I went looking for artworks depicting the bird and found surprisingly few. My favourite among them is Layla Walter’s Black Robin, a small cast-glass vessel that gives this unassuming bird a rather lovely home.

That search led to a broader question of where to look to find our native birds amongst artworks. On the one hand, there are plenty of possibilities, including paintings, photographs, and sculptures. On the other hand, the market is quite consolidated around just a few artists who have made birds central to their practices.

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The artists and their birds

For several established New Zealand artists, native birds have been a recurring subject throughout their careers.

Don Binney is an obvious place to start, although his major paintings require a substantial budget. Heron’s Departure, New Spring, Te Henga sold for approximately $1.1 million at Art & Object. His kingfisher in Swoop of the Kotare fetched about $855,000 at International Art Centre.

Much of the appeal lies in how Binney brings the bird and landscape together, reduced to “strong graphic elements, bold lines, and areas of colour.”1 His birds occupy a commanding share of the picture, above his distinctive hard-edged landscapes. Binney was prolific in painting a wide range of birds including, kingfishers (kōtare), wood pigeons (kererū) and the shining cuckoo (pīpīwharauroa).

For a different encounter with native birds, Fiona Pardington is especially relevant this year. Her Venice Biennale presentation, Taharaki Skyside, centres on photographs of birds preserved in museum collections. Her photographs show the preserved birds in remarkable detail, down to individual feathers and the curve of a beak.

While the huia has featured most strongly in her practice, Pardington’s top auction result belongs to the kea, with her diptych Davis Kea Wings (Above) selling for approximately $133,000. With more patience, you can find a Pardington native bird work for between $10,000 and $20,000 at auction.

The huia also appears repeatedly in Paul Dibble’s sculpture. His bronze Huia Above, from Ron Sang’s collection, sold for approximately $256,000. His works frequently appear at auction. But be prepared as even a more modest Dibble work of a huia is likely to set you back at least $30,000.

Raymond Ching is known for his detailed, realistic paintings of birds, including kingfisher (kōtare), kea and kiwi. I particularly like his works that bring different species together, like an avian version of Noah’s ark or an artist’s rendering of The Conference of the Birds. His subjects also extend well beyond New Zealand, including his illustrations for The Reader’s Digest Book of British Birds, published in 1969.

Although probably not names familiar to most, Layla Walter and Mike Crawford have both incorporated native birds into their glass practices extensively and are worth exploring. At Masterworks Gallery, Crawford’s bird works are listed at prices around $10,000 – $20,000, while Walter has works priced starting at $2,750, though many are priced above $10,000.

There are other artists to explore as well, though native birds have not been as central to their practices. Robin White’s screenprint, White Oystercatcher and Harbour Cone, frequently appears at auction. Shane Cotton has often included native birds in his works, while a kingfisher appears prominently in Michael Smither’s Sea Wall and Kingfisher. Bill Hammond is known for his half bird, half man creatures. While these don’t directly depict our native birds, they were inspired by them, including the yellow eyed penguin (hoiho) and the extinct Haast eagle (hokioi).

Birds on a Budget

Many of the artists and works mentioned above require a substantial budget. But for collectors who would like to bring home a native bird, there are other options worth exploring at more modest prices.

There are still Don Binney prints available for under $10,000. His estate has partnered with Gow Langsford to release a limited edition print of New Summer Te Henga I at $5,500, featuring a shining cuckoo (pīpīwharauroa) and a fernbird (kōtātā). There is also the Motutapu Takahe print which can be found at auction for around $3,000.2

Mervyn Taylor was a notable New Zealand engraver, commercial artist, and publisher, who is worth exploring. His small, finely detailed studies include native birds such as fantails (pīwakawaka) and morepork (ruru). As a broad guide, signed limited editions can be found for around $1,000 to $2,500, while plates from his books sell for anywhere between $100 to $1,000.

At a lower price, Fishmob has a dedicated collection of bird prints, with many under $100 depending on size. Frank Gordon’s compositions are one option, his Blossoming Birds of Aotearoa combines native birds with a blossom-filled background for a substantial burst of colour.

I’ve been impressed by the commercial practice that Flox has built around her work. Native birds among brightly coloured foliage are a recurring theme, offered across a wide range of formats and price points. At the more affordable end, take a look at her paper works, starting at $60, including tūī, kōkako and morepork (ruru).

The Elusive Kiwi

After looking through all these birds, the one I expected to encounter more often was the kiwi. Huia and tui feature strongly, alongside fantails (pīwakawaka), kingfishers (kōtare) and shining cuckoos (pīpīwharauroa). But given the kiwi’s place in our national identity, it appeared less frequently than I anticipated.

There are examples in Pardington’s photographs, Ching’s paintings and Dibble’s sculptures. But I have yet to see a kiwi in Binney’s works3 and Pardington chose not to include the kiwi in her Venice Biennale show.

Perhaps the most enjoyable way to approach this subject is to start with a favourite bird and see where it takes you. Mine began with a black robin and led to a glass vessel. A search for a huia, tūī or kererū could take you through several very different kinds of art before you find the one you want to live with.

I’ve focused on solo exhibitions and installations, as well as small group shows limited to two or three artists.3 Familiar names such as Frances Hodgkins, Colin McCahon and Ralph Hotere appear regularly. But I wanted to look beyond the established names and focus on artists born from 1970 onwards.

The result is this list of 12 artists who have received repeated institutional attention. That doesn’t automatically make them artists to buy. But institutional recognition is an important part of an artist’s career, and because of that recognition, these are names I think collectors should at least have on their radar.

Some, including Reuben Paterson and Francis Upritchard, will already be familiar to many collectors. Others are less familiar, and not all make work that fits easily into a living room. Video and large scale installations remain more difficult propositions for most private collectors than paintings or sculptures, which is a useful reminder that institutional recognition does not always translate into collector interest.

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Steve Carr (b. 1976)

Fireworks, balloons and tyres are among Steve Carr’s raw materials. He uses film, photography and sculpture to turn familiar objects into something unexpected, often with considerable humour. In Chasing the Light, shown in Christchurch and Wellington, six video projections placed viewers inside a fireworks display, but without the accompanying noise. His bronze tyre sculptures, In Bloom, apply a similar transformation to an object more commonly found in the garage.

Exhibitions:
In Bloom, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2021), Christchurch Art Gallery (2021)
Chasing the Light, Christchurch Art Gallery (2018–2019), City Gallery Wellington (2019–2020)
Stretching Time, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2014)
Majo, Christchurch Art Gallery (2013)
Annabel, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2008)
Goes Nowhere Like a Rainbow, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2007–2008)
Table Cloth Pull and Splash, Christchurch Art Gallery (2007)
Air Guitar, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2002)
Zenstix 2000, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2000)

Glen Hayward (b. 1974)

Glen Hayward takes ordinary objects and recreates them in wood. Light switches, nails, cardboard boxes, an office cubicle and even a Toyota Corolla have all been painstakingly carved and painted to resemble the real thing. At first glance, many of the works can look like everyday objects that have simply been placed in the gallery. Look closer and you realise they have been made entirely by hand. The humour and craftsmanship also make his smaller works some of the more immediately collectable sculptures on this list.

Exhibitions:
Wish You Were Here, City Gallery Wellington (2022)
Glen Hayward: dendrochronology, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2017–2018)
Super Ordinary, Sarjeant Gallery (2016)
4 Plinths: Rita Angus used to grow her own vegetables, Te Papa (2014–2016)
I Don’t Want You to Worry About Me, I Have Met Some Beautiful People, City Gallery Wellington (2013)

Joanna Langford (b. 1978)

Joanna Langford uses everyday recycled or reused materials such as plastic bags and kebab sticks. The results often look like architectural models, but much stranger and less orderly. Down from the Nightlands filled the Sarjeant Gallery’s dome with towers and staircases rising into the space, while The Landless created another sprawling miniature city in Dunedin. Part of the appeal is the contrast between the cheap, makeshift materials and the amount of detail in the finished work.

Exhibitions:
4 Plinths: Out of the Dusk, Te Papa (2012–2014)
Up from the plainlands, Christchurch Art Gallery (2009–2011)
The Landless, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2009)
The Beautiful and the Damned, City Gallery Wellington (2008)
Twilight Falls, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2008)
Down from the Nightlands, Sarjeant Gallery (2007–2008)

Jae Hoon Lee (b. 1973)

Jae Hoon Lee’s landscapes can initially pass for exceptionally striking photographs. Look closer and the geography becomes less reliable. He combines images taken at different times and places to create scenes that feel both convincing and impossible. His Dunedin exhibition Stranger in Strange Land brought together photography, video and installation. For collectors drawn to landscape, his photographic works offer a contemporary alternative to the familiar painted view.

Exhibitions:
Leaf, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2023)
Bridge of Now and Here, Sarjeant Gallery (2021–2022)
Salvation (Keyboard), Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2021)
Stranger in Strange Land, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2015–2016)
Annapurna, Christchurch Art Gallery (2010–2012)
Salvation, 2006, Christchurch Art Gallery (2009)

Yona Lee (b. 1986)

Yona Lee turns stainless-steel tubing into sprawling sculptures that wind through galleries, incorporating lamps, beds and other everyday objects. The same type of tubing is normally used for handrails and on public transport, but Lee uses it to build structures that run through entire rooms.. In Transit at City Gallery Wellington and An Arrangement for 5 Rooms at Auckland Art Gallery show how completely her installations can take over a space. In both exhibitions, the sculptures spread through multiple rooms and became part of the architecture itself.

Exhibitions:
Fountain in Transit, Christchurch Art Gallery (2024–ongoing)
An Arrangement for 5 Rooms, Auckland Art Gallery (2022)
Propositions, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2021)
Succession, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2020)
In Transit, City Gallery Wellington (2018–2019)
Triptych, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2015–2016)
Constrained Organism, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2011)

Dane Mitchell (b. 1976)

Dane Mitchell often works with things that are difficult to see or hold: scent, weather, sound and speech. In Iris, Iris, Iris, shown at Auckland Art Gallery and Te Papa, perfume, incense and photographs connected the iris flower with the iris of the eye. Some of his projects can sound quite abstract when described, but in the gallery they often become something visitors can actually smell, hear or physically experience..

Exhibitions:
Iris, Iris, Iris, Auckland Art Gallery (2018–2019), Te Papa (2022–2023)
Post Hoc, Christchurch Art Gallery (2020)
Radiant Matter Part 1, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2011)
Radiant Matter Part II, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2011)
Simultaneously Modern: Three Art Installations from the Contemporary New Zealand Collections, Auckland Art Gallery (2011)

Shannon Novak (b. 1979)

Shannon Novak works with bright colours and geometric shapes, often extending his work across walls, windows and other parts of a building. He has also used digital and augmented reality to take the work beyond the gallery itself. His work is influenced by synaesthesia, which means he experiences connections between things such as sound and colour, while more recent projects have also dealt with identity and queer visibility. The Expanded Gallery in Dunedin was one of his more ambitious projects, with works appearing both inside the gallery and at locations around the city.

Exhibitions:
Parthenogenesis, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2023)
The Unfurling (with Pasha Clothier), Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2022–present)
Symplegma, Sarjeant Gallery (2021)
Arrhythmia, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2019–2021)
Sub Rosa, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2019)
The Expanded Gallery, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2017–2019)
Leitmotif: Abstract Portraits by Shannon Novak, New Zealand Portrait Gallery (2016)

Reuben Paterson (b. 1973)

Reuben Paterson has built a substantial career around the use of glitter. His paintings and sculptures draw on kōwhaiwhai, nature and personal history, with surfaces that change as they catch the light. His golden tree, The Golden Bearing, accounts for several appearances, but the broader institutional record is substantial too. City Gallery Wellington’s 2023 survey, The Only Dream Left, covered 25 years of his practice. Paterson is also already well established among collectors his works frequently appearing on both the primary and secondary market.

Exhibitions:
The Only Dream Left, City Gallery Wellington (2023)
Guide Kaiārahi, Auckland Art Gallery (2021–ongoing)
The Golden Bearing, Christchurch Art Gallery (2021–2022) Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2014, 2017–2018, and 2019)
Black Matter, The Dowse Art Museum (2020–2021)
The End, Christchurch Art Gallery (2016–ongoing)
Te Pūtahitanga ō Rehua, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2011), Christchurch Art Gallery (2013)
Gazillion Swirl!, Auckland Art Gallery (2011–2012)
When the Sun Rises and the Shadows Flee, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2007)
He Aha te Mea Nui? What is the Greatest Thing?, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2006)
When Paradise Is Not Enough, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2003)

Shannon Te Ao (b. 1978)

Shannon Te Ao was the 2016 Walters Prize winner, New Zealand’s leading contemporary art award. His films bring together landscape, movement, language and sound, often drawing on Māori histories and experience.

In Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro), a fantail becomes the central subject of a three-screen installation, carrying associations with life and death. Video may be a harder proposition for conventional collectors, but Te Ao’s repeated institutional recognition makes him difficult to ignore.

Exhibitions:
Ia rā, ia rā (rere runga, rere raro), The Dowse Art Museum (2024 and 2025)
what was or could be today (again), Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2021)
my life as a tunnel, The Dowse Art Museum (2018)
Tēnei Ao Kawa Nei, Christchurch Art Gallery (2017)
Untitled (McCahon House Studies), City Gallery Wellington (2017)

Yvonne Todd (b. 1973)

Yvonne Todd uses studio photography, think corporate headshots, glamour portraits and bridal photographs, but makes the results subtly strange and creepy. At first they can look like fairly ordinary studio portraits. Look longer and the wigs, costumes, makeup and awkward expressions start to make the subjects seem increasingly peculiar. Her 2014–15 survey Creamy Psychology took over the whole of City Gallery Wellington, while the recent Brides at The Dowse shows she is still working with many of the same ideas. For collectors, Todd is also one of the more established artists on this list, with photographs that are easy to display, even when their subjects are rather less comfortable to live with.

Exhibitions:
Brides, The Dowse Art Museum (2024)
Creamy Psychology, City Gallery Wellington (2014–2015)
The Wall of Man, Christchurch Art Gallery (2013)
Wall of Seahorsel, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2012–2013)
Pervasively Yours, Sarjeant Gallery (2009)

Francis Upritchard (b. 1976)

Francis Upritchard makes colourful human figures with exaggerated features, awkward poses and elaborate clothing. They can be funny, strange and sometimes slightly unsettling. Her survey Jealous Saboteurs travelled through Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin, bringing together figures, sloths and curious objects displayed on specially made furniture. Already a Walters Prize winner and New Zealand’s representative at the 2009 Venice Biennale, she is one of the more firmly established artists on this list.

Exhibitions:
Paper, Creature, Stone, Christchurch Art Gallery (2022)
Jealous Saboteurs, City Gallery Wellington (2016), Christchurch Art Gallery (2017), Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2017)
Believer, Christchurch Art Gallery (2013)
Rainwob I, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery (2008)
Boxing Arms, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2001)

Seung Yul Oh (b. 1981)

Seung Yul Oh is probably best known for his playful sculptures, but he also works across painting, installation, video and performance. MOAMOA, a survey presented in Dunedin and Wellington, covered a decade of sculpture, painting, installation, video and performance. Collectors attracted by the humour and unexpected forms of his larger works should also investigate his paintings and smaller sculptures, which offer a more practical way into his work.

Exhibitions:
SOOM, Auckland Art Gallery (2014–2015)
MOAMOA / Moamoa, a Decade, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2013–2014), City Gallery Wellington (2014)
Huggong, Christchurch Art Gallery (2013)
Mong Long Mong, 2007, DVD, Christchurch Art Gallery (2009)

What I find most interesting about this exercise is the gap between institutional recognition and the conventional collecting market.

Some of these artists sit comfortably in both worlds. Reuben Paterson, Francis Upritchard, and Yvonne Todd have substantial institutional records but also make works that collectors can readily own and display. Others, particularly those working predominantly in video or installation, have built equally impressive institutional careers without developing the same visibility among private collectors.

That doesn’t mean museums always know best. But repeated exhibitions across several major institutions are one useful signal among many. And if an artist keeps appearing in public galleries but rarely in private collections, it may be worth asking why.

Other artists worth exploring who just missed this list include Peter Trevelyan, Saskia Leek, Tiffany Singh, Alicia Frankovich, Fiona Connor, Jeena Shin, Joyce Campbell, Martin Basher, Richard Stratton, Sean Kerr, Simon Denny, Sriwhana Spong, and Wayne Youle.

At first glance, the result is astonishing. The colours, light and atmosphere looked convincingly Vermeer-like. Look a little closer, though, and things start to unravel. A kitchen cabinet seems to have a disappearing wall behind it. Shelves sit at odd angles. Objects don’t quite line up. And on the right is a mysterious red lantern with a handle or wall mount that doesn’t appear to be quite either.

AI image generation has advanced enormously since then, so I assumed outpainting must have improved too. I decided to test it by taking some of New Zealand and Australia’s most recognisable paintings and asking AI to extend them beyond their original frames. The idea was to reveal more of the scene: what lies further down Collins Street, what sits beside Robin White’s Mangaweka building, or what the rest of Hill End might look like beyond Russell Drysdale’s cricketers.

I expected to end up with some remarkable images. Instead, this became a project in frustration.

Roads suddenly changed direction. Buildings grew or shrank between prompts. Train tracks went nowhere. Horizon lines disagreed with themselves. Vehicles appeared on footpaths. Pedestrians wandered directly in front of trams. Fixing one problem would often create two new ones somewhere else. At times, it felt less like the original artist had extended the painting and more like M. C. Escher had been brought in as a consultant.

Eventually I gave up trying to make them perfect. The failures were becoming more interesting than the successes. So here they are.

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Rita Angus, Cass

The mountains and sky are surprisingly convincing. AI captures the sparseness of the Canterbury landscape and comes reasonably close to Angus’s palette and treatment of the background.

Then you look at the railway station and foreground. The shed starts to lose its perspective as it extends beyond the original painting, while the carriages and train on the right seem to be following several entirely different interpretations of where the railway tracks are supposed to go.

