GABRIELLA POSSUM NUNGURRAYI

In July 2008 Melbourne dealer Peter Los organised a sale of Australian Aboriginal art at the Hôtel Dassault in Paris through the French auction house Artcurial. In a sale that had mixed results Gabriella Possum’s Grandmothers Country was one of the star lots when sold for 24,784 € (equivalent to approximately $AUD48, 000). It is incredible, but none the less true, that until that time, every one of her 8 highest results had been achieved by Elder Fine Art in Adelaide with not a single sale recorded to any of the major players with stand alone Aboriginal art auctions.

Elder transcended the $7,050 mark set by Christies in November 2003 no less than 3 times on the one steamy November night in 2005. Works sold for $7,659, $7770 and $8,436 with the highest being for an Untitled work measuring 208 x 122 cm (Lot 93). This in turn was exceeded in June 2007 by Seven Sister’s Dreaming (Lot 158) and later, in December 2007, by the two paintings that hold the artist’s highest records here in Australia. The complex Bush Tucker Dreaming that sold for $11,000 against a presale estimate of $8,000-12,000 (Lot 152) and the equally detailed and whimsical Women's Love Story & Hunting Food, which reached $17,050 (Lot 33). Interestingly none of these works are recorded with a date of creation.

Elder Fine Art have in fact sold no less than 20 works for a total of $118,332 while Leonard Joel have sold 23 for $54,503. It would be interesting to speculate why it is that no other auction house has sold more than 3 works and Sotheby’s have sold none. Especially interesting, as Gabriella Possum’s results at auction are impressive and her lineage ‘royal’. Between 2005 and 2007 no less than 37 works were offered of which 31 sold for a clearance rate of 84%. Given a career success rate of a still relatively healthy 63% it is clear that the appreciation of, and demand for, her work has increased rapidly since the beginning of the new millennium. Her results would be all the more impressive were it not for the appearance at sale of prints and graphics of which only 9 have sold of 17 offered for an average price of just $330. The sale in Paris, that set her career high of $48,000, corresponded to a period of serious ill health during which the artist seemed unlikely to recover. Yet she has done so, and is now continuing to create works of great beauty, albeit not is fine as those created during the previous decade.

Foremost amongst a number of absolute bargains sold at auction were the exceptional 122 x 241 cm rendition of Seven Sister’s Dreaming estimated at a giveaway $2,500-3,500 and sold for $4,810 at Leonard Joel Melbourne in October 2005 (Lot 220), and the very unusual combined work featuring both Seven Sisters Dreaming and Bush Tucker Dreaming that sold for just $3,421 when estimated at a throw away $1,200-1,500 in the same sale (Lot 9).

Re-sales are hard to detect given the number of works with similar titles, however there have been some notable failures, generally recorded due to over ambitious estimates. Lawson~Menzies obviously felt they had a very special and most unusual Seven Sisters image that seemed to have been rendered in an experimental technique using a palette knife. Estimated at $18,000-20,000, the highest ever sought for a work by this artist, L-M failed to attract a buyer at their May 2007 sale (Lot 14). They had no better luck with the magnificent 94 x 186 cm Seven Sister’s Dreaming 2000, which they estimated at $10,000-12,000 in their November 2007 sale (Lot 258).

With the narrow range of provenance currently accepted by Sotheby’s, Deutcher and Hackett and Mossgreen it is unlikely that an artist, even of Gabriella Possum’s lineage and talent, who has worked independently and eschewed exclusive contracts with any one gallery, will get a guernsey, and as a result collectors keen on her works should be able to pick up bargains for the foreseeable future. She is a seriously talented painter even if her Bush Tucker works seem slightly kitsch, or generic, to those mesmerized by the optical and minimal. Her cosmic paintings are worth far far more than the market currently demands, but buyers should be quick. They are unlikely to remain so inexpensive once the Aboriginal art market begins to gain traction again.

© Adrian Newstead