A major Bill Hammond canvas, Zoomorphic Lounge III, sold for $1.35 million at Webb’s auction house in Auckland on Tuesday. The 1999 acrylic work, featuring surreal bird-like figures on an emerald green background, missed its top estimate while remaining in the upper tier of New Zealand art sales.
The Auction Floor and Final Sale Price
The 1999 acrylic-on-canvas piece by Lyttelton artist Bill Hammond went under the hammer as part of a major private collection featuring 100 Kiwi art pieces from 39 artists. Auctioneer Webb’s had estimated the work would fetch between $1.4 million and $1.8 million during the Tuesday night event at the Webb’s auction house in Mt Eden in Auckland.
While the final hammer price settled at $1.35 million, additional auction house fees brought the total purchase price to $1.65m, according to Megan Shaw, art department manager at Webb’s. That figure makes the artwork the second most expensive Hammond piece sold.
“It misses out on the top spot by about $20,000.”
Megan Shaw, art department manager at Webb’s
That record remains held by Hammond’s painting Melting Moments, which achieved $1.7 million in 2023. A previous estimate for Melting Moments 1 back in 2023 had reached $1.6 million under the hammer, setting a new record for the auction house at the time, as noted by Webb’s art manager Megan Shaw. Despite missing the upper estimate, the sale places Zoomorphic Lounge III inside the top ten most expensive artworks sold in the New Zealand secondary art sales market.
Bird-Land Symbolism and the Artist’s Legacy
Painted in 1999, the large-scale canvas is characterized by an emerald green background with long lines dripping down the canvas. Surreal humanoid creatures, bird-like and horse-like figures, engage in human activities across the scene—playing in a band, hula-hooping, smoking, and drinking at a bar. Some of the animals feature barcodes tattooed on their bodies.
Linda Tyler, a professor in the Art History department at the University of Auckland, explained that Hammond’s distinctive style crystallized following a pivotal visit to the sub-antarctic Auckland Islands in 1989.
“What struck him there was it was a bird-land. It was like New Zealand before human beings arrived and his art was very markedly changed after that moment. He became a little bit bird obssesed.”
Photo: Newstalk ZB
Linda Tyler, professor in the Art History department at the University of Auckland
Tyler noted that Hammond used avian figures not as literal ornithological illustrations, but as cultural stand-ins. He’s not exactly reproducing birds, Tyler said, But he’s using the bird as a symbol – as an iconic symbol to stand in for New Zealanders and who we are and where we are in the world.
Gary McCormick, a Lyttelton-based poet, broadcaster, and close friend of Hammond who spent time with him at the local bar The Civil & Naval, described the auctioned canvas as spooky yet deeply evocative of national identity.
“Obviously the forest green type cover for the whole painting in which there are all these bird like creatures. That says New Zealand for me. And there is this slight lurking menace which I think is also part of New Zealand life.”
Gary McCormick, poet and broadcaster
Provenance and Market Scarcity
The painting carried exceptional provenance. According to Shaw, the work remained in Hammond’s own collection for many years before being acquired by a collector who subsequently loaned it out. The piece spent a decade on loan to major galleries, including Auckland Art Gallery.
Photo: RNZ
Tyler pointed out that the artist’s death naturally impacts market dynamics by restricting available inventory. If you create scarcity, which artists dying does, it limits the supply of artworks from them, Tyler said. Then it makes the commodity more valuable and because it’s such a good example and in such great condition it’s liable to get at the high end of their estimates.
The anonymous private collector selling the 100-piece collection chose to part with the works specifically to support a new generation of artists. McCormick had expressed hope before the auction that a New Zealand gallery would secure the piece so that future generations could view it.
Buyer Anonymity and Future Public Access
While Webb’s withheld the identity of the winning bidder, auction organizers confirmed the artwork will remain in New Zealand. The work has found a happy home where it will be a centrepiece of their collection for years to come, Shaw stated, adding that it would be up to the purchaser if they wanted to make the work public.
Photo: 1news
The transaction also triggers a resale royalty: 5% of the sale price goes directly to the artist’s estate, a provision applicable to deceased artists who passed away within the last 50 years. By comparison, the most expensive New Zealand painting ever sold was Charles Frederick Goldie’s Thoughts of a Tohunga, which realized $3.75 million.