It’s an early indication of something I found repeatedly: AI can be remarkably good at reproducing the surface of a painting while simultaneously losing track of the physical space inside it.

The original is at Christchurch Art Gallery.

John Brack, Collins St, 5p.m.

I wanted to make a small nod to John Brack’s other famous painting, The Bar, by incorporating a pub somewhere in the background, ideally with the barmaid visible inside. AI obliged by adding Young & Jackson on the left. There is one fairly significant geographical problem and that is Young & Jackson isn’t on Collins Street.

But that quickly became the least of my concerns. Brack’s commuters originally move in parallel streams down the street. Once the pub appears, the pedestrians split around it in completely different directions, effectively requiring a fairly radical redesign of central Melbourne.

On the right, Collins Street now appears to bend around a corner. The tram is a nice addition, although several of the pedestrians may want to reconsider their route home walking directly in front of it.

The original is at the NGV Australia.

Robin White, Mangaweka

Mangaweka is a small town in the lower North Island, between Taihape and Hunterville. Its former main street has become something of a tourist attraction and, using Google Maps, you can still find the exact building Robin White painted.

That made this an interesting test. Rather than asking AI simply to invent what might sit beside the building, I could give it photographs of the real street.

It didn’t help as much as I expected. The building immediately beside White’s is a relatively modern church, so I found some other historic buildings along the street that seemed more sympathetic to the painting and asked AI to incorporate those instead.

One came out far too small. I added a real historic sign, which initially became enormous, then strangely tiny. I tried another building from across the road and ran into the same problem.

However, even when AI knew what the building should look like, it struggled to understand how large it should be in relation to everything already in the painting and often misinterpreted perspective lines as the actual direction of the store front.

The original work is at Te Papa.

Frederick McCubbin, The Pioneer

Frederick McCubbin painted The Pioneer in 1904, just after Australian Federation. The three panels tell a story of settlement and national identity. But Australia’s story obviously did not end there. So rather than simply extending the scenery, I asked AI to imagine what additional panels might look like if the narrative continued through the 20th century and into the present.

It suggested themes including sacrifice and remembrance through the world wars, postwar immigration, greater recognition of Aboriginal history, multicultural Australia and, finally, themes around stewardship of the land and climate change.

The two versions below were the result. Visually, I think these are among the more convincing experiments. AI gets surprisingly close to McCubbin’s tonal palette and hazy treatment of the Australian bush.

The narrative is more difficult as the original triptych condenses a complicated national story into three deceptively simple images. Adding another century of Australian history without turning the work into a checklist of worthy themes is much harder and certainly needs further refinement.

The original is at the NGV Australia.

Grace Cossington Smith, The Bridge in-curve

This one of Grace Cossington Smith’s bridge got wacky very quickly. The challenge was to extend the scene while keeping the bridge, roadway, harbour and surrounding city structurally coherent.

AI had very different interpretations of what the construction should look like. In one version, construction seems to start above the Rocks and extend in both directions. When I pushed it to resolve that problem and complete the roadway, it did so, but apparently decided Sydney Harbour itself also needed redesigning.

Another interesting twist is the evolution of the sky. Cossington Smith’s blocky strokes become increasingly geometric as the image expands, until they almost resemble mosaic tesserae. Whether that is a faithful extension of Cossington Smith or the beginning of an entirely different painting is another question.

The original is at the NGV Australia.

Gordon Walters, koru paintings

With Gordon Walters, I tried something different. Rather than outpainting an existing work, I wondered whether AI could create a new image inspired by the strong repetitive geometry of his koru paintings.

There is obviously nothing particularly new about artists responding to Walters. One of my favourite examples is Marian Maguire’s Boogie Woogie with Gordon Walters, which she describes as a play between the works of Walters and Piet Mondrian.

Maguire was considerably more successful. The AI images below developed from left to right. The first and second at least capture the elements of the koru but then it dissapears into something closer to generic Op Art.

Russell Drysdale, The Cricketers

The Sydney Morning Herald has described The Cricketers as “possibly the most famous Australian painting of the 20th century”. The scene is set in Hill End, an old gold-mining town in central New South Wales. I wanted to see what more of the town might look like beyond Drysdale’s famously sparse composition.

The extension on the left works reasonably well. The trees, open landscape and small farm building sit fairly naturally within the painting.

The larger buildings on the right, however, never quite find the right scale or perspective. After several iterations, I somehow ended up with an improbable row of houses advancing diagonally away from the viewer as though Hill End had undergone a particularly poorly planned subdivision.

The original, according to Wikipedia, is now owned by JGL Investments, a Melbourne-based investment company.

Louis J. Steele & C. F. Goldie, The Arrival of the Maoris in New Zealand

At first glance, this may be one of the most impressive. The treatment of the sea, sky and figures is reasonably consistent with the original painting, and I like the addition of land appearing in the distance on the right.

Then look at the horizon of the painting on the left below. On one side of the sail it sits noticeably lower than on the other. The waka presents another structural challenge. Follow it towards the stern and it appears to divide into two separate vessels.

I asked AI to fix the horizon. It did — but in the process also restored part of the sail, which those Māori sailors might have appreciated but rather defeats the point of preserving the original painting.

I am mildly surprised that, somewhere along the way, it didn’t add a Moana-like character steering the waka.

The original work is at Auckland Art Gallery.

What I learned

What surprised me most was the gap between AI’s ability to imitate an artist’s style and its ability to understand a painting as a coherent physical space.

It can reproduce colour, texture, atmosphere and brushwork remarkably well. But ask it to maintain a vanishing point, extend a building at the correct scale, preserve a horizon, keep railway tracks parallel or remember that a road cannot suddenly change direction, and things become much less reliable. Even more frustratingly, repeated prompting often didn’t solve the problem. Fix the horizon and the sail changes. Correct the building and the road moves. Adjust the train and the station develops a new architectural feature.

That is probably the most interesting lesson from this exercise. Image generation has advanced enormously in four years, but imitation and understanding are still very different things.

The strongest use of these tools is likely to come from artists who can direct them, reject what doesn’t work, manipulate the results and incorporate them into a broader creative practice. I have already seen established artists experimenting with AI in much more interesting ways than simply asking it to reproduce an existing style.

After all, imitation and derivation existed long before generative AI. What remains much harder to automate is judgement. It’s the ability to know why something works, what should remain fixed, what should change and when an image is actually finished. For now, at least, the artists still have a substantial advantage.

I’m interested in what other oddities you can spot in these images. There are almost certainly plenty I’ve missed. Let me know in the comments.

I’ve trawled through six of the collections and picked out the highlights.1 I’ve generally picked the works I think are the most important, but I’ve also included a few that are top-tier works by lesser-known artists or simply personal favourites. We start in Auckland and work our way south to Otago.

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University of Auckland

The University of Auckland is home to Elam School of Fine Arts, whose alumni include Don Binney, Gretchen Albrecht and Michael Parekōwhai. The university also has one of the strongest collections on this list, so narrowing it down is challenging.

My first pick is Frances Hodgkins’ The Courtyard in Wartime from 1944. Hodgkins painted it at Corfe Castle in Dorset during the final years of the Second World War. It has also appeared in major surveys of her career and comes from the last few years of her life.

Robin White’s Sam Hunt, Bottle Creek is immediately recognisable as her work. Hunt stands outside his cottage north of Wellington, which is painted in that flat, geometric style that became characteristic of White’s work in the 1970s. It is one of four major oil portraits she made of the poet.

Next is Don Binney’s Arts-Commerce Kākā. A kaka sweeps across the painting above the remains of a kauri dam on Great Barrier Island. This work has an additional university connection as it was made for the Arts-Commerce building. Auckland is not short of Binneys, the university has described its holdings as the largest of any public collection in New Zealand and includes the excellent 1960s paintings Kereru over Wainamu Te Henga and Kawaupaku te Henga.

My final top pick is Michael Parekōwhai’s Kapa Haka. These security guard figures are based on his brother who worked as one. They have been interpreted in various ways, including as commentary on the visibility and authority of Māori workers employed to protect institutions and other people’s property, as well as the disparity in income. There is additional irony with this one cast in bronze (the original ones were in fibreglass).

Other picks include Tony Fomison, -wait!; Colin McCahon, Let us Possess One World; Gretchen Albrecht, Early Morning Rising; Gordon Walters, Painting No. 2; Bill Hammond, Twirl; Michael Smither, Girl with Dolphin; Ralph Hotere, Black Painting and Black Drop; and Milan Mrkusich, Painting (Ochre). I particularly like Northern Shore by Peter Siddell.

University of Waikato

Waikato’s collection has a particularly strong concentration of Māori and Pacific art and its standout work is one of the least conventional works.

Paratene Matchitt’s Ballantrae Windows is a stained glass installation made up of 27 panels stretching nearly 17 metres. Created in 1987, the imagery moves from the three baskets of knowledge that Tāne brought down from heaven, through the Waikato River, and finally out into the cosmos, complete with the Southern Cross and Halley’s Comet. For several years it was in storage. It was finally reinstalled in the university’s new Pā building in 2024, giving a major work by one of the central figures of Māori modernism a prominent home again.

My other pick is John Pule’s Mercy from 1996. Pule was Waikato’s Writer in Residence that year and produced this huge painting while at the university. Mercy brings together the many pictographs that are characteristic of his work.

There is also an extensive collection of works by Max Gimblett, including a group of 22 works on paper he donated to the university for its 50th jubilee. I particularly like In the Beginning was the Word and the Word Became Flesh and Dwelt Among Us.

Other highlights include Brett Graham, Te Matariki; Michael Smither, Harry Drinking (Harriet); Michael Illingworth, Portrait of a Man of Consequence; Paul Dibble, Featherweight; Buck Nin, Patupaiarehe, and Robyn Kahukiwa, Dark Hina.

Victoria University of Wellington

The obvious place to start is Colin McCahon’s Gate III. Painted in 1970, it runs across seven canvases and stretches more than ten metres wide. The work brings together McCahon’s enormous I AM, layered between landscape and biblical text, all colliding in what the Adam Art Gallery describes as the standout work in the university collection. It was originally made for the 1971 exhibition Ten Big Paintings at Auckland City Art Gallery. VUW bought it the following year. If there is one work in this article that could make a claim to being the most important of McCahon’s paintings, this is it.

I’d also pick Gordon Walters’ Kahukura from 1968. Walters had only unveiled his mature koru paintings publicly two years earlier, so this comes from very early in the body of work that would come to define his career. The koru forms appear deceptively simple, but the black and the white/ochre colours continually swap between foreground and background as you look at it.

I also particularly like Robyn Kahukiwa’s The Outcast. There are more important Kahukiwa works in the collection, but this is one of several works painted during her time teaching at Mana College that captures the challenges of young, urban Maori. A similar work, Girl in a Bush Shirt, was recently acquired by Christchurch Art Gallery.

Also worth a look are Frances Hodgkins, Kimmeridge Foreshore; Ralph Hotere, Song Cycle: The Voyage; Jacqueline Fahey, The Birthday Party; Don Binney, Tabernacle; Michael Smither, Christ Driving the Money Changers from the Temple; Colin McCahon, Agnus Dei, Donna Nobis Pacem; Richard Killeen, Welcome to the South Pacific; Frances Hodgkins, The White Chateau; and Philip Clairmont, The Bed.

University of Canterbury

Canterbury occupies a unique place in New Zealand art history. Generations of artists studied or taught at the Canterbury College School of Art and its successor, Ilam, while many were also associated with The Group, the influential Christchurch collective that became a leading showplace for New Zealand art. Canterbury and the surrounding landscape also provided the subject for many iconic New Zealand paintings, including works by my two top picks, Bill Sutton and Rita Angus.

Bill Sutton’s The Four Seasons – Summer is one of four paintings in Sutton’s Four Seasons series, completed between 1968 and 1970. The quartet is now split up. Autumn is at Te Papa, Winter at Christchurch Art Gallery, Spring at the Christchurch Club and Summer remains at the university.

My next pick is Rita Angus’ Untitled [Mountain Biological Station, Cass] from 1936. Angus spent ten days at Canterbury’s field station at Cass with Louise Henderson and Julia Scarvell, producing works of the surrounding mountains and railway settlement. Angus’ iconic Cass painting was a direct result of that trip, painted in her studio from the studies she made.

Not as significant as the above two paintings, but I think a great example of his work, is Leo Bensemann’s Portrait of Alan Danks. Bensemann was a central figure in the Christchurch art world and Canterbury owns more than 100 of his works. The subject of the painting is Canterbury economics professor, Alan Danks, whose somewhat questionable claim to fame is leading the committee whose recommendations led to the Official Information Act. Regardless, he certainly has one of the best university portraits I’ve seen.

Other highlights include Bill Sutton, Landscape Synthesis XII; Russell Clark, The Family Group; Neil Dawson, Lit LeWitt; Leo Bensemann, Takaka; Raymond McIntyre, Portrait of a Young Girl; Bill Hammond, Snare; Jude Rae, Still Life 6; and Darryn George, Waiata – Psalm 121.

Lincoln University

Lincoln’s collection is much smaller — a little over 300 works — but there are some excellent paintings hiding in it.

The standout is Bill Sutton’s Plantation Series XVIII from 1988. Lincoln itself has called it “undoubtedly the star of the Collection”. At almost two-and-a-half metres wide, it is also hard to miss. It’s a commentary on the changing landscape as Sutton was dismayed by the spread of dark radiata pine plantations across the Canterbury plains. This became the theme for one of the major late series of his career.

My other pick is Bill Hammond’s Talking All That Jazz from 1989. The date is interesting as it was the year Hammond travelled to the Auckland Islands, where he became fascinated by a landscape once dominated by birds and largely untouched by humans. The trip triggered the bird-human paintings for which he is now best known. Talking All That Jazz sits right around that turning point. It still has something of the manic energy of Hammond’s earlier paintings, before his strange avian world completely took over.

I’ve also included Claudia Kogachi’s Just Girly Things. It is a recent acquisition rather than an established masterpiece, but I like Kogachi's work and think she shows great promise. Gow Langsford began representing her last year and held her first solo exhibition with the gallery earlier this year.

Other highlights include Llew Summers, Joy of Living; Michael Smither, Rocks and Butterfly, Rakaia River; Shane Cotton, Tika; and Robyn Kahukiwa, Still Māori and Comely.

University of Otago

That brings us to our final university, Otago. The Hocken Collections is on a different scale to most of the other university collections, with tens of thousands of artworks and an important archive of New Zealand art and artists.

Its great prize is Colin McCahon’s The Wake. Painted in 1958, it runs across 16 unstretched canvases and incorporates a poem by McCahon’s friend John Caselberg. The work was designed to surround the viewer rather than behave like a conventional painting hanging neatly on a wall. It came at a pivotal moment. McCahon had recently returned from his first trip to the United States, where he had seen large scale modern American painting firsthand. The Wake is appropriately ambitious as a result.

And it is far from the Hocken’s only McCahon. The collection holds more than 200 works by him, as well as a huge archive of papers, sketches and working material. The Virgin and Child Compared, I Am and Northland Triptych are among the other paintings worth finding.

Frances Hodgkins’ Friends (Double Portrait) is another exceptional work. Painted in the early 1920s, it depicts Hodgkins’ former pupils and friends Hannah Ritchie and Jane Saunders. Its elongated figures show how far Hodgkins had moved from the relatively conventional watercolours of her earlier career and towards European modernism. The work later belonged to poet and collector Charles Brasch, whose bequest transformed the Hocken collection.

My third pick is Rita Angus’ Fungi. Instead of the portraits and sharply defined landscapes most associated with Angus, in this work a group of mushrooms is transformed into a collection of strange, almost abstract forms.

Hotere’s Rain is worth a special mention. Made from three five-metre-high painted banners, it incorporates words from Hone Tuwhare’s poem of the same name. Unlike a lot of the art buried in university storage, it can still be seen in the Hocken foyer.

Other highlights include Rita Angus, Self Portrait; Robin White, Clouds, Hill and Claudia; Jacqueline Fahey, Sisters Communing; Doris Lusk, St Bathans; Ralph Hotere, Rain; and Shane Cotton, Back Words.

Major works by artists such as Bill Hammond, Ralph Hotere, Gordon Walters and Grahame Sydney can sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars. For most people, they are no longer realistic artists to collect. But that doesn’t mean you need to give up on the things you liked about their work in the first place. There are plenty of living New Zealand artists working with similar subjects, styles or ideas.

Below are my suggestions of artists to check out if you like one of these already established artists. The connections are sometimes quite loose, linked mostly by theme and subject matter, but sometimes format or colour pallete. All of the contemporary artists on this list were born after 1960, around half are under 50, and a couple are still only in their early 30s.

I’m not suggesting that any of these artists is the “next” Bill Hammond or Gordon Walters. Nor are they necessarily directly influenced by the artist I’ve paired them with. This is simply a starting point to discover contemporary artists you might want to consider adding to a collection.

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Gordon Walters → Ngataiharuru Taepa

For someone interested in Gordon Walters’ koru paintings, Ngataiharuru Taepa is an obvious contemporary artist to look at.

Both use repeated geometric forms associated with Māori art. Walters reduced the koru into a highly controlled pattern of black and white, or other contrasting colours. Taepa has spent much of his career exploring kōwhaiwhai and its component forms, often producing similarly clean and geometric paintings and objects.

One important difference is that Walters was a Pākehā modernist adapting Māori forms, while Taepa is a Māori artist working with kōwhaiwhai as part of his own cultural practice. So while there are clear visual similarities, the work comes from quite different cultural starting points.

Gallery: Page Galleries, Wellington

Robin White → Ayesha Green

Robin White’s early portraits and landscapes are known for flat blocks of colour, simplified shapes and clear outlines. She often places ordinary New Zealanders in ordinary New Zealand settings.

Ayesha Green uses a similar kind of simplification, with flat backgrounds, limited shading and large areas of solid colour. She uses that style to explore Māori identity, history and representation.

Both explore people and place in different ways, while showing how much can be done with relatively simple-looking paintings.

