The sale of 25 paintings from prolific Dunedin artist Eion Stevens was supposed to directly benefit Princes St art studio Artsenta.
However, when all of the paintings did not meet the reserve price during auction, Haywards Auction House put in some extra work to make sure the items would sell and made sure the charity benefited.
Haywards co-owner Bridgette More said they wanted to support Artsenta because the charity was their neighbour, literally.
She said they were well aware of the work Artsenta did in the mental health and addiction space and wanted to do what they could to help.
A lot of art was auctioned at Haywards so the business was well set up to conduct the auctions for the Stevens paintings.
"We really wanted to get everything sold and so we kind of went out of our way to negotiate between the seller and the buyers to do so."
In total, the paintings ended up selling for about $24,000 and Artsenta received half of that from Stevens’ estate to use for its 40th anniversary celebrations next year.
