Boyd painting sells for record $1.68m

A painting by renowned Australian artist Arthur Boyd has fetched a record price at auction in Melbourne.

The historically and aesthetically significant painting titled Bride Running Away sold for $1.68 million on Tuesday, breaking the previous record of $1.2 million for a Boyd painting.

Sotheby's chairman Geoffrey Smith said the painting, which was expected to fetch between $1.4 million and $1.6 million, was larger than the work that set the previous record, a 1958 piece entitled The Frightened Bridegroom, which was sold by Sotheby's last August for $1.2 million.

That record was matched by Boyd's Dry Creek Bed, Alice Springs in May.

Mr Smith said Bride Running Away sold for $1.4 million under the hammer, which including buyer's premium totalling $1.68 million.

The reason the Bride Series sold so well was many considered it historically important as well as aesthetically significant, he said.

"These pictures emanated from Arthur Boyd's experience in Alice Springs in 1951 where he really witnessed the plight of indigenous Australians," Mr Smith told AAP on Tuesday.

"He saw the complexities that existed between that notion of assimilation of Aboriginal people in European constraints.

"When they were first exhibited in 1958 they caused quite a sensation because this was a time when Aboriginal Australians did not have the right to vote, in fact the majority of European Australians had very little contact with Aboriginal Australians."

Bride Running Away was the second painting completed in Boyd's Bride Series, which Mr Smith said, was responsible for establishing Boyd's reputation.

By Genevieve Gannon AAP

High price for creativity? What worth do you put on creative talent of this kind?

Zhaksylykova commented on 12-Dec-2012 04:12 PM

RE: Hopalong Cassidy When I was in the first or second grade my foavrite radio hero was Hopalong. I had a Hopalong radio, lunch box, boots (black w/red), shirt, hat and bandanna. I wasn't allowed to have the light on when I went to bed but I knew how to find the broadcast in the dark. After much experience I learned by turning the big round dial all the way to one end and then quickly back a memorized distance, I would be at the exact spot where of the broadcasting station. Thanks for the memories.

Sofia commented on 12-Dec-2012 04:13 PM

they are interesting quseniots but far less important than the question of Biblical veracity and the interpretation of the creation story. There are open quseniots in any philosophy however it is important to be honest about which interpretation best fits the historical and scientific evidence. See .. biologos.org/quseniots/evolution-and-the-fall/

Mine commented on 12-Dec-2012 04:14 PM

Dear johnkw47, skiitcng with a rigid one dimensional interpretation of Genesis is poor Bible scholarship. And it's quite rude and ungracious to claim that Eastern Orthodox is not Christian. Dear waluum, You are a fallible human being with a lot of assumptions and modern cultural baggage. To claim that your Bible reading is a direct revelation from God is breathtaking arrogance. Be humble before the scriptures and recognise they come from a time and place far removed from the modern world

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