Gallery: Season, Auckland

Tony Fomison → Jason Greig

There is a strong connection between Tony Fomison and Jason Greig in the dark, psychologically charged atmosphere of their works. Both often place solitary figures or faces against deep, shadowy backgrounds, giving their paintings a strong feeling of ritual, symbolism, and religion.

Fomison drew heavily on religious painting, European art history and mythology. Greig works in similar territory, drawing on religious imagery with Christchurch Art Gallery describing his work as bringing together “Gothic shadows, werewolves and Old Masters”.

If it is the brooding figures, dark palette and slightly unsettling quality of Fomison that appeals, Greig is a particularly convincing contemporary comparison.

Gallery: Chambers Art Gallery, Christchurch

Michael Smither → Claudia Kogachi

The connection between Michael Smither and Claudia Kogachi is family.

Some of Smither’s best-known paintings came directly out of domestic life: children eating, bathing, playing and fighting. He took fairly ordinary family scenes and made them the subject of serious paintings.

Kogachi does something similar with her own family and relationships. Earlier works often showed Kogachi and her mother competing against each other in boxing, table tennis and other activities. More recent paintings have included partners, friends and imagined scenes.

If what you like about Smither is the idea of painting everyday relationships and family tensions, Kogachi is a strong contemporary comparison.

Gallery: Gow Langsford, Auckland and Jhana Millers Gallery, Wellington

Michael Parekōwhai → Kereama Taepa

Michael Parekōwhai and Kereama Taepa both mix Māori art with contemporary popular culture, often working in three dimensions.

Parekōwhai has used everything from pianos and guitars to hobby kit sets and security guards. His work can initially be funny or familiar before you realise there is more going on around Māori identity, history and representation.

Taepa takes traditional Māori forms and combines them with newer technology and references to the culture he grew up with. Pac-Man, Mario and Space Invaders have appeared alongside forms drawn from whakairo and kōwhaiwhai, while he works with 3D printing, augmented reality and digital modelling.

Both bring together Māori visual culture into new forms, whether that’s incorporating it into light boxes and musical instruments or combining it with retro-video video game characters and augmented reality.

Gallery: Jhana Millers Gallery, Wellington

Ian Scott → Peata Larkin

Ian Scott is well known for his ‘Lattice’ paintings (as well as his ‘Girlie’ pop-art paintings). He built those lattice works from coloured strips that cross over one another to form a grid. Peata Larkin also builds her paintings around grids, repeated lines and interlocking geometric forms. Her surfaces can resemble weaving or pixelated patterns, drawing on tukutuku as well as digital imagery.

Both artists use simple geometric elements to create much more complex patterns, with colour and repetition doing most of the work. If it is Scott’s Lattice series that appeals, Larkin is a particularly strong contemporary comparison.

Gallery: Two Rooms, Auckland

Gretchen Albrecht → Grace Wright

If what you like about Gretchen Albrecht is large-scale abstract painting and strong colour, Grace Wright makes sense as an alternative.

Albrecht is known for broad areas of colour and large sweeping painted forms, particularly in her oval and hemisphere paintings. Wright’s paintings are busier, with long brushstrokes looping and twisting across the canvas in an almost calligraphic way, although they remain primarily abstract.

Both use large canvases, strong colour and sweeping brushstrokes to give their paintings a real sense of energy. Wright’s work is busier, but the bold colour, gesture and scale offer a similar appeal.

Gallery: Gow Langsford, Auckland

Ann Robinson → Layla Walter

Layla Walter worked as an assistant to Ann Robinson while developing her own career in cast glass. Both use the lost-wax casting process and often make substantial pieces of coloured glass based on natural forms.

There are clear differences in their work, but someone who likes Robinson’s heavy cast-glass vessels, strong colour and use of native plants is likely to find Walter easy to appreciate.

Gallery: Masterworks Gallery, Auckland

Lois White → Kushana Bush

Lois White often arranged groups of people almost like actors on a stage. She used those scenes to comment on religion, gender, politics and social behaviour.

Kushana Bush also creates complicated scenes filled with figures. Her references range from medieval and Renaissance painting to Indian miniatures and Japanese art. The exact story isn’t always clear, but there is usually plenty happening.

Both reward close looking. Their paintings are packed with figures and smaller scenes that gradually reveal more of the story.

Galleries: Brett McDowell Gallery, Dunedin and Ivan Anthony, Auckland

Bill Hammond → Tony de Lautour

If you like Bill Hammond’s darker and stranger paintings, Tony de Lautour is an interesting alternative to consider.

Both artists came out of Christchurch and made extensive use of New Zealand symbols while giving them a dark, slightly surreal twist. Hammond is best known for the strange worlds populated by his bird-human figures. De Lautour created his own cast of recurring characters, including half-man, half-lion figures often shown smoking or drinking, alongside maps, mazes and other works crowded with symbols. Both built distinctive fictional worlds from familiar New Zealand imagery, mixing humour with something darker and more unsettling.

The comparison works best with de Lautour’s paintings from the 1990s and early 2000s. His more recent work has moved towards cleaner geometric and abstract compositions.

Gallery: Ivan Anthony, Auckland

Frances Hodgkins → Milli Jannides

This is perhaps one of the looser comparisons, but I think Milli Jannides is an interesting alternative to Frances Hodgkins.

Hodgkins’ later paintings sit somewhere between representation and abstraction. You can recognise a landscape, building, plant or still life, but she wasn’t particularly interested in making it look realistic. Jannides’ paintings can work in a similar way. Some look like landscapes or interiors; others are much harder to pin down. Coastal Signs describes her work as moving between fiction, memory and imagination.

If you like the way Hodgkins lets recognisable scenes dissolve into abstraction, Jannides offers a similar appeal, often using similarly muted greens, browns and earthy tones.

Gallery: Coastal Signs, Auckland and McLeavey Gallery, Wellington

Milan Mrkusich → Sara Hughes

Milan Mrkusich spent much of his career stripping painting back to colour, shapes, lines and their position on the canvas. There generally isn’t a person, landscape or object that you’re supposed to recognise.

Sara Hughes works from the same basic starting point. Geometry and colour are central to her paintings, although she uses them in a much brighter and busier way. Her work has also drawn on maps, data and digital systems and has expanded into large public installations.

Hughes takes that same interest in colour and geometry in a more energetic, contemporary direction.

Gallery: Gow Langsford, Auckland

Brent Wong → Justin Summerton

If you like Brent Wong’s slightly surrealist landscapes, Justin Summerton is probably the artist most likely to deliver your Dali-esque desires.

Wong paints landscapes that seem realistic until you look more closely. Buildings sit in unlikely places while the skies often have surreal concrete like constructions floating across them. Summerton works in similar territory. He uses recognisable New Zealand features—mountains, beaches, volcanic cones, clouds—but rearranges them to create landscapes that aren’t quite real.

Wong’s paintings tend to be quieter and more precise. Summerton’s are usually more heavily painted. But both offer recognisable New Zealand scenery with something slightly odd going on.

Grahame Sydney → Elliot Love

For collectors who like Grahame Sydney’s realist paintings, I would look at the works of Elliot Love.

Sydney is best known for his highly detailed paintings of Central Otago, where empty roads, farm buildings and wide landscapes are often as important as the scenery itself. Love brings a similar level of realism to suburban New Zealand, painting quiet streets, older cars and ordinary houses, often with no people in sight.

Both pay close attention to changing light, long shadows and the stillness of an empty scene. There is also a direct connection between them with Love describing Sydney as a “good friend and generous mentor”, as well as a major inspiration.

Gallery: Parnell Gallery, Auckland

Ralph Hotere → Israel Tangaroa Birch

If you are drawn to the black paintings of Ralph Hotere, have a look at Israel Tangaroa Birch.

Birch often works with highly polished sheets of stainless steel, which he carves and lacquers. Many of the works are predominantly black, but their appearance changes dramatically depending on the light and where you are standing.

The most obvious connection is with Hotere’s restrained black paintings. But Hotere also worked with materials such as corrugated iron and glass, creating surfaces that shift with changing light. Both artists use black, reflection and the material itself to make works that can look quite different as you move around them.

Gallery: Föenander Galleries, Auckland

These comparisons aren’t meant as predictions. There is no reason to assume Peata Larkin will eventually trade at Ian Scott prices, or that buying Jason Greig is somehow a substitute for owning a Fomison.

The more useful question to ask is: “what do I actually like about that established artist?”

If it is Gordon Walters’ precise geometric patterns, look at Ngataiharuru Taepa. If it is the strange landscapes of Brent Wong, try Justin Summerton. And if it is the grids of Ian Scott’s Lattice paintings, Peata Larkin is a logical next stop.

I hope this has also exposed you to some New Zealand artists you didn’t know about.

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Criss Canning

A distinctive still-life practice with growing collector appeal

Born in Melbourne in 1947, Criss Canning has built one of the most distinctive still-life practices in Australian painting. She is best known for paintings of flowers and domestic objects, often drawn from daily life at Burnside, the 19th-century home she shares near Ballarat with her husband, horticulturalist David Glenn.

Canning’s paintings are immediately recognisable for their saturated colour, shallow depth, and carefully structured arrangement of objects. She has described her process as beginning with an internal pull toward a particular colour, then building the composition piece by piece, completing each element before moving to the next. The result is a distinctive tension between stillness and intensity.

In recent years, demand for Canning’s work has continued to grow, achieving perfect sell-through rates over the last 5 years. Further, her average price continues to grow: the average price in 2019 was just $9k, growing to $76k in 2023, and now $113k in 2025.

This is driven in part by increasing top prices for her works. The 2023-2025 period contains multiple step-change results at auction (all at Smith & Singer): In May 2023, Waratah and Studio Detail sold for $98,182 off a $25,000–35,000 estimate band, demonstrating sharp demand for Canning’s still lifes. In December 2023, Native Flowers from Pomonal sold for $227,045 setting an auction record at the time, more than doubling the previous record. Then in November 2025, Gum Blossom from Pootilla sold for $405,000, setting a new auction record.

At the same time, the market still offers genuine entry points, especially via editioned prints and smaller works. For example, a small oil on board, Gum Blossoms in Vase, sold at Leonard Joel for $5,750 in 2025 and prints have sold in earlier years for between $500 - $1,500.

Canning’s market strength reflects more than rarity or record prices. It also reflects growing demand for her distinctive visual language, within a market that has recently shown strong interest in still life and domestic interior works more broadly.

Howard Arkley

Electric suburbia and domestic interiors drive record prices

Howard Arkley (1951–1999) was a leading Australian artist whose vividly airbrushed suburban landscapes defined a new visual language in contemporary art. His work was heavily influenced by the 1970s and 1980s world of pop art, fashion, feminism, punk music, and the club scene. Those influences transformed the aesthetics of everyday architecture, lounge rooms, and freeways, into psychedelic compositions rich with colour and pattern that propelled him and suburban life into the spotlight of Australian visual culture.

He rose to prominence in the 1980s and 1990s with key institutional support, culminating in his selection for the Australian Pavilion at the 1999 Venice Biennale. Though his sudden death later that year cut short a rising international career, his influence endured. Museum exhibitions, books, and growing collector interest have continued to affirm his place in Australia’s art canon.

In 2025, Arkley’s auction market saw a breakout year. Twelve works sold for a combined $10.5 million, a dramatic leap from $559k in 2024 and the strongest result ever recorded for the artist. While the number of lots offered was modest, demand was intense. New records were set with Contemporary Units and Neapolitan Delight each selling for about $2.5m, well above their estimates. Another two works sold around the $2m mark.

This suggests a recalibration at the high end of his market. Arkley’s domestic interiors painted in 1992 and 1993 are particularly in demand commanding six and seven figure prices, followed closely by exteriors of suburban homes that he painted mostly in the late 1980s. With his early death there is a limited supply of works that has pushed prices up, but he did produce a few screenprints that offer a more accessible entry point, eg. Triple Fronted that sold for $25k in 2025 as well as some larger editions released by his estate that sell for around $3k.

Already subject of multiple exhibitions and retrospectives, these results confirm Arkley’s position as one of Australia’s most important contemporary artists. A visionary who turned suburbia into spectacle, and whose secondary market now echoes his lasting cultural significance.

Albert Namatjira

Central Australian landscapes and a lasting legacy

Albert Namatjira (1902–1959) was a Western Arrernte artist best known for his watercolour landscapes of Central Australia. Unlike most Aboriginal artists, Namatjira adopted a Western watercolour style. His success helped establish what became known as the Hermannsburg School, which has continued across multiple generations in the Hermannsburg / Ntaria region.

His images of gum trees, mountain ranges, gorges, and creek beds became iconic representations of Central Australia for many Australians. More recent scholarship has increasingly re-evaluated his paintings as works that, while using a Western medium, convey a distinctly Aboriginal relationship to Country and knowledge of place.

Namatjira’s fame brought both recognition and public scrutiny. He attracted prominent admirers, including Queen Elizabeth II, but his life also exposed the inequities faced by Aboriginal people. At the height of his fame, he was still denied basic rights available to non-Indigenous Australians, and his case became a powerful public symbol of that injustice.

Institutional recognition of his importance has been long-standing. The NGV’s Seeing the Centre (2003) positioned Namatjira as both a major national artist and a figure through whom the contradictions of Australian cultural history can be examined. More recently, NGV’s Watercolour Country (2023–24) placed his work alongside other Hermannsburg/Ntaria artists, reinforcing both his influence and the broader movement he helped shape.

At auction, the market has clearly shifted higher. Between 2016 and 2021, annual sales averaged about $400,000. From 2022 to 2025, annual sales exceeded $1 million every year, including $1.03 million in 2025. While total value in 2025 was down 6.1% from 2024, this came on much lower volume (11 lots sold in 2025 vs 21 in 2024), resulting in a sharp rise in average price per work, from about $52,000 in 2024 to about $94,000 in 2025 (up ~79%). Just as importantly, sell-through has been exceptionally strong, with a 100% sell-through rate in each of the last five years.

Also notable for collectors is the continued visibility of the Namatjira name in contemporary Australian art. Albert Namatjira’s great-grandson, Vincent Namatjira, has achieved major national recognition in his own right, including winning the Archibald Prize in 2020, and has directly engaged with Albert’s legacy in works such as Albert’s Story.

The momentum continues into 2026

Six months into 2026, the evidence continues to support all three artists highlighted above.

For Criss Canning, the most interesting result was not another record but evidence that higher prices are spreading through her market. A 1995 Gum Blossom at Smith & Singer hammered for $230,000 against a $90,000–$120,000 estimate. Following the $405,000 record set in late 2025, it suggests collectors are increasingly prepared to pay six-figure prices for strong earlier works as well as her most desirable recent paintings.

Howard Arkley’s market has also held onto much of its 2025 repricing. Six of seven works offered in H1 2026 sold for a combined $2.71 million. Theatrical Façade realised $1.47 million and Freeway (Exit) $922,500, placing both among the ten highest-priced Australian works of the half-year. The supply was less exceptional than in 2025, but the price level remained high. That makes the extraordinary results of last year look increasingly like a genuine recalibration of Arkley’s market rather than a one-year anomaly.

The strongest follow-through may be Albert Namatjira. His 16 works offered during H1 2026 all sold, generating $1.21 million—already more than his total sales for the whole of 2025. None sold for more than $250,000, meaning the result was driven by consistent demand across a relatively large number of works rather than one trophy sale.

That market momentum is being reinforced by institutional attention. The National Gallery of Australia’s Hermannsburg display places Namatjira and the school he established at its centre, while House of Namatjira in the fifth National Indigenous Art Triennial brings his artistic legacy into the present through 57 members of his family and community.

All three therefore still look like artists having their moment. In Canning’s case, record prices are beginning to pull other works higher. For Arkley, the question of whether 2025 was an anomaly is starting to be answered. And for Namatjira, rising prices are being supported by perhaps the strongest combination of auction breadth and institutional attention of the three.

Methodology: Data has been compiled from six Australian auction houses: Art Leven, Bonhams, Deutscher and Hackett, Leonard Joel, Menzies, and Smith & Singer. The analysis covers auctions held between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2025 and includes only sales primarily focused on fine art.

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A market dominated by a handful of names

Two things moved the Australian Indigenous art market in 2025: museum attention and good works coming to auction.

On the institutional side, Tate Modern staged a major solo exhibition of Emily Kame Kngwarreye in 2025, while the NGV’s The Stars We Do Not See is touring the United States as the largest exhibition of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art ever staged in North America, both meaningful signals of global recognition. In Australia, exhibitions including Yolŋu power: the art of Yirrkala at the Art Gallery of NSW sustained attention, building on major 2024 programming such as Ever Present: First Peoples Art of Australia and the National Gallery of Australia’s exhibition of Vincent Namatjira.

The auction market also benefited from a strong supply of major works. Deutscher + Hackett described its March 2025 Indigenous sale as its strongest in nearly two decades by sales value, with several works materially exceeding estimates.

At the top of the market, results remained highly concentrated. Kngwarreye accounted for five of the ten highest-priced First Nations works of the year, with Lin Onus and Albert Namatjira taking two positions each. Kngwarreye alone represented roughly 38% of total First Nations auction sales by value, illustrating sustained demand for her works.

Even so, the broader figures suggest the market was strengthening beyond a single artist. Total sales reached $12.2 million, up 23% on 2024. The average sold price increased to $30,500, while 25 works sold for more than $100,000, up from 19 the year before.

At the same time, entry points remained relatively accessible. The median sold price fell from $8,600 to $7,500, partly reflecting a 14% increase in the number of works sold.

Taken together, 2025 showed a market strengthening at both ends: higher prices for important works, but also more transactions at lower price levels. The major caveat was concentration. A relatively small group of artists, particularly Kngwarreye, continue to account for a disproportionate share of total value.

H1 2026: Steady sales and continued concentration

The first half of 2026 broadly reinforces the view from 2025.

First Nations works generated $8.1 million, slightly down 4% from $8.4 million in H1 2025. The reason was largely at the very top of the market. H1 2025 included three Kngwarreye works above $500,000, including one above $1 million. In H1 2026, no First Nations work appeared among the 20 highest-priced Australian auction results.

