With the reportedly most expensive artwork on offer at this year’s Sydney Contemporary artfair an Emily Kngwarreye priced at $3.35m, could it be that Aboriginal art is at last coming into its own price-wise?

For years the assumption has been that non-Indigenous art – the Whiteleys, Williams’s and Nolans – should sell in the millions, while the 50+ years of First Nations contemporary art should only dream of six figures at best. Yes, Emily has cracked $2m before for her giant Earths Creation. And there are rumours that the National Gallery paid $3m for the 3 metre Alhalker – my Country (1992) that hangs in their current solo show by the great artist.

But artfairs are where galleries show off. And the fact that none of the 87 galleries signed up this year can match Utopia Art Sydney’s pricing for the Kngwarreye pictured can only be good for the Aboriginal art market.

How did Utopia’s Christopher Hodges reach that stratospheric number? It seems that promising to ask for that much money was the only way he could wheedle Alhalkere out of its proud owner for the fair. He also justifies it on size and intent – that the artist was at her maturest, tackling big canvases with an evolving confidence to tell important stories of her rocky beloved Country. It was the time of her Keating Fellowship and her Clemenger Contemporary Art Award entry – which she did not win.

It was also her so-called Colourist period, which I think was probably her least successful in delighting my eye. But those big brushstrokes and canvases seem to please others. Boldly, she moved on to body marks and black and white Yam Roots, confounding her fans once again.

It’s not only the Australian market that determines Aboriginal art pricing these days. The world is involved – as I discovered at Roslyn Oxley 9 stand where a modestly-sized Danial Boyd work was on offer at US$40,000. I can’t recall his prices at the last 2022 solo show seen at RO9, but the Oxleys tell me that with galleries in Korea, the US and Europe, Boyd is an international commodity and they can’t undersell him here.

Project gallerist, Emilia Galaitis from Perth tells me her exposure at Sydney Contemporary last year where her artist Corban Clause Williams won the inaugural MA Emerging Artist Award has lead to sales in Mexico, New York and Paris. She has more of his meticulously-worked art this year.

Which reminds me that yet another Aboriginal artist, Alfred Lowe won the MA Award this year for a magnificent, colourful pot on the Sabbia Gallery stand. Aranda man Lowe – born at Snake Well – has been developing his craft over three years at the APYACC studio in Adelaide, entitling his work ‘All Dressed Up’, possibly for ceremony, and throwing in raffia collars to his dynamic pots in tribute to the desert’s Tjampi Weavers. And I note that he’s also in the upcoming NGA show ‘Ever Present’, and in the current Indian Ocean Craft Triennial in Perth.

iven my responsibility to AAD readers, I really only studied the 18 stands offering First Nations work. But the overall impression I got was the gallery numbers were down – especially the international ones – and stand size was up in response. So was the size of works on offer. Quality remained interesting.

The specialist hall dedicated to Works on Paper was certainly expanded, offering more affordable work than the big boys. And this introduced me to Papunya Tula prints at the Whaling Road Studio, Vincent Namatjira prints for the first time at Ames/Yavuz, a brand new Noongar artist, Tyrown Waigana doing contemporary drawing responses to the delightful Carrolup School of artists, and an old friend, Brian Robinson with a new ancient and modern take on classical Torres Strait print-making – both at the Mossenson Gallery stand.

My pick of the canvases, barks and larrikitj elsewhere? What a wonderful Daniel Walbidi at D’Lan Davidson, who also has a wall of old, small and affordable bark wandjinas from the estate of the late Willy Mora. Davidson is poised to open a Sydney gallery in Queen Street, Woollahra. Secondary Eye, already in that street, is offering Queenie Mckenzies en masse in an effort to re-establish her in a marketplace that rarely seems to see her at auction. Bill Nuttall’s Niagara Gallery has a suite of Angelina Pwerles that justify my view that she’s the only Utopia artist to match Emily in her dotting. And a hitherto unknown Cassandra Bird Gallery is throwing down the Tennant Creek Brio gauntlet in the form of oil barrel totem poles.

Courageously, Art Leven (now dropping the Coo-ee from its name) has mostly late, loose Lily Hargraves Nungarrayi canvases as it goes out on a limb to promote Mirri Leven’s favourite Lajamanu community. The late Nungarrayi – also known as Glurpunta/Fighting Spirit in Warlpiri – was painting from the late 80s, and her first gallerist Karen Brown is offering two early acrylic works in the sale. She’s also contributed to a catalogue that adds riches to the display.

This isn’t an artfair where there are more T-shirts than artworks. It’s all class. But you can find a wild John Prince Siddon pullover from WAH-WAH if you really look. Pity winter seems to be over.