The Sydney Morning Herald reports that a new record has been set for an Australian artist at auction. Sydney Nolan’s First Class Marksman sold for A$5.4m at Menzies:
The 1946 canvas sold to an undisclosed telephone bidder for $4.5 million before the buyer’s premium was added, drawing a round of applause. The canvas is thought to be the only one in Nolan’s celebrated first series of 27 Kelly paintings not in the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. It was sold by the Vizard Foundation, overseen by the businessman Steve Vizard, who bought it for a reported $400,000 in 1992. It has mainly been on show at the National Gallery of Victoria since then.
[…] Art-market analyst Michael Reid said the result was a ”wonderful money-vitamin shot in the arm to the industry that has been anaemic for the last 12 months”. […]
The previous auction record for Australian art was $3.48 million, reached in 2007 – the market’s last bumper year – for Brett Whiteley’s sexualised landscape The Olgas for Ernest Giles.
Record $5.4m for Nolan (Sydney Morning Herald)
