LILY KELLY NAPANGARDI

Lilly Kelly is one of 3 Mount Leibig female artists whose careers have burgeoned post 2000. While Ngoia Pollard, who won the Telstra National Aboriginal Art Award in 2006, and Wentja Napaltjarri, have arguably established a higher profile than Kelly amongst exhibiting galleries in the primary market their sales at auction have been too infrequent to have established a secondary market presence as yet. There is little doubt however that, in time, they will join Kelly and Bill Whiskey amongst the top 100 artists.

Lilly Kelly’s auction records are completely dominated by works created after 2000 including all of her top 10 results. One of the few exceptions amongst the 37 works that have been offered was a work created as early as 1989. It is the only Papunya Tula provenanced painting that has appeared for sale despite the fact that she created works for the company for almost a decade beginning in the mid 1980’s. When offered at Christies Auctioneers in October 2004 (Lot 21) the rather generic Untitled work failed to attract a buyer despite its provenance. All of her top 4 results however were created for Watiyawarnu Art, the semi-official art centre in Mount Leibig while works created for independent dealers litter her best sales.

Lilly Kelly’s work first appeared at auction in 2004 more than a decade after the fist specialist Aboriginal art sale and nearly 2 decades after she began painting. Few works of significance had appeared by the end of 2005 however in 2006, her most successful year at sale, 13 works were offered of which 9 sold for a total value of $95,805. During the following year 8 sold of 13 offered and although her works fared slightly worse during 2008, thereby dropping her average price to slightly below $10,000, her career clearance rate is still a very healthy 63%. Her record price at auction was achieved for a work of the highest quality commissioned by Neil Murphy through Watiyawarnu. Sandhills Around Mount Leibig 2004, measuring 176 x 120 cm. sold for $39,600 against a presale estimate of just $12,000-16,000 at Sotheby's in July 2007 (Lot 167). This transcended the previous record set by another very fine work from the same original source which had sold in Lawson~Menzies November 2006 sale for $24,000 (Lot 42).

Most of the 22 works that have sold in the secondary market have been relatively large with few falling below 90 x 120 cm. As a result only 3 works have sold for less than $2,500 while 6 have achieved prices between $5000 and $10,000 and 7 have sold for more. Surprisingly it has been Elder Fine Art in Adelaide that have championed Lilly Kelly’s works in the secondary market having sold 8 for a total of $49,270. This compares to the $51,720 has been realized for the 4 works sold through Lawson-Menizes while Mossgreen have sold 3 and Bonhams and Goodman 2. Yet Sotheby’s hold the record despite having sold just 1 work. While there do not appear to have been many resales, the number of highly estimated works that have failed however should be of deep concern. Amongst these 15 paintings 4 have been valued in the $16,000-25,000 range and a further 6 have fallen between $8,000-15,000.

Lilly Kelly best works are highly accomplished and regardless of provenance, or delicacy of execution, many others are very good paintings indeed. In the right setting, their spacious textural feel resonates sympathetically with contemporary aesthetics. These are paintings to be valued more for the pleasure they impart rather than their cultural content. Due to her fierce independence and prolific nature Kelly’s works appear in a range of primary market outlets from retail stores to exhibiting galleries. If you like her work, take your time, and chose wisely. Only the very best are likely to be good ‘investments’.

© Adrian Newstead