putting your head in a hole and hiding. You’ve got to be fair.
What’s more satisfying, the arty auctions or the hurly burly of general auctions?
A lot of the weekly sales can be fun, but there are probably more gems in the antiques auction. For example, a large Roy Cowan vase that I sold in 1999 for about $3000 when I worked at Dunbar Sloane, today I estimate it’s worth $8000-10,000, and it might go for more. In the last auction, I had a Barry Brickell piece – a dog boat, a bit like a bowl – that was estimated at $2800. It went for $17,500. Barry died earlier this year and there is no more. He was a one-off, a freak, with his railway to the sky and planting all his native trees at Coromandel. He started the railway to get the clay, and it became the biggest tourist attraction on the Coromandel Peninsula. The pots he made were fantastic. The dogboat piece had life and energy to it: it is characterful.
What are your “go to” references?
If you are interested, you pick up and retain a lot yourself. I use Google a lot for certain things. I might compare something to sales that are happening on eBay internationally to see, for example, whether that Royal Doulton figure is a rare one or a common one worth only $40. I have a good reference library on hand, which helps. Databases like Artprice are great. I don’t like things slipping through, someone buying something for a minimal amount and then it transpires it’s worth a lot of money. I am sure it happens and you can’t stop it, but I don’t like it. We get the Antiques Trade Gazette: The Art Market Weekly, from London, and I skim-read it, but hardly get a chance to catch up on it.
What do you collect?
New Zealand art, mainly modern and contemporary, often with a story behind it. I have studio pottery by Barry Brickell, Len Castle, Peter Stichbury, Doreen Blumhardt, Mirek Smíšek, Juliet Peter, Roy Cowan and Chester Nealie. I also have pieces by Warren Viscoe, Tony de Lautour, Paul and Mark Rayner, Louise Dentice, Paul Dibble and others.
What do you read?
I’m reading a fantastic book on Maori art by Augustus Hamilton, written in 1901 ( The Art Workmanship of the Maori Race in New Zealand). I bought it at one of our auctions a few years ago and it has been sitting out the back. The illustrations history in it is amazing, And also a book on Greer Twiss, which I bought from the Art Fair ( Greer Twiss: Sculptor, by Greer Twiss, Robin Woodward and Haru Sameshima). I also have on the go a book called Kobi Bosshard: Goldsmith, by Damian Skinner. He writes so well and covers many different fields. On holiday recently, I took Dianne Bardsley’s The Land Girls: In A Man’s World, 1939-1946. It’s about the women who worked on farms in that period and it was fascinating.
What’s your advice to an aspiring collector?
There are some fantastic collections that can be put together. We see pieces like the Southern Cross, war-related sweetheart brooches and sharks-teeth jewellery. Those pieces are fantastic. Starting a collection can lead you on to a discovery of history. This going out and buying new the same stuff everyone else has – it doesn’t take too much initiative to come along to an auction or visit a dealer, and put together a collection that is fabulous and unique, has heritage and tells so much more about you than a beige vase.