Kngwarreye nevertheless remained the leading First Nations artist, with 14 works generating $2.35 million. Albert Namatjira followed with $1.21 million from 16 works, all of which sold. Lin Onus generated approximately $675,000, while other leading artists not previously mentioned included Rover Thomas with approximately $725,000 in sales, Paddy Bedford $368,000 and Sally Gabori $362,000. Robert Campbell Jnr was the only other artist whose works delivered more than $100,000.

Kngwarreye’s strongest result was Awelye I, II, III & IV at $429,545. Rover Thomas’s Langurr (The Rainbow Serpent) Making the River sold for $392,727, while two works by Lin Onus exceeded $300,000.

Among works selling for more than $5,000, the number of First Nations works increased 10%, from 164 in H1 2025 to 181 in H1 2026.2 Their share of transactions also increased from 21.5% to 23.4%. That suggests demand remained broad, with First Nations artists representing almost one in four works sold above $5,000 during the half-year.

Institutional attention has also remained strong into 2026. The National Gallery of Australia’s Indigenous Art Triennial, the NGV’s FUTURE COUNTRY and AGWA’s I AM all point to sustained museum support for First Nations art across both established and emerging artists.

The first half of 2026 therefore reinforces the strength of the underlying market. Sales value held close to last year despite the absence of any exceptional $500,000+ results, while the number of works sold increased.

The more interesting question is which First Nations artist the market rallies around next. Robert Campbell Jnr is having his moment in the spotlight, with auction records reaching new highs over the past 12 months.

The improvement was broader than a handful of trophy sales. Every price band above $10,000 grew, and the market excluding the ten highest-priced works still increased by 7%.

But the recovery was not evenly distributed. Smith & Singer’s April auction generated $22.4 million, 42% of all H1 sales, and supplied six of the ten highest-priced works. It played an outsized impact on the overall impressive numbers.

The market was therefore stronger, but unusually dependent on one auction house securing an exceptional group of consignments.

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H1 2026 by the numbers

$3.68 million

The highest result so far this year: Brett Whiteley’s Woman on the Beach Reading an Art Catalogue, sold by Smith & Singer.

$53.7 million

Total sales across the eight auction houses, 15.8% above H1 2025.

2,129

The number of lots sold, down 10.7% from H1 2025.

76%

The overall sell-through rate, up from 70% in H1 2025.

24%

The share of sold lots above $5,000 that were works by women, virtually unchanged from H1 2025.

48

The number of works that sold for at least $200,000, compared with 46 in H1 2025.

32%

The proportion of sales generated by the ten highest-priced works, up from 26% in H1 2025.

42%

The share of H1 turnover generated by Smith & Singer’s April auction.

A stronger top ten

Seven works sold for more than $1 million, only one more than in H1 2025. The larger difference was the value concentrated at the top. The ten highest-priced works generated $17.1 million, up 40% from $12.2 million in H1 2025. Howard Arkley’s Neapolitan Delight, last year’s leading result at $2.45 million, would have ranked third this year. The tenth-highest price increased from $613,636 to $760,909.

Whiteley led with Woman on the Beach Reading an Art Catalogue. It hammered at its $3 million low estimate and realised $3.68 million including buyer’s premium.

The strongest competitive bidding came immediately below it. Nolan’s Ned Kelly and Horse achieved $3.3 million including premium against a $1.2 - $1.8 million estimate. Drysdale’s Drovers on the Barkly’s reached $2.3 million including premium against a $1.0 - $1.5 million estimate.

Together, the three works generated $9.3 million including premium, or more than 17% of the entire half-year market.

The list demonstrates the continued dominance of modernist twentieth-century Australian art. Whiteley, Nolan, Drysdale, Williams, Cossington Smith and Smart all appeared, alongside the Australian Impressionist John Peter Russell. The highest prices remained concentrated among a familiar group of established names.

One auction changed the headline

Smith & Singer’s April Important Australian & International Art sale had more influence on the market than any other auction.

Its 100 lots generated $23.4 million including buyer’s premium, with 89 works selling, making it the most successful art auction in Australian history.2 The auction accounted for:

• 42% of H1 turnover;

• six of the ten highest-priced works;

• eleven of the top 20; and

• five new auction records.

Smith & Singer’s H1 sales almost doubled from the same period last year, increasing by 94%.

Growth extended beyond the very top

The market generated an additional $7.3 million compared with H1 2025, an increase of 16%, despite selling 255 fewer lots. Even excluding the top 10 results, the remainder of the market still increased by 7.1% vs H1 2025. The Australian recovery was therefore top-heavy, but not top-only.

The number of works offered declined by 618, while sell-through increased by more than six percentage points, from 70.0% to 76.4%. The reduction in transactions was therefore primarily a supply story with auction houses offering fewer works but selling a greater proportion of them.

Both the average and median prices increased. The average sold price rose almost 30%, from $19,451 to $25,211. More importantly, the median increased 28%, from $2,108 to $2,700. A few exceptional works can lift an average. A rising median suggests the improvement extended further through the market.

The price bands confirm that conclusion.

Every band above $10,000 grew. Sales between $50,000 and $100,000 recorded the largest proportional increase below the top tier, rising 19%. The $100,000 to $200,000 segment grew 17%, with the number of transactions increasing from 28 to 32, while the $10,000 to $50,000 range increased 5%.

Even after excluding the ten highest-priced works, the remainder of the market grew by 7.3%. The recovery was therefore top-heavy, but not top-only.

The weakness was concentrated below $10,000, where sales fell 14% and the number of sold lots declined from 1,908 to 1,626. Reduced supply appears to have contributed significantly to that fall.

The artists who drove the half-year

The ten highest-selling artists generated 51% of total sales, up slightly from 49% in H1 2025.

• Brett Whiteley: 22 lots sold; 88.0% sell-through; $6.5m sales

• Sidney Nolan: 16 lots sold; 69.6% sell-through; $3.9m sales

• Jeffrey Smart: 9 lots sold; 100% sell-through; $3.1m sales

• Howard Arkley: 6 lots sold; 85.7% sell-through; $2.7m sales

• Russell Drysdale: 5 lots sold; 62.5% sell-through; $2.6m sales

• Emily Kame Kngwarreye: 14 lots sold; 87.5% sell-through; $2.4m sales

• Arthur Streeton: 10 lots sold; 76.9% sell-through; $2.3m sales

• John Peter Russell: 2 lots sold; 100% sell-through; $1.6m sales

• Grace Cossington Smith: 3 lots sold; 100% sell-through; $1.3m sales

• Albert Namatjira: 16 lots sold; 100% sell-through; $1.2m sales

Whiteley led by a considerable margin. His 22 sold works generated $6.51 million, or 12% of the entire market. The $3.68 million top lot contributed more than half of that total, a second Whiteley exceeded $1.2 million, while Shampoo realised $306,818 after hammering at more than three and a half times its low estimate.

Nolan ranked second, largely because of Ned Kelly and Horse. 16 of his 23 offered works sold, giving him one of the weaker sell-through rates among the leading artists.

Most other artists on the list achieved their place through a few significant works selling for high prices. Albert Namatjira reached the top ten differently. None of his works exceeded $250,000, but all 16 sold. His $1.21 million total was built through broad and consistent demand rather than a single major result.

Competitive bidding, selective demand

Several works attracted bidding well beyond their low estimates:

• Brett Whiteley, Shampoo: $250,000 hammer against a $70,000 low estimate (3.57x)

• Cressida Campbell, Parsley Bay, Sydney: $600,000 against a $200,000 low estimate (3.0x)

• Arthur Streeton, Harvest and Mt. William: $550,000 against a $200,000 low estimate (2.75x)

• Sidney Nolan, Ned Kelly and Horse: $2.7 million against a $1.2 million low estimate (2.25x)

• Russell Drysdale, Drovers on the Barkly’s: $1.89 million against a low estimate of $1 million (1.89x)

At lower price levels, Oscar Namatjira’s Ghost Gums Near Hermannsburg hammered for $7,500 against a $500 low estimate. Mary Cecil Allen’s Studio Nude with Blue Headscarf reached $8,500 against $800, while two John Coburn works each made $13,000 against low estimates of $1,500.

The stronger market did not eliminate selectivity. Several significant works failed to sell:

• Sidney Nolan, Burke and Wills, estimated at $300,000–$500,000.

• Tom Roberts, Curlew Camp, Sirius Cove, Mosman Bay, estimated at $300,000–$400,000.

• Fred Williams, Flooded Creek, estimated at $300,000–$400,000.

• Fred Williams, Goomoolahra Falls, Queensland, estimated at $250,000–$350,000.

• John Olsen, Wet Lands, estimated at $250,000–$350,000.

• Rupert Bunny, La Cassette (The Casket), estimated at $200,000–$300,000.

Fred Williams provides the clearest example of the uneven demand. Pond in Landscape sold for more than $1 million, but two other substantial paintings failed to sell. His overall sell-through rate fell to 53%, from 68% in H1 2025.

Buyers were prepared to compete strongly for particular works, but an important name and a substantial estimate were not enough on their own.

Women mostly held their ground

Works by women accounted for 23.7% of sales above $5,000,3 almost unchanged from 23.4% in H1 2025, while the number of works stayed stable, increasing slightly from 177 to 182.

Their share of value moved in the opposite direction. Works by women generated $9.6 million, down 9.1% from H1 2025. Their share of sales value fell from 24.2% to 18.6%.

Part of the difference was the absence of a result comparable to Kngwarreye’s million-dollar Untitled (Awelye) in H1 2025. More broadly, the half-year’s largest prices were concentrated among male artists. The three highest-priced works generated $9.3 million, almost as much as every work by a woman artist combined.

5 of the 21 highest-priced works were by women:4

1. Grace Cossington Smith, The Sideboard — $797,727.

2. Cressida Campbell, Parsley Bay, Sydney — $736,364.

3. Ethel Carrick Fox, Place de la Concorde — $490,909.

4. Grace Cossington Smith, Drapery and Fruit in the Window — $429,545.

5. Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Awelye I, II, III & IV — $429,545.

Kngwarreye was the leading woman artist by aggregate value, with 14 works generating $2.35 million. She was followed by Cossington Smith at $1.26 million, Campbell at approximately $804,000, Clarice Beckett at $750,000 and Carrick Fox at $598,000.

Cossington Smith had an especially strong half-year. All three works sold, including two of the five highest-priced works by women. Campbell’s Parsley Bay, Sydney was another standout, hammering for three times its $200,000 low estimate and realising $736,364 including premium.

Women maintained their share of higher-value transactions. They did not participate to the same extent in the surge at the very top.

More First Nations works sold, but their share of value declined

First Nations artists occupied two of the ten leading positions by aggregate value and supplied a significant group of the half-year’s strongest results. Among works sold above $5,000, the number by First Nations artists increased 10%, from 164 in H1 2025 to 181 in H1 2026. Their share of transactions also increased from 21.5% to 23.4%.

Despite those improvements, their share of value moved in the opposite direction. First Nations works generated $8.06 million, down 3.7% from $8.37 million a year earlier. Their share of sales value fell from 19.0% to 15.6%. As with the gender results, much of that decline was caused by the mix at the top of the wider market. H1 2025 included three Kngwarreye works above $500,000, including one above $1 million. No First Nations work appeared among the 20 highest-priced lots in H1 2026.

Kngwarreye nevertheless led First Nations artists with $2.35 million in aggregate sales, followed by Albert Namatjira at $1.21 million.

Other notable totals included:

• Rover Thomas — approx. $725,000

• Lin Onus — approx. $675,000

• Paddy Bedford — approx. $368,000

• Sally Gabori — approx. $362,000

Kngwarreye’s total was supported by several substantial results. Awelye I, II, III & IV sold for $429,545, while six other works exceeded $100,000.

Rover Thomas’s Langurr (The Rainbow Serpent) Making the River sold for $392,727, and two Lin Onus works exceeded $300,000.

While more First Nations works sold and their share of transactions increased, their lower share of value reflected the absence of a comparable result at the very top.

Recovery, with one substantial qualification

The H1 results provide evidence of a genuinely improving Australian auction market. Sales increased by almost 16%. Sell-through rose by more than six percentage points. Both the average and median prices increased. Every price band above $10,000 generated more revenue than it had a year earlier. Even after the ten or 20 most expensive works are removed, the remaining market still recorded growth. The improvement therefore extended beyond a handful of trophy lots.

But the recovery was not evenly shared. Smith & Singer generated 42% of sales from one auction. The lower end also weakened, with fewer works selling below $10,000 and less money spent in that segment.

Demand was strong for major works and improved through the middle of the market. The continuing question is whether auction houses can secure enough high-quality supply to sustain that momentum.

The first half of 2026 was stronger than the same period last year. The second half will show whether that strength was the beginning of a broader trend or the result of one exceptional auction season.

With the help of ChatGPT, I’ve built an app that transforms your Google Calendar into a Mondrian-inspired masterpiece. An organised modernist composition of bold lines, bright moments and perfect balance. Just the way your life should be run.

Visit www.mondriancalendar.com and log in with your Google account.

What it does

Mondrian Calendar uses the Google Calendar API to display your calendar in a new visual form. It can view your events, but it cannot create, edit or delete them. Any changes still need to be made through your usual calendar app.

The calendar has two distinctive features:

• Composition and Boogie Woogie. Use the ‘Composition’ / ‘Boogie Woogie’ button to switch between two visual styles inspired by different periods of Mondrian’s work. There is more background on each style below.

• Painting mode. Select ‘Painting’ to remove all text and transform your schedule into something even closer to a true Mondrian painting. You can still click any coloured block to see the event details.

As with Google Calendar, you can switch between weekly and monthly views, although the weekly view provides the best visual experience. The calendar hides the hours between midnight and 6am by default, but you can reveal them using the ‘12am–6am’ button.

Piet Mondrian

Many readers will recognise Mondrian’s grids of black lines and primary colours. The app draws on two distinct phases of his career.

Composition

Mondrian arrived at his best-known style in the early 1920s, after gradually simplifying the trees, buildings and landscapes he had painted earlier in his career.

Influenced by Cubism and the Dutch De Stijl movement, he began working with a restricted set of elements: horizontal and vertical lines, white backgrounds and blocks of red, yellow and blue.

The paintings may look simple, but they were carefully constructed. Mondrian repeatedly adjusted the width of the lines and the size and position of each coloured area until he was satisfied with the balance of the composition.

Boogie Woogie

Mondrian moved to New York in 1940, and the city prompted a noticeable change in his work.

In paintings such as Broadway Boogie Woogie, completed in 1942–43, the solid black lines of his earlier work were replaced by broken bands of colour. The result was brighter, denser and more animated.

The title referred to the boogie-woogie jazz that Mondrian enjoyed, while the intersecting lines also recalled Manhattan’s street grid and traffic. It was a more energetic version of the same basic visual system he had developed over the previous two decades.

Have a play with it and let me know what works, what doesn’t, and what I should build next.

The second half of the year offered a forceful rebuttal. Major collections and a stronger supply of high-value works helped push H2 sales close to $21 million, indicating the auction market had found its mojo again.

The first six months of 2026 landed between those two extremes.

The four major auction houses, Art & Object, International Art Centre, Webb’s and Dunbar Sloane, recorded a total of $12.6 million in sales in H1 2026, an increase of almost 8% from H1 2025. That is the encouraging headline but the details are more complicated.1

The number of works sold declined by 10%, the median sold price fell below $600 and every price band below $200,000 generated less revenue than it had a year earlier. The increase in sales was entirely attributable to 13 works that sold for more than $200,000.

Remove those works and the direction of the market reverses: sales below $200,000 were down almost 21%. So was H1 2026 a recovery? At the very top of the market, certainly. Across the market as a whole, the evidence is much less convincing.

H1 2026 by the numbers

$525,800

The highest price of the half-year, achieved by Bill Hammond’s Wishbone Ash Stash 2, Cornwall Road at Webb’s.

$12.55 million

Total sales across the four major houses, 7.7% above H1 2025 but 40.2% below H2 2025.

13

The number of works that sold for at least $200,000. Only six reached that level during H1 2025.

29.6%

The proportion of total sales generated by the ten highest-priced works, up sharply from 18.3% in H1 2025.

31.3%

The proportion of sales above $5,000 that were works by women artists, up from 28.1% in H1 2025. Those works accounted for 19.6% of value, about the same as H1 2025.

2,433

The number of lots sold, down 10% from H1 2025.

68.9%

The overall sell-through rate, a slight improvement on 67.3% in H1 2025.

A stronger top ten

The most immediate difference between the first halves of 2025 and 2026 can be found at the top of the results table:

1. Bill Hammond, Wishbone Ash Stash 2, Cornwall Road - $525,800

2. Charles Frederick Goldie, Te Hau - Takiri Wharepapa - $497,700

3. Gottfried Lindauer, Heeni Hirini (Ana Rupene) and Child - $416,500

4. Don Binney, Waitangiroto 21-11-1 - $379,200

5. Paul Dibble, The Unfolding - $377,735

6. Rita Angus, Moonlight, Thorndon - $341,180

7. Michael Smither, Contoured Hills, Water Race and Old Road from Patearoa - $319,950

8. Tony Fomison, John the Baptist, from Caravaggio’s St John with Ram - $310,700

9. Colin McCahon, Floodgate I - $274,850

10. Paul Dibble, Between Two Islands - $274,163

No work sold for more than $300,000 during H1 2025. This year, eight did.

Milan Mrkusich’s Painting (Red), the $249,793 leader from H1 2025, would have ranked only 12th on the latest list.

Bill Hammond took the top position with Wishbone Ash Stash 2, Cornwall Road, which sold for $525,800 against a low estimate of $360,000. It was followed by works from two of the foundational figures in the market for historic portraits of Māori: Charles Frederick Goldie at $497,700 and Gottfried Lindauer at $416,500.

