Lifetime of dealing to culminate in ‘huge' final auction

Otago Daily Times

02-05-2025

Respected Mid Century furniture dealer Ross Morrison, known affectionately in Christchurch as Mr Mod, sits on an adjustable chair made in the mid-1960s. Behind him are some of the 700 lots from his collection which will go to auction on May 24-25. PHOTO: TIM CRONSHAW
A celestial globe picked up at a flea market is perhaps Ross Morrison's greatest find over a lifetime of dealing and trading in decorative arts.
The Christchurch collector and dealer, specialising in the mid century movement of interior design, could at once see the value of the 1810 spherical antique made by the Cary globe-maker family.
"I found that in a flea market in California. First of all I saw the base sitting on the ground and I realised this was a Georgian base for a globe and casually asked the stall holder if he had the other bit. This guy picked it up and threw it to me."
Mr Morrison handed over $US60 for a globe worth today in the direction of $10,000.
This is one of the few decorative art pieces from his personal collection that will not go into nearly 700 lots for auction over two days at an Addington warehouse from May 24.
In the catalogue Italian, United States and Scandinavian interior design from the 1950s to the 1970s mingles with vintage, Georgian, William IV and earlier antiques.
They will all go under the hammer, marking an end to 45 years of buying and trading.
Retirement in theory beckons with the big cleanout giving him more time to pursue sculpting and put his deep voice to work on the singing stage.
"This is the grand finale. A dealer is always a dealer and I'm not going to say I'm going to stop buying, but I won't do anything of this scale again — this is huge. I've been doing this since I was 16 years old."
The auction is the last of three over the past three years, with one of the first two staged in Auckland netting $500,000.
With a ruthlessness, he's limited himself to the contents of a single house and reserved a few pieces for his family.
Almost the entire Mid Century furnished contents of an Ian Athfield-designed house in St Martins were emptied out, as was a former warehouse.
"The first two auctions were stock from my Mr Mod store with a few antique pieces I put in as well from my personal collection. But this one is stuff I could never sell or let anyone else have.
"This is quite a big thing for me to do and quite an emotional journey because it's the end of what I've done for a business."
Mr Morrison left school in the sixth form to join his cabinet-maker and antiques-dealer father, John, at a Victoria Street shop.
They shared a special bond with the elder Morrison passing on his knowledge to his son.
Much of this was fine Georgian and Victorian furniture and examples he picked up along the way will be in the auction.
A lady's inlaid writing desk from Denmark dates from about 1870 and nearby is a William IV dressing table and a rosewood writing desk he's attributed to British cabinet makers Gillows of Lancaster from the 1830s to 1840s. A Georgian bureau bookcase from about 1800 is within arm's reach of a painted and gilded Italian console table.
"There is quite a bit of Italian here which I've loved and collected. A Venetian chair, you can see examples of that in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. It would have come out of a big hall in Venice or Florence, but this is a Venetian one and I have some documentation on that."
Evidence of his wide taste is a Macassar ebony sideboard in an almost mahogany colour with darkish purple streak from the Art Deco period, made in the 1920s to 1930s.
Many French antiques in the collection he also, until now, could not part with.
They come from when he set up a flea market in Paris with friends and a former partner and then buying French antiques to stock Christchurch shops in the 1990s.
Likewise, a few Japanese creations are from when he used to buy in Japan and on-sell in England.
Then there is the vast Mid Century modern style within his collection.
When his father died at 63 in 1995, he was lost and searching for something new.
"I was very interested in Mid Century furniture when not many were into it then. I bought a few pieces in France which I still have which are not in this sale and I have kept — a sideboard and a light which turned out to be by [Italian architect and designer] Carlo Scarpa. I've got places for those, but I can't fit everything in this auction into a house."
Retained are a pair of Tobia Scarpa leather lounge chairs because, at 62, he likes comfort as well as good design.
A set of six Herbert Hirche "space-age looking" dining chairs in leather with polyester resin on brushed stainless legs were pulled out by his wife at the last minute.
Also staying is a cabinet made by his father when he sat his cabinet-making examination in London and a couple of projects such as a Danish Empire period sofa will be kept to be restored.
Otherwise, much of the Mid Century design which sparked a collecting passion will go.
The late 1960s were when his father's friends used to buy houses and everyone would pitch in to pour concrete floors on weekends. A few of them were architects who designed their own furniture which caught his young eye.
He liked the aesthetics of the 1960s American and Italian style and the simplified modern Danish design.
Ahead of his time, he began buying unfashionable post-war items — well made and well designed — before the stylish furniture created during a hotbed of modernism design became popular.
"People laughed at me when I showed them what I was buying. I did a show in Auckland with French antiques and a bit of Mid Century as well and nobody could get their head around it."
The style suited the New Zealand lifestyle and housing, he said.
When he first started buying in the United States, George Nelson, Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen and Harry Bertoia were among the big names.
But he also had the foresight to buy some of the best of Danish design on these trips. The interior works of Arne Vodder, Hans Wegner, Arne Jacobsen and Borge Mogensen were less popular then and more affordable than the American designers.
"Then I looked at buying in Denmark when the American market picked up on the Scandinavian design and they got really big into it. I just started buying through auction houses and dealers and then the final thing I did, which I always wanted to do, was go buying in Italy."
He's always been drawn to the boldness of post-war Italian furniture with its innovation, flamboyance and testing the edge of design.
Such has been the wave of Mid Century popularity that the last trip to Europe cost him a small fortune and put an end to trading travel.
Put him on the spot to name his favourite designer and he will go to the late Carlo Mollino.
From a wealthy Turin family, the idiosyncratic architect designed everything from cars and furniture to ski lodges and a scaffolding system and even a skiing technique.
A visit to his apartment, Casa Mollino, by appointment in 2016 only increased his admiration.
Most of his one-off designs have ended up with European collections with one of his tables selling in New York for $US6.2 million in 2020.
Only later editions of the Italian's design — such as a chair made by Cassina — have found their way to Mr Morrison.
Great respect is also reserved for US designers such as the Eames duo with their design flair still being copied today. Some of their original furniture is in the auction.
A collection of lighting includes a "candelabra chandeliery" design from Italy and a Murano light with a barley twist in the glass.
As he strolls around the polished-floor warehouse, he points out an adjustable chair with a fibreglass arm shell on a star base in cast aluminium, made in the mid-1960s.
He muses a large Italian lacquered cabinet with a Samurai warrior on it will likely find a home in a hotel or entranceway.
Sure to attract interest is a commode with carved, poly-chromed and gilded pair of dragons at the platform base and a marble top — likely Spanish — which came from Hollywood actor James Coburn's house.
The same could be said for the iconic Arne Jacobsen egg chair brought into New Zealand by an architect and bought from a family member.
Perhaps the oldest item is the 18th century Venetian chair with a William and Mary inlaid mulberry chester drawers vying for this honour and the latest a 1980s Mitsubishi X10 vertical music centre.
The shedding of possessions going back to his youth extends to an 1830 Chinese export lacquer collector's cabinet which he bought at 18.
Unlike the other auctions, he's running this one himself, renting the warehouse on a short term lease and bringing in an auctioneer from Dunedin's Proctor Auctions because he likes their old style banter.
At the final fall of the hammer it will be all over.
"Once it's gone it won't be repeated and this is it. I'm happy to let it go and for other people to enjoy."