Aboriginal Painting Sells for Record $2.1M
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SYDNEY, Australia — A painting by Australian indigenous artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri sold at auction for a record $2.1 million, Sotheby’s said.
“Warlugulong,” painted in 1977, is regarded as one of the most important Australian paintings of the 20th century, according to the National Gallery of Australia, which bought it late Tuesday at the auction in Melbourne.
The sale confirms the rising popularity of indigenous art, Tim Klingender of Sotheby’s said.
“Aboriginal art has grown exponentially in popularity and in value over the last decade or more,” Mr. Klingender said by telephone from Melbourne yesterday. “It is now very much in line with other major art movements.”
The painting stands 6 feet high and more than 9 feet wide. It is one of Tjapaltjarri’s “seminal works” and “one of the first large canvases produced by the Western Desert dot painters,” Ron Radford, director of the National Gallery, said in a statement yesterday.