The list then moved through many of the established names that have long underpinned the New Zealand auction market: Don Binney, Paul Dibble, Rita Angus, Michael Smither, Tony Fomison and Colin McCahon. It was, overwhelmingly, a top ten of proven names.

More money from fewer works

The market generated approximately $898,000 more than it did in H1 2025, despite selling 271 fewer lots.

At first glance, that might suggest buyers became more reluctant. The sell-through figures point in the opposite direction. Auction houses offered 488 fewer lots than they had a year earlier, while the proportion that sold stayed stable, increasing slightly from 67.3% to 68.9%. The fall in transactions was therefore driven primarily by reduced supply rather than a collapse in the willingness to buy what was offered.

But the price figures reveal an increasingly uneven market. The average sold price rose almost 20%, from $4,309 to $5,158. The median fell 8.7%, from $655 to $598.

When an average rises as the median falls, it is usually a sign that a relatively small number of expensive results are pulling the headline figure upwards. That is precisely what happened here. The market generated more money, but the typical sold work changed hands for slightly less.

Where the growth came from

The clearest way to see how this played out is to divide the market into price bands:

The table leaves little room for ambiguity. Every band below $200,000 declined.

Sales below $10,000 fell 10.8%. The $10,000 to $50,000 segment declined 16.1%, while the $50,000 to $100,000 range was down 8.9%. The most conspicuous weakness came between $100,000 and $200,000. Sales in that band more than halved, dropping from $2.10 million to $988,000.

Then, above $200,000, the market abruptly changed direction. Six works reached that level in H1 2025, generating $1.38 million. This year, 13 works produced $4.41 million, an increase of 220%. The number of works selling above $300,000 went from none to eight.

The concentration problem

Another way to see the dependence on major works is to remove them.

Take away the works above $200,000 and H1 2026 turnover falls to $8.14 million, compared with $10.27 million a year earlier. On that basis, the market contracted by almost 21%.

The result is a market with two different stories. For a select group of important and desirable works, demand strengthened dramatically. For almost everything else, less money was spent.

The concentration extended to artists. The ten highest-selling artists generated 44% of the half-year’s turnover, up from 37% a year earlier.

Concentration is not automatically a sign of distress. Auction totals often rise and fall with the supply of exceptional works, and high-value consignments will always exercise an outsized influence in New Zealand’s market.

The issue is what happens below them. In H1 2026, the strength at the top was not accompanied by growing sales in the middle or lower price ranges, instead, it compensated for their decline.

The artists who drove the half-year

Bill Hammond led by aggregate value, although the $525,800 top lot contributed two-thirds of his total. His wider result was nevertheless strong: 15 of 16 offered works sold.

Paul Dibble had the cleanest combination of price and consistency. All four of his works sold, two appeared in the overall top ten and his $718,491 total was only narrowly behind Hammond.

Rita Angus and Tony Fomison also achieved perfect sell-through records. Colin McCahon sold 12 of 15 works, while Don Binney sold 12 of 15.

Goldie provides the obvious counterpoint. His six sold works generated $655,658, but a 60% sell-through rate shows how uneven the demand was across the ten paintings offered.

Michael Smither remained the most frequently traded major artist, with 64 works offered and 50 sold. But volume is not the same as value. Smither’s 50 sales generated $445,509, only $29,009 more than Lindauer’s single result.

Just outside the top ten, works by A Lois White generated $286,128, narrowly ahead of Fiona Pardington’s $259,229.

More works by women, but not more market value

Female artists accounted for 31% of sales above $5,000, their highest share across the three half-year periods. That is a meaningful increase from 28% in H1 2025 and 27% in H2 2025.2

Their share of value, however, barely moved. Works by women produced 19.6% of sales, almost identical to the 19.8% recorded a year earlier.

The difference can be seen in the average prices. Among works above $5,000, the average sale by a woman artist was approximately $19,900. The $37,200 average for works by men exceeded the realised price of all but eight works by women.

The strongest results by women were:

1. Rita Angus, Moonlight, Thorndon — $341,180

2. A Lois White, Collapse — $272,550

3. Rita Angus, Seaside Baches — $130,350

4. Francis Upritchard, Future Thinker — $62,144

5. Louise Henderson, Untitled, Garden Party — $44,438

6. Fiona Pardington, Silver Winged Gull (below), Hunter — $42,648

7. Fiona Pardington, Pipitonu, Two Hearts Beat as One — $41,825

8. Gretchen Albrecht, Corolla (Pohutukawa) — $40,211

9. Lisa Reihana, Cooks Transit of Venus — $35,850

10. Judy Millar, Untitled — $32,900

Rita Angus led by a considerable margin. All five of her works sold, generating $504,978 and placing her sixth among all artists by value.

Five of seven offered works by A Lois White sold for $286,128, led by the $272,550 result for Collapse. That placed her just outside the ten highest-selling artists overall. Fiona Pardington, also just outside the top ten, was more broadly traded, with 18 of 26 works selling for $259,229.

There was then a considerable gap to the next-highest female artist by aggregate value. Eight of nine Judy Millar works sold for a combined $99,070, followed by 15 of 17 Jenny Dolezel works at $91,871 and eight of 12 Gretchen Albrecht works at $90,706.

The picture is therefore mixed. Women were represented across more meaningful transactions, and several artists generated strong sell-through. But the most valuable tier remained dominated by men. Only two works by women appeared among the 20 highest-priced lots.

Strong bidding, selectively applied

What is often interesting is seeing which lots attracted fierce competition resulting in prices significantly above their estimates. Around 30% of sold works reached at least 1.5 times their low estimate, while 18% doubled it.3

Some of the strongest results combined high multiples with six figure prices delivering substantial premiums over expectations:

• Terry Stringer’s sculpture Intercut Artist and Model and Intercut Child and Reaching Hand realised more than three times its low estimate, $155,968 against a low estimate of $50,000;

• Ralph Hotere’s Kyrie Eleison Requiem exceeded $200,000 from an $80,000 starting point;

• Paul Dibble’s Between Two Islands added more than $134,000 to its low estimate on the way to realising $274,163.

At lower price levels, the multiples were more dramatic, even if the headline numbers were not:

• Kawase Hasui’s Zojoji Temple in Shiba — from Twenty Views of Tokyo realised $10,710 against a low estimate of only $300, or 35.7 times that figure.

• Don Binney’s Kaka Great Barrier was another notable result, achieving $60,435 from a $15,000 low estimate;

• Peter Wichman’s Woman Near Manhole sold for $10,961 from a $1,000 low estimate;

• Liam Barr’s Faethm reached $33,320 against $5,000;

• Manos Nathan’s Tunatahi sold for $12,185 against $3,000; and

• Nigel Brown’s Destruction of the Endurance sold for $21,330 against $6,000.

The Goldie test

The limits of the top-end recovery were most visible in the market for Charles Frederick Goldie.

Te Hau – Takiri Wharepapa sold for $497,700, making it the second-highest result of the half-year. Goldie also finished third among artists by aggregate sales, with six sold works generating $655,658. Yet four Goldie paintings carrying combined low estimates of $2.21 million failed to sell:

• At the Tangi, The Chief is Dead, His Widow Mourns, $620,000 to $800,000 estimate;

• Sad Memories: Ngaheke, $590,000 to $750,000 estimate;

• Memories: Harata Rewiri Tarapata, $550,000 to $700,000 estimate; and

• Portrait of Te Aho o Te Rangi Wharepu, $450,000 to $550,000 estimate.

This was not a market buying Goldie at any price. It was a market differentiating sharply between individual paintings and the expectations attached to them.

The same selectivity appeared elsewhere with these works going unsold:

• Michael Smither, Mountain Stream, Taranaki, estimated at $200,000 to $300,000;

• Don Binney, Fell Swoop, Te Henga, estimated at $150,000 to $220,000;

• Frances Hodgkins, St. Ives, estimated at $150,000 to $250,000;

• Gretchen Albrecht, Sea Screen No. 1, estimated at $100,000 to $140,000; and

• Pat Hanly, Protective Helmet, estimated at $80,000 to $100,000.

These are not obscure artists, but these were arguably good rather than great works, or in the case of the Albrecht work, an atypical medium. These failures reinforce that buyers will compete hard for the works they want, but reputation alone is not enough to overcome ambitious pricing.

Recovery, with qualifications

There are several reasons to view the results positively.

Sales increased by 7.7%. Sell-through improved. Thirteen works exceeded $200,000, more than twice the number in H1 2025. Major works by Hammond, Goldie, Lindauer, Binney, Dibble, Angus, Smither, Fomison, McCahon and Hotere found buyers, often at prices comfortably above their low estimates.

But the broad numbers conceal a narrower recovery than the headline suggests.

Fewer lots sold. The median price declined. Every price band below $200,000 contracted. The ten highest-priced works generated almost 30% of total turnover, while the top 20 produced more than 42%.

And even at the top, buyers were selective. A strong result for one Goldie did not prevent four others from failing to sell. Significant works by Smither, Binney, Hodgkins, and Albrecht were also passed in.

The best works are still capable of drawing determined bidding, and the supply of those works was markedly better than it had been a year earlier. But there is not yet evidence of the same improvement spreading through the middle of the market.

A broader recovery would require stronger spending between $10,000 and $200,000, a rise in the median price and less dependence on a small group of flagship consignments.

For now, the top end is back. The rest of the market is still waiting.

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This week compares Australia and New Zealand using the same Artwork Price Index methodology. The two markets are closely connected, but the data shows they are currently at different points in the cycle.

The Artwork Price Index tracks the selling price of the 10th, 50th, 100th, 500th, and 1,000th most expensive artworks sold each year. To illustrate a bit further, the 100th most expensive work sold in the Australian auction market in 2025 would have cost you $282,000 AUD, while in New Zealand, the 100th most expensive work would have ‘only’ cost you $55,000 NZD (~$45,000 AUD).

The index is a useful complement to headline results because it shows how pricing is moving across the market, not just at the very top. It also avoids the distortions that can affect median prices, which are heavily influenced by the volume of low-value works. All points are indexed to 2021, making year-to-year comparisons consistent.

Taken together, the Australian and New Zealand indices show two neighbouring markets moving in different directions. Australia’s recovery has been led by strength at the top and upper-middle of the market, while New Zealand remains well below its 2021–22 highs, with softness still evident through the middle and lower tiers.

Australia

At the top end, the index continues to rise. The 10th most expensive work in 2025, Arthur Streeton’s La Salute at $1,472,727 AUD, sits near the peak of the series (comparable to 2023). Arguably more interestingly are the next tiers down where the 50th and 100th price points have been consistently trending upwards (aside from a 2022 spike), indicating that strength is not confined to a small number of trophy lots. Depth is improving across the upper middle of the market.

Further down, the pattern is different. The 500th and 1,000th price points surged in 2022 (with the rest of the market), softened through 2024, and only partially recovered in 2025. Indexed to 2019 or 2020, the 2021–2023 period shows clear inflation at these lower tiers, so the pullback in 2024 reads more like normalisation after an unusually hot run.

Overall, the index points to a market that strengthened again in 2025, led by the top and upper-middle tiers, while the lower tiers stabilised after resetting from the 2022 spike. In this respect, the Australian market looks more confident than New Zealand and many global markets, which were generally more cautious through much of 2025.

New Zealand

At the top end of the index, the 10th most expensive work in 2025, Bill Hammond’s Cornwall Road Cave, sold for $358,500 NZD. This is materially lower than the equivalent price points seen in 2021 and 2022, and well below the Arthur Streeton work in 10th place in Australia (and not that much more than the 100th most expensive work sold in Australia). As the sharp rebound in 2024 demonstrated, this tier remains highly sensitive to the specific works that come to market in any given year.

Further down the index, the 50th most expensive work recorded a modest increase compared with 2024, but still traded at around 50% below its 2021 level. Prices at the 100th, 500th, and 1,000th positions declined for the second consecutive year and now sit approximately 40% below 2021 levels.

The message from New Zealand is less upbeat. While price levels appear to have stabilised, further softening across the middle tiers suggests buyers remain cautious, likely reflecting ongoing cost-of-living pressures and broader economic uncertainty. This stands in contrast to Australia where prices have been increasing over the last few years across all tiers.

Conclusion

There are two important takeaways from this data.

The first is the direction of the markets. Australia entered 2026 with greater depth and confidence, particularly above the middle of the market, while New Zealand is still working through the after-effects of the pandemic-era surge. In both markets, the very top remains highly dependent on what comes up for sale, but the deeper price points tell the more important story: Australia’s market is rebuilding while New Zealand’s has stabilised at a lower level and is yet to bounce back from the pandemic highs.

The second is the size and affordability of the market. There is no doubt that the Australian market is bigger and has more depth. It’s population is larger with greater wealth that contributes to supporting higher possible prices. This is telling when the 10th most expensive work in New Zealand is only a little more expensive than the 100th most expensive in Australia. A similar comparison plays out for the 100th work in New Zealand compared to the 500th work in Australia. An alternative, and perhaps more promising, view for collectors is that the New Zealand market provides greater affordability for fantastic works.

Methodology: Data has been compiled from six Australian auction houses (Art Leven, Bonhams, Deutscher and Hackett, Leonard Joel, Menzies, and Smith & Singer) and four New Zealand auction houses (Art & Object, Webb’s, International Art Centre, and Dunbar Sloane). The analysis covers auctions held between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2025 and includes only sales primarily focused on fine art.

Extensive efforts have been made to ensure the accuracy of the data; however, as with all large datasets, some errors or omissions may remain.

This week I take a narrower approach and analyse living Australian artists to see where collector’s money has actually gone at auction this decade.1 There are 21 names that need to be passed by before we reach our top placed living artist, Tim Storrier. And there are over 140 artists that need to be filtered out to get our list of top 20 living artists.

The ranking is insightful, but also imperfect. It favours established artists (and that generally means older artists) with enough secondary-market supply to see multiple works sell at auction. Even so, it gives a useful snapshot of where demand has been strongest, and reveals glimpses of younger artists that may be the future blue chips of the Australian market.

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#20 - #11 Ranking

Before the top 10, it is worth pausing on the artists ranked 20 to 11. It shows how broad the Australian market has become.

There are major First Nations artists, including Warlimpirrnga Tjapaltjarri, Angelina Pwerle, Michael Cook and Reko Rennie. There are artists associated with photography, most obviously Tracey Moffatt. There are also senior painters such as Imants Tillers, Dale Frank and Michael Johnson, whose careers sit within the late postwar generation that reshaped Australian art after modernism. CJ Hendry and Michael Zavros add another strand again: highly visible contemporary artists whose markets have developed in a different era, closer to social media, brand recognition and global collector networks.

Now, let’s look at the top 10 in more detail.

#10 Tim Maguire

Born: 1958 | Sales Value $891,410 | Highest Price: $122,727 | Lots Sold: 22 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 1

Tim Maguire is one of the more international figures on this list with his career being built between Australia and Europe. His work sits between painting and photography with highly polished, large-scale, works often featuring extreme close-ups of floral arrangements.

#9 Rick Amor

Born: 1948 | Sales Value $1,245,385 | Highest Price: $429,545 | Lots Sold: 44 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 1

Rick Amor’s standing has been built slowly and steadily, which is often how serious reputations in Australian art are made. He belongs to the strong Melbourne tradition of painters for whom atmosphere, place, and draughtsmanship carry significant weight. A significant new record was achieved in 2025 with his work, The Waiter, selling well beyond it’s estimate of $200-$250k, helping to establish his position as one of the leading senior artists in Australia and giving a notable boost to the total sales value over the decade.

#8 Peter Booth

Born: 1940 | Sales Value $1,339,022 | Highest Price: $171,818 | Lots Sold: 38 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 3

Peter Booth was born in Sheffield, UK before emigrating to Australia in 1958. He is one of Australia’s major postwar painters, known for dark, intense works that move between abstraction, figuration and apocalyptic imagery. His paintings often feel psychologically charged, with landscapes and figures carrying a sense of threat, mystery and emotional force.

#7 Criss Canning

Born: 1947 | Sales Value $1,780,074 | Highest Price: $412,500 | Lots Sold: 27 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 4

Criss Canning is one of the clearest signs of a market reassessing an artist’s relevance. She has had a long and serious career, but recent results suggest collectors are now putting more weight behind that achievement, particularly with a record setting $412,500 sale last year. Canning is best known for richly coloured still lifes and interiors, often filled with flowers, ceramics, textiles and domestic objects, some of my favourite being those depicting coffee sets.

#6 Yvonne Audette

Born: 1930 | Sales Value $2,603,673 | Highest Price: $294,545 | Lots Sold: 30 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 9

Yvonne Audette is a key figure in Australian abstraction, with a career shaped by her time in New York and Europe where she was influenced by painters such as Willem de Kooning and Robert Motherwell. Her paintings are layered and carefully balanced, often using gesture, structure and colour to create a quiet but complex visual language. Nine works selling above $100,000 is not a fluke. It suggests depth, not just a single headline result, and that collectors are catching up with an artist whose importance has long been recognised by institutions.

#5 John Kelly

Born: 1965 | Sales Value $2,620,702 | Highest Price: $355,909 | Lots Sold: 46 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 6

John Kelly has one of the most distinctive entry points for collectors. His reworking of William Dobell’s camouflage cows (these were papier mache cows made during WWII to deceive Japanese fighter pilots) gives the market an image it can quickly recognise, but the appeal goes beyond a clever motif. Kelly’s work turns back on Australian art itself, playing with national myth, war, absurdity and art history. That combination of recognisability and intellectual bite has given his market real strength demonstrated by six works selling above $100,000.

#4 Garry Shead

Born: 1942 | Sales Value $3,340,291 | Highest Price: $319,091 | Lots Sold: 58 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 8

Garry Shead has long occupied a central place in the narrative and figurative side of Australian art. His paintings draw on myth, symbolism, Australian landscape, and creating images that sit somewhere between memory, story and allegory. His career has moved across painting, printmaking and film, giving him a wider cultural footprint than auction figures alone can capture. Though with 8 works selling above $100,000, the market has certainly bought into his interpretations of history.

#3 Ben Quilty

Born: 1973 | Sales Value $3,464,614 | Highest Price: $270,000 | Lots Sold: 52 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 10

Ben Quilty and Del Kathryn Barton (next at #2) are the youngest artists in the top 10 but have already secured their place in Australian’s art history. Quilty first became widely visible through the Brett Whitely Travelling Art Scholarship that he won in 2002 and then gained further exposure by winning the Archibald Prize in 2011. He helped reconnect contemporary painting with questions of masculinity, national identity, war and colonial violence, which gives him a place in Australian art history well beyond the auction room. He is one of those artists whose market strength reflects genuine cultural visibility. Ten works above $100,000 suggests collectors are not just responding to visibility, but to sustained confidence in his place within contemporary Australian painting.

#2 Del Kathryn Barton

Born: 1972 | Sales Value $5,852,174 | Highest Price: $527,727 | Lots Sold: 52 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 19

Del Kathryn Barton’s market has both recognisability and depth, which is a powerful combination. Her work is instantly recognisable for its intricate detail, heightened colour and fantastical figures. Her paintings often explore femininity, motherhood, and transformation through dense symbolic worlds of flowers, animals, bodies and pattern. What’s notable is not just the total sales, but that 19 works sold above $100,000. That points to a broad collector base willing to compete repeatedly, not merely for one exceptional result. Her two Archibald wins helped cement her public reputation, but the auction market now appears to be lifting her higher as one of the defining Australian painters of the twenty-first century.

#1 Tim Storrier

Born: 1949 | Sales Value $5,889,646 | Highest Price: $270,000 | Lots Sold: 99 | Works sold in excess of $100k: 26

Tim Storrier takes the top spot through consistency rather than one runaway sale. He emerged in the late 1960s, won the Sulman Prize at just nineteen, and has remained a serious name in Australian art for more than half a century. His auction record is lower than Del Kathryn Barton’s, but he has produced more six-figure results and sold roughly twice as many works at auction than anyone else on the list. Like many leading artists, his works are instantly recognisable and he best known for symbolic landscapes shaped by fire, night skies and the vastness of the Australian interior.

Final Thoughts

There are few shocks at the top of this list. Most of these artists are senior figures with long careers and established reputations, including the top 4 all winning the Archibald Prize. That makes sense. Auction markets usually reward certainty, and certainty takes time.

What is more interesting is the range beneath that certainty. The broader list includes postwar abstraction, contemporary figurative painting, First Nations art, photography, conceptual practice, and artists whose reputations have been shaped as much by prizes, institutions and biennales as by the auction room itself.

It also shows that the living Australian market is not driven by one kind of artist. Some names are here because collectors repeatedly pay six figures for major works. Others are here because their imagery is instantly recognisable. Some benefit from reassessment. Others from long-term consistency. Put together, the list is less a final verdict than a market map: a way of seeing which parts of Australian art collectors are still actively backing.

As a reminder, in auction language, the “sell-through rate” is the percentage of auctioned works that find a buyer. Those that fail to sell are usually described as being “passed in”. In that scenario, the bidding did not reach the reserve and the seller wasn’t prepared to sell at a lower price.

Below are 13 Australian or strongly Australian-connected artists who achieved a 100% sell-through rate over the five period between 2021 - 2025.1 In each case, every lot offered found a buyer. That does not mean every work soared above estimate, or that every artist is suddenly undervalued. But when every work by an artist sells over a sustained period, it is worth paying attention.

Near-perfect results

A further group of artists did not quite reach 100%, but still achieved very strong sell-through rates of 94% or higher. A sell-through rate that high across a meaningful number of lots is still very strong. The difference between that and 100% is only one or two unsold works. That is not enough to change the underlying message that collectors are highly engaged when works by these artists come to auction.

The more established or better-known names include Barry Humphries, Sally Gabori, Yvonne Audette, Grace Cossington Smith, Rover Thomas Joolama and Bertram Mackennal. Other names include Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Aileen Brown, Graham Fransella, Kim Westcott, Eric Thake, Ellis Rowan, James Alfred Turner and J. H. Scheltema.2

This near-perfect group also broadens the picture. It includes major modernists, First Nations artists, printmakers, colonial and early Australian painters, sculptors and even Barry Humphries, whose market sits somewhere between art and celebrity cult status.

A different kind of list

The first thing to note is that the artworks by these artists are already commanding high prices. The New Zealand sell-through list was interesting partly because many of the artists remained accessible to collectors at relatively modest price points. The Australian version is different. Here, the median artist has an average sale price of roughly $60,000, and John Peter Russell’s average price sits above $600,000.

But it’s not all the typical names like Brett Whiteley, Sidney Nolan, Fred Williams, Arthur Streeton or Arthur Boyd (aside from John Peter Russell). That’s partly because most of those names have had 100s of works auctioned off, making it hard to maintain perfect (or near perfect) sales. It’s also because collectors have sought out interesting buying opportunities across under-represented categories, including women and First Nations artists.

While the headline names are impressive, the lower-priced artists may be where many collectors should spend more time looking. Dora Chapman, Alice Bale (often referred to as A. M. E. Bale), Guy Boyd, and Eveline Syme all achieved perfect sell-through rates while sitting at average prices well below the top tier of the list. There are further affordable names from those with near perfect results: Aileen Brown, Graham Fransella, Kim Westcott, Eric Thake, and Ellis Rowan.

That does not automatically make them bargains. Sell-through alone cannot tell us whether prices are low, fair or high. But it does tell us that works by these artists are being bought up by the market when they appear. It suggests there is already demand, but not necessarily with the kind of pricing that pushes the artist beyond reach.

The historical names are clearing

Several of the strongest performers are nineteenth-century born artists whose body of work may be in more limited supply. Conrad Martens, Ethel Carrick Fox, John Peter Russell, Max Meldrum, Adrian Feint, Alice Bale and Eveline Syme all fall broadly into this category.

It would be easy to say that these artists already have established reputations. But the reality is that, even now, many of these artists are still being reassessed. The market appears to be increasingly recognising the importance of artists who were overlooked or under-priced.

John Peter Russell is a good example. He has been known as the “lost impressionist” for some time but it’s only recently his market results are recognising the scale of his international importance: a decade ago his works were frequently passed in and those that did sell could often be bought for under $20,000. Now, you’re lucky to find anything under $100,000.

Another example is Adrian Feint whose works came back into focus after the publishing of a book showcasing this “unjustly neglected artist” and an extensive exhibition of his work in 2018. His works often sold for under $5,000 before 2020, but now the median price is above $20,000.

One thing working in these artists’ favour is that, over time, the available supply of their work tends to decrease as it is lost or sold into public institutions. That often makes the remaining works more desirable when they do appear at auction.

Women artists are strongly represented

Another interesting aspect of the list is the number of women artists.

Alice Bale, Criss Canning, Dora Chapman, Ethel Carrick Fox, Eveline Syme and Inge King all achieved 100% sell-through. Others that achieved sell-through rates of 95% or higher include Aileen Brown, Sally Gabori, Yvonne Audette, Grace Cossington Smith, Kim Westcott and Ellis Rowan. That is a significant representation of women artists.

It reflects, in part, the broader reassessment of women artists within Australian art history, some of which also overlap with the focus on artists from the 1800s. Collectors are increasingly alert to artists who may have been under-recognised relative to their male peers, particularly where the work is strong, and institutional attention has been increasing.

I think Criss Canning is an interesting example of being less “rediscovered” and more market re-rated. AASD noted that her auction record was only $42,000 in November 2021, then rose to $185,000 in 2023, and again to a $330,000 hammer price in 2025. It described her as continuing “to rise and live large in the auction room.”

Women artists also appear across the full price spectrum. Dora Chapman’s average price is only $1,188, making her one of the most accessible artists on the list. Alice Bale also remains relatively approachable, with an average price just above $5,000. At the other end, Ethel Carrick Fox, Inge King and (as already noted) Criss Canning are already trading at far higher levels.

That spread is useful for collectors as it suggests that the revaluation of women artists is not confined to one part of the market. It is happening across multiple generations and mediums, with price points that many collectors can still access.

Sculpture also stands out

Another notable feature is the strength of sculpture amongst these artists. Clement Meadmore, Inge King, and Guy Boyd all achieved 100% sell-through rates. Meadmore and King sit at much higher average price points, while Boyd appears more accessible, but the shared pattern is worth noting as sculpture can sometimes be a harder category at auction. It is less easy to hang, often more difficult to install, and can be more demanding for collectors in terms of space. Yet these results suggest that the market is willing to absorb works by the right sculptors when they appear.

Meadmore and King in particular occupy strong positions in Australian modern sculpture. Their works are visually distinctive, institutionally recognised and relatively finite in supply. That combination helps explain why collectors continue to respond.

First Nations artists remain deeply sought after

There is high demand for the strongest First Nations artists. Works by Albert Namatjira have consistently sold despite steadily increasing prices. Namatjira’s result is especially striking because of the volume with eighty-one works being offered, and all 81 sold. That suggests a broad and highly active collector base for his work, supported by his status as one of the most recognisable and important First Nations artists of the twentieth century.

This strength extends beyond the 100% list with Sally Gabori and Rover Thomas Joolama each achieving a sell-through rate around 95%. And a number of other artists including Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Bill Whiskey Tjapaltjarri, Paddy Nyunkuny Bedford, and Yannima Tommy Watson achieved around 90%. Taken together, these results show the continued depth of collector interest in major First Nations artists, particularly those with strong institutional recognition and clearly defined places within Australian art history.

What perfect sell-through tells us

A 100% sell-through rate is a compelling number. But it does not tell us whether estimates were conservative. It does not tell us whether works sold above or below expectations. It does not distinguish between a major painting and a minor work on paper. And it does not guarantee that prices will rise in future.

But when every lot by an artist sells across a meaningful number of auctions, there is clearly demand. The market is often rewarding scarcity, historical importance, institutional recognition and collector familiarity. It can also signal the significance of those artists being re-interpreted. Together, those factors can sometimes support stronger prices over time.

That may not make every artist on this list a buying opportunity. Many are outside the price range of the average collector. But it does make those artists and their works worth watching.

The same idea can be applied to individual artists. If an artist’s works consistently sell when they appear at auction, it can be a useful measure of how much demand there is for that artist’s work. In other words, how “hot” that artist is currently.

Below, I’ve looked back over the past five years of auction results to identify 14 artists with especially strong sell-through rates.1 What makes the list interesting is that these are not all high-priced trophy artists. The median artist on the list has an average sale price of roughly $3,000, meaning many of these artists remain accessible to collectors who are not chasing six-figure works.

What stands out

First, as I’ve written about previously, Pauline Yearbury and Jenny Dolezel continue to look like two of the hotter names in the secondary market. Both have had a meaningful number of works come to auction over the past five years, and both have maintained very high sell-through rates.

There was a sharp increase in the number of Yearbury works appearing on the secondary market in 2024, which continued into 2025. Dolezel’s works, meanwhile, have steadily increased in price over the five-year period, although the market appears to have softened slightly in 2025.

Second, several of the strongest names are artists working in three dimensions. Barry Lett, Barry Brickell, Edgar Mansfield, and John Edgar all appear on the list. Lett’s sculptural dogs have been especially popular, while Brickell’s terracotta works, Mansfield’s bronzes and Edgar’s stone works have also found willing buyers.

Third, there is a strong showing from artists associated with landscapes: Simon Williams, Marilynn Webb, Tom Burnett, and Annie Baird. What is interesting is that, despite the overlap in subject matter, their styles are quite distinct. That may be part of the appeal with collectors choosing to not just buy “a landscape” and instead they are buying a work that is clearly identifiable as being by that artist.

Fourth, as the number of total lots increases, maintaining a high sell-through rate becomes much harder. A deeper collector base is needed to absorb the supply. That is why a few artists particularly stand out.

John Edgar and Jenny Dolezel have already been mentioned. Robin White, the most notable name on the list, also falls into this category. On one hand, the strong results are not surprising with her deep institutional and collector recognition. On the other hand, maintaining a sell-through rate above 90% at sustained higher prices is more challenging, but reflective of her importance as a senior New Zealand artist.

Finally, the last striking feature of the list is affordability. Yes, Robin White’s average price is over $20,000, and Pauline Yearbury, John Edgar and Jenny Dolezel sit at higher levels than many emerging collectors may be comfortable with. But several artists on the list have average sale prices below $2,000. Tom Burnett, Marilynn Webb, Annie Baird, John Douglas Perrett and Michael Blow have strong sell-through rates while remaining relatively accessible. That is an appealing combination and can be an indication of an overlooked artist that those in the know are jumping on.

Special mentions

Gillie and Marc Schattner also achieved a 100% sell-through rate over the period. I have excluded them from the main list because they are Australian and British rather than New Zealand connected artists, but their result is still worth noting. Their bronze and fibreglass dog sculptures have clearly found buyers at auction, even as their work has attracted more critical debate recently.

There are also several artists whose sell-through rates were just below the main list but still very strong. These artists are also worth exploring and include:

Ida Eise, Peter Beadle, Henry William Kirkwood, Ida Carey, Eion Stevens, Michael Parekowhai, Douglas Badcock, William Henry Allen, Ken Kendall, Arthur Dagley, Len Castle and Peter Collis.

What sell-through does (and does not) tell us

Sell-through rate is not a perfect measure. It does not tell us whether prices are rising or falling. It does not tell us whether estimates were set conservatively. It does not distinguish between major works and minor examples.

But it is still useful. At a basic level, sell-through tells us how interested collectors are in that artist and their works. When an artist clears 90% or more of their auction offerings over a five-year period, that is a meaningful market signal. Demand is broad enough to absorb supply, even when multiple works come to market. For collectors, that makes these artists worth watching.

Though her practice is broad, the highest prices at auction closely align with the body of work she is exhibiting in Venice. The large native bird photographs, especially the huia and the dramatic spread-wing diptychs, are where collectors have been most focused.

Below, I take a deeper look at what her works are achieving at auction and give my recommendations on what I would buy and at what price.

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There are two big variables in Pardington’s auction prices: the subject matter and the size. A large work in a less familiar subject is not the same as a large huia. A small heitiki is not the same market as a small early photograph. But together, subject and size explain a lot of the price movement.

I look first at subject matter, then size, before taking a closer look at the two areas collectors are most likely to focus on: huia and heitiki.

Subject Matter

Across her career, Pardington has portrayed several distinct subjects. The most important, commercially and visually, is the huia. These extinct birds survive physically through museum specimens and individual feathers.

Alongside the huia sits the broader category of native birds. Within that, I have separated out two groups: kiwi and the native wing diptychs. Kiwi are her second most common bird subject at auction, though well behind huia. The winged works are different again. These are presented as large diptychs of just the wings, photographed from either above or below, and they are among Pardington’s most dramatic and sought-after photographs.

I’ve also separated out her heitiki, life casts, and still life works.1 The heitiki works have been part of Pardington’s practice for a long time and remain relatively affordable compared with the works of native birds. The life casts, first shown in 2011, depict casts of human heads made during voyages by the French around the Pacific in the 1830s. The still life works appear to have grown out of her McCahon House residency and have since become a recurring part of her practice.

The graph above shows how important birds have become to the market. In most years, the various bird works make up roughly half of Pardington’s auction results. The heitiki works are also consistent, appearing at auction almost every year and going back well beyond the period shown in the graph. Still lifes also appear regularly, while there also continues to be steady sales of her earlier photography captured in the “Other” category.

The graph of prices and the table of sell-through rates tell a clearer story of how subject matter shapes demand and prices.

The spread-wing works sit at the top, so much so that it’s off the charts in 2021,2 with a median price of $55,000, helped by major results for works such as Davis Kea Wings and Ruru Perfect Prince. Of the 13 winged lots offered over the last decade, 12 sold, giving a 92% sell-through rate. The sample is relatively small, but the high median price and the consistent demand are hard to ignore.

Not surprisingly, the huia works are also strong. 52 works have sold over the last decade, with sales every year and a median price around $33,000. The sell-through rate is strong at 79% confirming that these works are sought after. Importantly, huia works account for roughly $1.9 million in auction sales value across the decade, making them also Pardington’s most important subject category by total auction value.

Pardington’s kiwi works achieved high prices during the pandemic, but those prices have converged closer to the other native birds in the last few years. The median price of a kiwi work is now closer to $32,000 while the median for other native birds has increased to $29,000. By sell-through rate, kiwi works are only slightly stronger than the broader bird category, so even though they are a significant category, they are not in much more demand than other native birds.

At the lower end of the price spectrum, the heitiki works have a median price of $9,000 over the last decade, and have generally sold below $10,000 in recent years. Of 34 heitiki works offered, 26 sold, giving a 76% sell-through rate, at the higher end of demand. For collectors priced out of the huia and other native birds, the heitiki works are an obvious place to look with the lower price point and solid demand.

Still life and life cast works often sit in different places on the price spectrum, but both perform respectably, roughly in line with the sell-through rates of the broader native bird category. Meanwhile, Pardington’s early photography, captured in the “Other” category, has a lower sell-through rate of about 60%, suggesting that the market is more selective with these earlier or less immediately recognisable Pardington works. Even so, they offer the most affordable pricing.

While it would be easy to conclude that the subject is all that matters, we’ll see below how size of the works also impacts price.

Size Matters

While subject matter is a significant part of the story, size is also a major contributor in influencing price.

In the earlier years of the auction data, Pardington’s market was dominated by smaller works. Around 2010, with the life cast works, she began operating on a larger scale. It then took several years for those larger works to move through collections and into the secondary market. From 2018 onward, those large works have become a much bigger part of the auction market. It’s an important shift, as those larger works pushed the price ceiling higher.

Pardington’s works are not completely standardised, but they do fall into broad size bands. I’ve labelled these as XS through to XL, while the the large diptychs are labelled 2X.3

Small works have been part of Pardington’s practice and auction history for a long time. What has changed in the last decade is the arrival of larger works in meaningful numbers that now also represent around half of her auction sales each year.

The price data confirms the point that bigger works generally command higher prices. The relationship is not perfectly linear, and buyers appear to treat L and XL works similarly, with many selling in the $30,000 to $40,000 range. S and M works also sit closer together, often selling between $10,000 and $20,000.

In other words, size matters, but subject still decides the premium. A high quality huia is likely to command a higher price relative to a similar sized work covering a different, less recognisable, subject matter. Below, we look at how subject matter and size combine to impact prices for two of her most popular works: huia and heitiki.

Huia

Pardington’s defining works are those of the huia. With almost 60 huia works sold over the last decade, there is enough data to see a real pattern.

The most obvious point is that larger huia works achieve higher prices than smaller ones. That is expected. But the more interesting point is that the arrival of larger works appears to have changed the way collectors price the smaller ones.

Before the pandemic, smaller huia works would regularly sell above $20,000. Now, with more large works available, smaller huia appear to have been pushed down. A smaller huia today looks to be roughly $10,000 cheaper than comparable works before the pandemic.

That price pressure on huia works has acted in conjunction with a broader slow down across the art market. Prices inflated during the pandemic and have since cooled. That is perhaps most acutely seen in the larger huia works that consistently sold above $40,000, but now most of those works seem to sit in the $20,000 to $40,000 range.

There are exceptions. Collectors still stretch for the best examples. Andrew’s Huia Pair Diptych has held up well. Works where the white feathers are especially visible also appear to attract stronger bidding, with examples such as Ake Ake Huia and Lovers, Timaru, South Canterbury selling well relative to other recent huia works.

My buying view: Personally, I would be cautious above $30,000 for most huia works at auction. There are enough examples that sell at or below that level that your patience is likely to be rewarded. It is also worth remembering that you can buy works directly from her dealer. Pardington is represented by Starkwhite, and some collectors may find better opportunities, or at least more choice, outside auction.

Heitiki

As much as the huia are the obvious trophy works, if I was building a collection and tight on cash, a smarter choice may be one of Pardington’s heitiki works. Admittedly, I didn’t know the difference between a tiki and heitiki, and I suspect others don’t either so here’s a quick lesson:

The heitiki is a small, carved ornament, usually of greenstone, worn suspended from the neck. It is often incorrectly referred to as tiki. Tikis are, properly, the much larger human figures carved in wood guarding the entrance to a Maori pa and, also, the smaller wooden carvings used to mark a tapu place.

The Encyclopedia of New Zealand

A record for the heitiki works was set back in 2010 when a set of nine sold for $64,300 and the larger heitiki works now regularly sell for over $25,000. But the smaller works remain much more approachable. Many still sell below $15,000, and a good number sell below $10,000.

This is where the buying opportunity may sit for those with smaller budgets. The median heitiki price remains far below Pardington’s bird works but the heitiki subject is as integral to Pardington’s practice. It is recurring, recognisable and culturally specific to New Zealand. That combination makes it more compelling than simply buying a lower-priced example from the “Other” category.

Other collectors likely agree, because, analysing just the small heitiki works, the sell-through rate is actually 89%, notably higher than the huia works, and just behind the sell-through of the winged diptychs. That demand is perhaps reflected in the prices of the small heitiki works now nudging up over the last few years.

Conclusion

If you want the blockbuster Fiona Pardington, then chase down a large diptych of the native wings or a strong huia work. Those are the works most likely to be recognised quickly by other collectors and best placed to benefit from any added attention around Venice. The best huia works can sell above $60,000, but I think there are opportunities between $20,000 and $30,000 if you are patient and selective.

At the more affordable end, the heitiki works deserve serious attention. They are integral to Pardington’s practice, visually distinctive and still available at prices that have not run away from collectors. Smaller examples should still be available below $10,000, although that may become harder if broader interest in Pardington continues to build.

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Across the global art market, there has been a noticeable shift towards artists whose reputations are already well established, whose best periods are understood, and whose bodies of work are largely complete. That preference also showed up clearly in Australia in 2025. The strongest parts of the market were where buyers felt they could judge quality with confidence.

That explains the numbers below. Post War artists remained the backbone of the market. Impressionist & Modern artists had a major step-up at the top end. Contemporary art also performed well, but the gains were highly concentrated in proven names, especially Howard Arkley.

Post War (born 1911–1944)

Post War artists (born 1911–1944) remained the most consistent and commercially important segment of the Australian auction market in 2025. The category generated just under $50m in sales, down on 2024, but still the highest performing category. It continues to be supported by a deep bench of highly liquid names including Brett Whiteley, Sidney Nolan, Fred Williams, Arthur Boyd, Russell Drysdale and Jeffrey Smart. Notably, only two of the ten most expensive works in 2025 came from Post War artists, but that reflects the category’s breadth: sales are being delivered through volume and depth, not just a handful of headline lots.

Impressionist & Modern (born 1851–1910)

By contrast, the Impressionist & Modern (born 1851–1910) saw a sharp step-up in 2025, reaching 36% of total sales (up from 23% in 2024). John Peter Russell was the standout driver, supported by Frederick McCubbin, Arthur Streeton, Grace Cossington Smith, and Emily Kame Kngwarreye. The category also dominated the very top end: four of the top ten results came from Impressionist & Modern artists, and 21 works sold for more than $500k (including six above $1m). That compares with just 6 works above $500k in 2024. The sell-through rate was also strong at 81% in 2025, broadly in line with the five-year average.

Contemporary (born 1945 or later)

Contemporary artists (born 1945 or later) delivered their strongest year of the past five years, accounting for 20% of total sales. But that share was heavily concentrated. Howard Arkley alone contributed 45% of Contemporary sales value, reflecting strong demand for his work, with four lots appearing among the 10 most expensive works across all categories. Bronwyn Oliver was the next strongest Contemporary artist, with two works selling for more than $500,000.

There is also an interesting tension within the Contemporary category: much of the strongest demand is for artists who are no longer alive. Arkley and Oliver are the clearest examples, but the same pattern can be seen with Joel Elenberg and Lin Onus. For these artists, supply is permanently limited, with collectors competing for a finite pool of existing works.

Even with the rise in total sales value, Contemporary art’s sell-through rate remained comparatively soft at 67%, below the wider market average. This suggests that demand is highly selective: strong for major works by established names, but less consistent across the broader Contemporary category.

Colonial (born 1700–1850)

The Colonial category (born 1700–1850) was boosted by two Francesco Guardi works in Leonard Joel’s sale of Old Master paintings from the Robert Compton Jones Collection. Beyond those highlights, 2025 lacked notable supply of Australian Colonial material, limiting the category’s overall impact.

Overall, 2025 was a market that rewarded certainty. Earlier art benefited because reputations, periods and quality markers are more clearly defined. While the strongest results in contemporary art came from proven names and exceptional works.

2026 so far belongs to the Post-War names

The article above was written for the 2025 Australian Fine Art Auction Market Report. But we’re already well into 2026. So how is this year shaping up? The top end of the 2026 market is already offering some clues.

Of the ten most expensive works sold so far this year, six are by Post-War artists: Brett Whiteley, twice, along with Sidney Nolan, Russell Drysdale, Fred Williams and Jeffrey Smart. Two are from the Impressionist and Modern category, by Grace Cossington Smith and John Peter Russell, while the remaining two are Contemporary works by Howard Arkley.

Methodology: Data has been compiled from six Australian auction houses: Art Leven, Bonhams, Deutscher and Hackett, Leonard Joel, Menzies, and Smith & Singer. The analysis covers auctions held between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2025 and includes only sales primarily focused on fine art. Approximately 0.5% of sales did not have an artist birth date recorded and have been excluded from this analysis

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Robyn Kahukiwa

Art rooted in mana wāhine and Māori sovereignty

Robyn Kahukiwa (1938–2025) was a pioneering Māori artist whose bold, narrative paintings played a defining role in expressing tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty) and mana wāhine (female leadership and authority). Her work is instantly recognisable, often depicting atua wāhine (Māori goddesses) in vivid colour and strong graphic forms, and is deeply rooted in Māori identity, women’s empowerment, and political activism.

Across a career spanning more than five decades, Kahukiwa used her art to reframe New Zealand history through a Māori lens, foregrounding resilience, whakapapa, and cultural strength. Early recognition, including the landmark Wāhine Toa exhibition in 1983, established her national profile, while later honours such as the Te Waka Toi Supreme Award in 2020 confirmed her lasting influence. A major retrospective at the New Zealand Portrait Gallery in 2024 further cemented her standing. She passed away in April 2025.

In the wake of her passing, auction activity for Kahukiwa’s work increased sharply. The number of works sold more than doubled year-on-year, rising from 15 in 2024 to 34 in 2025, while total sales value also more than doubled. Notable results included Girl in a Bush Shirt (1982), which achieved $52,580 at Webb’s in March. Two works on paper, Hongi at Dunbar Sloane and Wāhine with Three Feathers at International Art Centre, also attracted strong bidding, selling well above their high estimates.

Kahukiwa’s career auction record remains Family Group (1973), which sold for $64,865 in 2021. Importantly, her market continues to offer accessible entry points, with more than half of her works selling for under $2,000 in 2025.

The 2025 results point to increased recognition of Kahukiwa’s importance within New Zealand art history, with her work attracting renewed attention in the secondary market following decades of cultural and artistic impact.

Peter Peryer

A defining voice in New Zealand photography

Peter Peryer (1941–2018) was one of New Zealand’s most significant photographers, best known for psychologically charged images that sit between documentary and the surreal. Working primarily in black and white, he photographed animals, objects, landscapes, and people with a deliberate stillness that transformed familiar subjects into something quietly unsettling. Works such as Dead Steer (1987), Self-Portrait with Rooster (1977), and later still-life images established Peryer as a central figure in New Zealand photography. His work is held in all major public collections, and in 2023 he was the subject of a major retrospective at the Sarjeant Gallery, featuring 180 prints produced between 2003 and 2018.

Peryer’s inclusion among the strongest momentum gains of 2025 reflects a material shift in auction activity. The number of works sold more than tripled year-on-year, rising from 10 in 2024 to 34 in 2025, while total sales value increased from just over $12,000 to more than $163,000. This resurgence was driven largely by Art & Object’s March 2025 sale of the Grant Kerr Collection, described as the most important grouping of Peryer prints held in private hands. The auction included the triptych Jam Rolls, Neenish Tarts, Doughnuts (1983), which set a new auction record at $30,463.

Despite this renewed momentum, Peryer’s market remains relatively accessible. Many works continue to trade at modest price levels, offering entry points for collectors even as demand strengthens for key images and higher-quality prints. The 2025 results suggest a broader reassessment of Peryer’s contribution to New Zealand art history, with his work attracting renewed attention in the secondary market.

Pauline Yearbury

Modern Māori narratives carved in wood

Pauline Yearbury (1926–1977) was a pioneering Māori modernist whose carved and painted panels reimagined Māori creation narratives through bold form and design. Of Ngāpuhi descent and trained at Elam School of Fine Arts in the 1940s, she was one of the first Māori women to graduate from the school. Working from a studio in Russell with her husband James Yearbury, Pauline designed intricately stylised rimu panels that James helped carve and stain. This collaboration produced some of the most distinctive works of mid-century Māori art.

Yearbury’s carvings often depicted atua (Maori gods) and ancestors with bold lines, geometric abstraction, and earthy colour palettes. Her work brought traditional storytelling into a strikingly modern form. Yearbury’s contributions have recently gained renewed institutional recognition, with major inclusions in Modern Women: Flight of Time at Auckland Art Gallery and a solo survey at Te Uru Contemporary Gallery in 2025. The Russell Museum also holds a permanent collection of the carvings.

Following this curatorial spotlight, demand for the Yearburys’ work has surged. In 2024, two carved panels sold in Auckland for around $30,000 each — around 15x their low estimates. In 2025, a rare oil painting by Yearbury, The Offering (1968), achieved a new record of about $37,000 at International Art Centre.

The recent resurgence reflects growing collector awareness of Pauline Yearbury’s cultural and artistic importance. Her carved and painted works occupy a distinctive place in New Zealand art history, and availability remains limited, particularly for works of scale and quality.

As before, I’ve focused on recognisable artists and works that appear reasonably often at auction. Most of my picks sit below $10,000. In many cases, they are closer to $1,000. That makes them a much more realistic entry point into artists whose major paintings can now sell for hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of dollars.

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Criss Canning (b. 1947)

Criss Canning is an interesting name to watch in this group because her market has strengthened recently, with Gum Blossom from Pootilla setting a new auction record for the artist at $412,500 in 2025. Her prints, by contrast, still appear at much lower levels.

Two prints I would watch out for are Hakea and Other Seed Pods (edition of 60) and Pink Poppies (edition of 50), both capture the botanical subject matter collectors associate with her. Although neither have come up at auction recently, based on previous results, I would expect to pay somewhere between $3,000 to $5,000 for Hakea and around $1,000 for Pink Poppies.

Lin Onus (1948–1996)

Lin Onus is one of Australia’s most important First Nations artists, and his works are instantly recognisable. He brought a contemporary approach to the Australian landscape, often combining reflections, water, animals and traditional rarrk-style patterning.

Onus produced a number of screenprints in the mid-1990s before his death. Four to consider are Gumbirri Garginingi, Gumiring Garkman, Pitoa Garkman and Goonyah Na Bilda (each in editions of 85). These works are typical of his lily pond and reflection imagery, and I would expect to pay around $4,000 to $5,000.

Another print to consider is Michael and I are Just Slipping Down to the Pub for a Minute, the first in the series The Adventures of X & Ray. It features an ochre-striped dingo (Ray) in aboriginal coloured stripes surfing on a cross-hatched stingray (X), atop a Hokusai styled wave. The original painting sold at auction in 2025 for just over $300,000. It was also released as a print in an edition of 48 after Onus’s death. I generally prefer prints made during an artist’s lifetime, but this is such an iconic Onus image that I would make an exception. Expect to pay around $5,000.

Tim Storrier (b. 1949)

Tim Storrier’s most recognisable works are of surreal fires set against desolate landscapes, so I would focus on prints that capture those elements. Broadly, there are two types of prints that Storrier produces. The first are collagraphs, a specific printmaking technique, that usually appear in editions of 70. Ones to watch out for are Night Embers, Evening Line, and The Night Run. These works have sold for around $1,500 to $2,500 in the last year but you can also buy these works directly from the artist’s website for $5,500.

There are also archival pigment prints (usually released in editions of 25) that I believe are prints of his original paintings. These sell at auction for similar prices to the collagraphs.

Although there are paintings with similar subjects and titles, the collagraphs appear to be distinct works, and so for that reason are my preferred prints to buy.

Howard Arkley (1951–1999)

Arkley is one of the hottest names in the Australian auction market right now. In 2025, two of his paintings sold for $2.5 million each. The challenge is that the best Arkley prints are not all cheap. Interior with Built-in Bar, made with Juan Davila, is a major work in its own right and has carried estimates around $45,000 to $55,000. Then there are the prints of the suburban brick house also depicted in his painting Triple Fronted 1988. There appear to be multiple versions of this print in small editions of 5-8, with one of these selling for just under $25,000 last year. That puts these prints outside the shoestring category.

Possibly one of the more underrated buys in the entire auction market are the Zappo Head prints. Arkley started producing these in 1991 as an open edition. The base print appears in black and white, but what makes these interesting is that Arkley then hand coloured many of them in, essentially creating unique works, but they are not priced that way. One of these sold for under $1,000 in 2024 at Lawsons.

For the more classic suburban imagery Arkley is known for, Kalli Rolfe Contemporary Art, has released print reproductions. These are in editions of 499 and come in small and medium and (sometimes) large sizes. These works include Deluxe Setting, Triple Fronted, House with Native Tree, Riteroom, Nick Cave, and Zappo Head (the latter can be differentiated by the orange background from the same named print above). These sell between $3,000 - $5,000 at auction but have dropped in price from earlier this decade.

David Larwill (1956–2011)

David Larwill is not as blue-chip or as recognisable as other artists in this list, but he’s had hot momentum recently with many works selling at 2 or 3x the low estimates, and is amongst the most traded artists at auction. The works I would focus on are Dog and Yes, both from the mid-2000s and in editions of 50. Recently, these have sold for between $1,000 - $2,500. Though you may even be able to pick one up for less. Two further prints to consider are Hot Head and Blues (each also in editions of 50) that sell for similar prices as above.

Larwill’s best works have a child-like, energetic charm, and that translates well into print. This is a good-value collecting opportunity for someone who wants a lively, fun image by a well-regarded Australian artist without spending heavily.

Tim Maguire (b. 1958)

Tim Maguire’s market is strongest for his large, highly magnified flower and fruit paintings. There are a number of prints from the early 2000s I would focus on that capture Maguire’s signature zoomed in perspective on flowers. These prints include Shadows - Tulip, Shadows - Camelias, and Three Berries (each in editions of 50) and Open Tulip and Closed Tulip (each in editions of 80). These prints can be bought for around $1,000. Another earlier print to consider is Hollyhocks (edition of 30) from 1991 that has sold between $1,000 to $2,000 recently.

Cressida Campbell (b. 1960)

Technically, most of Cressida Campbell’s works are prints. Even those that sell for over $500,000. The difference is that most of these are unique woodblock prints, not conventional editioned prints. That means they are priced as original works rather than affordable multiples.

But one print to watch by Campbell is The Verandah (edition of 99) from 1987, though it is not necessarily cheap. This is an editioned print of the original work that set a record for Campbell’s works. It has sold for between $10,000 to $20,000 recently.

Two other works I would consider that capture Campbell’s style are Vegetable Garden and The Bush (each in editions of 99) both produced a year later in 1988. Vegetable Garden has sold for between $10,000 to $15,000, while The Bush is a smaller work and has sold for around $5,000 recently.

John Kelly (b. 1965)

John Kelly is best known for his absurd, humorous cow images. The cows are often shown in impossible situations: stacked on top of one another, stuck up a tree, or being carried across the landscape. They are funny, but they are also instantly recognisable, which is exactly what you want when buying a print or multiple by a major artist.

Kelly has made various etchings, but these are usually in small editions and do not appear often at auction. The work I would focus on is Cow Up A Tree. This is an open edition laser-cut steel work that is framed and can be displayed like a traditional print. It captures Kelly’s humour and visual identity in a very accessible format. I would expect to pay around $1,000.

Del Kathryn Barton (b. 1972)

Del Kathryn Barton is one of the most important contemporary names in this group with her works now fetching $500,000 at auction. Her works are these highly detailed psychedelic fantasy portraits. The works I would focus on are the three prints from That’s When I was Another Tree (each in an edition of 30), these currently sell for about $4,000 to $5,000 at auction. The Last Night of My Life with Cat is another solid option (also an edition of 30) with the figure and animal combination feeling strongly linked to Barton’s practice. These would be my picks of Barton’s prints.

There are also limited edition digital prints of her major works including Wild Carrot Dream (edition of 25), Those Eyes (edition of 75), and To Love Like This (edition of 150) that sell for around $2,000. And if you want a more toned down version of Barton’s works, then search out the prints from The Nightingale and the Rose series. This is a project inspired by Oscar Wilde’s fairy tale, originally created for an illustrated book. These works include wilder grew her song and the tree shook its head, “my roses are yellow”, it answered (each editions of 30) and sell for around $2,000.

CJ Hendry (b. 1988)

CJ Hendry’s market is very different from the others because it has been built heavily through direct releases, social media and a large international following. She blends fine art, collectables, and collaborations with major brands, in much the same way KAWS, Takashi Murakami, and Daniel Arsham have done. This month she’s had huge success in Sydney with her Flower Market collaboration with Pandora.

Hendry understands contemporary collecting culture extremely well; the risk is that her works may be judged more like hype collectibles than enduring artworks. For those interested in embracing Hendry’s practice, the HOOOOOOPS series is the one I would focus on. These are small prints from an edition of 100, usually sold with the original suitcase packaging. Recent examples such as Barkley, Johnson, Jordan and O’Neal have sold for around $2,000 to $3,000.

Like last week, there are a few names that almost fit this list. But not quite.

Although photographers often work in editions, I’ve chosen not to include them, as I’ll likely look at them separately on another occasion. If you want to get a head start, names to consider include Max Dupain (1911 - 1992), Tracey Moffatt (b. 1960), Michael Cook (b. 1968), Shaun Gladwell (b. 1972). And although better known for her sculptures, Patricia Piccinini (b. 1965) has also produced a number of photography prints.

Two other artists specifically calling out: Garry Shead (b. 1942) is one of Australia’s top contemporary artists and has produced a number of prints, but these have appeared at auction infrequently. Look out for his Annunciation series. Another artist to watch is Brent Harris (b. 1956) who hasn’t achieved the same success as other artists in this list, but has a strong print practice and is well respected in art circles.

What stands out from this group is the range. You can find contemporary still lifes and domestic interiors from Criss Canning, Cressida Campbell and Tim Maguire; surreal fires from Tim Storrier; psychedelic portraits from Del Kathryn Barton; ultra-contemporary collectible editions from CJ Hendry, and the very recognisable works of Howard Arkley.

Many of these artists now have paintings selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars. In Arkley’s case, multiple works have sold for more than $1 million. That can make them feel completely unobtainable.

But prints and multiples offer another way in. They are not all bargains, and not every edition by a famous artist is worth chasing. But if you focus on recognisable images, good condition, sensible prices and works that genuinely connect to the artist’s best-known practice, there are still opportunities to collect some of Australia’s most recognised contemporary artists on a far more modest budget.

But not entirely. Many of these artists also made prints. These works regularly appear at auction at a fraction of the price of their paintings.

This week, I’m looking at my picks. Most sell for under $10,000. That is not small change, but it is a much more realistic entry point into some of the biggest names in Australian art. I’ve focused on recognisable artists and prints that appear reasonably often at auction. It is about works you can actually watch for, bid on, and potentially own.

Part one covers the blue-chip classics. These are the names most collectors already know. Part two will look at more contemporary names in the Australian market.

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Margaret Preston (1875 - 1963)

Printmaking was central to Margaret Preston’s practice. Her woodcuts and hand-coloured prints helped define her reputation, especially her bold still lifes and native flower subjects. The challenge is price. The best Preston prints are no longer especially “cheap”, with many now carrying five-figure expectations. But there are some buying opportunities in the $10,000 to $15,000 range, including works such as Wooden Bridge, Mosman (edition of 50) and Flowers in Jug (edition of 125). Examples from these editions have also sold for more, so patience will likely be necessary.

Sidney Nolan (1917 - 1992)

Sidney Nolan’s works of Ned Kelly are amongst the most recognisable in Australian art. The paintings are out of reach for almost everyone, but his prints give collectors a way in at a far lower price. I would focus on the Kelly prints, there are two series that come up at auction somewhat frequently: Ned Kelly I (1970-71, edition of 60) and Ned Kelly II (1978-79, edition of 75). A set of each is in the collection of the Tate Britain. While a full set can sell for $50,000, individual works are more likely to sell around $5,000.

Arthur Boyd (1920 - 1999)

Boyd produced a large body of prints, which makes him one of the more accessible names on this list. That was clear in Leonard Joel’s auction last year, when a collection of Boyd prints from his printmakers, Tony and Indra Deigan, came to market. Many sold for around $1,000. For a major Australian artist whose paintings can sell for very large sums, that is a surprisingly affordable entry point. The key is to be selective. There is a lot of Boyd print material around, so I would focus on images that connect clearly to his best-known subjects, particularly the landscapes of Shoalhaven.

John Brack (1920 - 1999)

John Brack is best known for sharp, tightly composed paintings of postwar suburban and working life. My pick of his prints is La Traviata (edition of 150), which was originally commissioned by the Australian Opera. Two examples have sold recently for $7,500 and $11,250 both at Leonard Joel. There are also numerous other prints of nude female figures that typically sell for around $1,000 to $4,000. But La Traviata feels more distinctive and more memorable than many of the smaller nude prints.

Jeffrey Smart (1921 - 2013)

Smart’s works feel more contemporary than many of those by his peers. The industrial and city settings, often with waiting figures and bold blocks of colour, still look fresh. Three prints that regularly capture this world are The Waiting Bus (edition of 80), The Last Train (edition of 65), and Man with Bouquet (edition of 100), which generally sell in the $6,000 to $10,000 range. Another option is Cable Coils, which has sold for around $3,000 - $6,000 in recent years and is an etching of an original work of the same name by Smart that sold for $828,000 in 2024.

Margaret Olley (1923 - 2011)

Olley is best known for her richly coloured interiors and table-top still lifes filled with flowers, fruit and ceramics. Her prints carry much of that same appeal at a much lower price. Recent examples have sold for around $3,000 to $5,000. The works I would watch for are Flowers, Plums and Oranges (edition of 50), Marigolds and Fruits (edition of 80) and Basket of Oranges, Lemons and Jug (edition of 150).

John Coburn (1925 - 2006)

Coburn is not the most well known name on this list, but his works are perhaps the most distinctive. His bold, colourful abstract works have an immediate decorative appeal and are reminiscent of Matisse’s cut-outs. His prints appear regularly at auction, with many selling for under $1,000. My pick is the Seasons series (edition of 99), especially Spring, which has regularly sold for between $2,000 and $3,000 in recent years. Other editions to watch are Paradise Garden (edition of 99) and the various versions of Tree of Life.

Fred Williams (1927 - 1982)

Williams is one of the more visually restrained artists in this list. But that is also the point. His best works reduced the Australian landscape to marks, spacing and rhythm, and his prints can capture that very well. He produced a series of 12 prints, the Lithographs 1976-1978 (edition of 50), amongst these Wild Dog Creek I and Wild Dog Creek II are the more interesting and have sold for around $5,000 in recent years. Also look for his prints of the You Yangs from the early to mid 1960s, as his paintings of this landscape were one of the key moments in Williams’ career. The titles and categorisation of the prints appear messy, but they have also sold for around $5,000 recently.

Charles Blackman (1928-2018)

Blackman produced a number of prints, the two I would focus on are Blackman’s Schoolgirls (edition of 75) and Blackman’s Alice (also an edition of 75). Both sets of prints are based on earlier defining periods in his career.

Blackman Schoolgirls is a set of five prints, based on Blackman’s original Schoolgirls series from the early 1950s that have been described as a turning point that established him as a significant painter of postwar modern life. A full set sold for around $5,000 in 2024. Blackman’s Alice is a series of six prints that connect directly to his most famous body of work from the late 1950s; a full set of the six works sold for $7,364 in 2024 at Menzies, while individual prints from this series sell for less.

Prices for Blackman’s prints have fallen since the 2010s, which may suggest he is currently out of favour. But that could mean a good buying opportunity for collectors.

John Olsen (1928 - 2023)

Olsen, much like Fred Williams captured the Australian landscape in an almost abstract expressionist way. But where Williams is pared back, Olsen embraces energy, movement and colour. He created numerous prints, and my pick would be Lake Eyre in December (edition of 75). Although it most recently sold for just $2,000, it hasn’t appeared at auction frequently. Appearing at auction more frequently is Tropical Rainshower (edition of 300). Condition seems to vary, which may explain the wide range of prices. One example sold for under $1,000 in 2025, while others have sold for more than $4,000 in recent years.

Brett Whiteley (1939 - 1992)

Whiteley is probably the biggest name on this list, which makes his prints especially interesting. Many of his most recognisable prints are already well beyond a shoestring budget. Lipstick (edition of 50) sold for just over $80,000 in 2025, while The Cat (edition of 100) often sells for $40,000 to $70,000.

But there are still Whiteley prints under $10,000. The better opportunities are usually smaller etchings, animal and bird subjects, Paris works, and Bali screenprints. The three Swinging Monkey works (edition of 50) sells below $10,000, while Garden in Sanur, Bali (edition of 100) sold for $6,150 in 2025 at Bonhams. With Whiteley, I would be cautiously selective. Don’t buy for the name alone. Hold out for something within budget that still captures the style of his best work.

A few names are worth mentioning because they almost fit this list, but not quite.

Dorrit Black (1891 - 1951) and Ethel Spowers (1890 - 1947) are both important Australian printmakers, but their best prints are now well beyond the shoestring category. Last year, Black’s The Lawn Mower sold for $67,500 and Dutch Houses sold for $41,727. Spowers is in similar territory, with Tug of War selling for $71,182 and The Rain Cloud for $51,545.

First Nations artists are another difficult category for this exercise. There are prints worth tracking down, including Emily Kame Kngwarreye’s State of My Country and Rover Thomas’s Red Rock Stockyard, but they appear infrequently and printmaking has not been central to their practices.

Russell Drysdale, Arthur Streeton and Ethel Carrick Fox are three big Australian names that produced prints but very infrequently appear at auction. Meanwhile John Peter Russell, Grace Cossington Smith, and Ian Fairweather seem to have stayed away from prints almost entirely.

These are amongst the biggest names in Australia art. The important point is that their prints are not a cheap substitute for paintings. The best ones stand on their own. But they also give collectors a realistic way into artists whose major works are now far beyond their reach.

You just need to be patient and selective. Not every print by a famous artist is worth chasing. But if you focus on strong images, good condition and sensible prices, there are still opportunities to own serious works.

Next week we’ll look at more contemporary names and print editions to collect.

These high-quality chromolithographs are reproductions of paintings by Goldie. They were produced and distributed in illustrated newspapers such as The Graphic and the Auckland Weekly News.

A Good Joke (All ‘e same t’e Pakeha) is probably the most well known and frequently appears at auction. It depicts Te Aho-o-te-Rangi Wharepu, a Ngāti Mahuta chief and an artist in his own right, known as an expert waka carver and tattoo (tā moko) specialist. He sat to be painted by Goldie on at least 10 occasions. According to Te Papa:

‘A Good Joke’ seems to have been available in two printings, the first in 1906, when it was offered as a supplement to the Auckland Star, and again in 1921-2, when it was described as being ‘printed in full colours on heavy art paper, and is eminently suitable for framing’ (Auckland Star, 21 January 1922, p. 6). However on both occasions, the print was not only available as a supplement, a giveaway, but also available to purchase, in which instance it could be posted in a cardboard tube! (Auckland Star, 8 November 1906, p. 6)

A Warm Day is another print that also often appears at auction. Sometimes called A Hot Day after the original in Christchurch Art Gallery. This work depicts Patara Te Tuhi, also a chief of Ngāti Mahuta. Again, from Te Papa:

A warm day was made available as a pictorial supplement, a ‘presentation plate’ in the Christmas issue of the Christchurch Weekly Press in 1904. Not only was the painting a work of ‘colonial reputation, but also, according to advertisements it was ‘perfectly reproduced, having received nine printings’ (“New Zealand Illustrated, 1904, Woodville Examiner, 3 October 1904, p. 2). The reproduced portrait became so familiar to New Zealanders that reference was made to it in accounts of Patara Te Tuhi’s death in 1910 (‘Personal’, Auckland Star, 2 July 1910, p. 9), and Goldie reportedly saw two copies hanging over his coffin when he attended Patara’s tangi (Roger Blackley, Goldie, 1997, p. 48).

But there were other prints too. Blackley in his book on Goldie notes that popular examples include Day Dream printed in 1902 and The memory of what has been and never more will be printed in 1905. But these two seem to rarely come at auction. Other Goldie prints that come up at auction also include A Relic of a Noble Race and various prints of Ina Te Papatahi.

The two prints that matter most at auction are A Good Joke and A Warm Day. Both are still affordable compared with Goldie paintings, but prices for these works have ranged between $1,000 and $18,000. Below, I examine how these are performing at auction and share my recommendation on buying price points.

One caveat: these works are more than 100 years old and were originally distributed through newspapers and magazines. Condition, fading, framing and later additions can all affect price. I have not adjusted for those factors below, because auction listings do not describe condition consistently.

A Good Joke

A Good Joke sold for as much as $17,000 back in 2018 and almost as much in 2020. It hasn’t reached that peak recently but even in 2022 and 2023 there were 3 sales that achieved around $13,000.

Looking more closely at the five works that sold above $10,000, there are some clear differences. The work in 2020 looks like it was in excellent condition and presented in a unique and ornately carved frame, and it came in the middle of the pandemic buying boom. As for the high point in 2018, that is an enigma: there is no obvious explanation to me why that one sold for the price it did - sometimes it just takes two determined bidders to achieve exceptional results.

The three works from 2022 and 2023 are particularly interesting. They are unique in that each appears to have been separately hand-signed or signed in ink by Goldie (look for the signature around the pocket watch in the image above). Most copies of A Good Joke are only “signed in the plate”, which means the signature is part of the printed reproduction. These are the only three works I’ve seen that have a second signature. That seems to put them in a different category and create a meaningful premium. The 2022 sale is especially interesting in that the estimate was just $1,500 - $2,500 but achieved a hammer price of $11,000. It looks like the estimates in 2023 were then revised up significantly on the back of that result.

Aside from those outliers, prices have stayed at or under $5,000 over the last four years, with most selling in the $1,000 to $3,000 range. Interestingly, one of the cheapest recent examples, which sold for just $940 in 2024, was described as having a real feather placed in the hat by the artist. So a unique touch is not always enough to create a premium. It may be that buyers were unsure whether the alteration was truly by Goldie.

A Warm Day

A Warm Day comes up less frequently at auction, but there is still enough data to make it worth a look. Prices have been more erratic than A Good Joke. There was a very strong result in 2020 and further high prices around the $10k mark in 2021 and 2022. But unlike the hand-signed examples of A Good Joke, there is no obvious single feature explaining those premiums.

From the chart below, prices are now more consistently staying below $5,000, though the market has looked thinner. Three lots offered in 2024 all failed to sell, despite low estimates between $1,500 and $3,000. That suggests buyers were becoming more selective, rather than simply accepting the higher price levels set during the pandemic-era boom. And, in fact, there have been four opportunities to buy for under $2,500 across the last 3 years.

But the market in 2026 diverges. Two sold in February but at wildly different prices: one at International Art Centre for just under $2,000, and another at Art & Object for $8,530. The latter had a conservative estimate of just $1,500 - $2,500 but seems to have achieved much more because of the quality and condition of the print and (at least) two determined bidders.

The Price Tipping Point

While A Good Joke has almost always sold (87%), the sell-through for A Warm Day is not as strong (71%) at auction, and drops further when looking just at more recent years, indicating less demand for this print. For example, you can see three were offered in 2024, but none managed to sell.

2022 looks like the point where the market became more selective for both these prints. High prices were still possible, but more lots also failed to sell, and $1,500 - $4,000 became the standard price range. That suggests after the pandemic peak of 2020 and 2021, buyers were no longer willing to chase every example at elevated estimates, unless there was something special about the work, eg. in the case of A Good Joke, a signature in ink.

Conclusions

For A Good Joke, I would now think about the market in two tiers. A standard chromolithograph, signed only in the plate, seems to be a $2,000–$5,000 object in most recent cases, influenced by condition and framing. But a hand-signed example is different. Those can justify a much higher price, and the results suggest they can push into the $12,000–$13,000 range.

That does not mean every hand-signed copy is automatically worth that much, or that an unsigned copy cannot occasionally sell strongly. The top two results in the dataset do not appear to have been hand-signed, so other factors clearly matter. But if I were buying, I would treat “signed in ink” as a fundamentally different price category.

My takeaway is that normal versions of A Good Joke should be bought with discipline and either a clear condition report or seen with your own eyes, and I would not pay more than $3,000. Personally, I wouldn’t pay a premium for Goldie’s hand-signed version, but if that appeals to you, be prepared to pay much more.

A Warm Day is harder to read. It comes up less often and sell-through is weaker. Across the full dataset, the median is around $3,700, but recent results have been thinner and more uneven. The recent February sales demonstrate works can still achieve high prices. My recommendation is the same as A Good Joke: I would hold out for a good example that I can acquire for no more than $3,000.

The key point for both works is patience. Unless you are chasing a particularly unique frame, unusually good condition, or a signed-in-ink example, these are works where I would rather wait than get dragged into a bidding war.