Record auction price expected for Russell Drysdale painting

A painting by iconic Australian artist Russell Drysdale is expected to set a new record price when it goes to auction in November.

Russell Drysdale’s painting Going to the Pictures, 1941 (detail). Picture: Deutscher and Hackett, supplied

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A rarely seen 1941 painting by Russell Drysdale is expected to fetch a record price for the Australian artist of $2.5 million to $3.5 million at auction in November.

Going to the Pictures was bought by highly respected art critic Clive Turnbull at Drysdale’s landmark Macquarie Galleries exhibition in Sydney in 1942, and has remained in the family ever since.

Russell Drysdale – Going to the Pictures (1941). Picture: Deutscher and Hackett, supplied

If realised, the price will surpass the previous record for a Drysdale painting, Grandma’s Sunday Walk (1972), which sold for $2.4 million at an Adelaide auction of building industry figure Alan Hickinbotham and his wife Margaret’s collection in 2017.

The same 1942 Macquarie exhibition included Drysdale’s iconic paintings Moody’s Pub, now at the National Gallery of Victoria, and Sunday Evening, acquired by the Art Gallery of NSW.

Clive Turnbull, who originally purchased Going to the Pictures, was at different times art critic for Melbourne newspapers The Herald, The Argus and The Age.

Going to the Pictures will be part of a Deutscher and Hackett auction of works worth an estimated total of $10-13 million on November 11 in Melbourne.

Grandma's Sunday Walk, 1972, set a record price of $2.4 million for a work by artist Russell Drysdale when it sold at an Adelaide auction of the Alan and Margaret Hickinbotham collection in 2017.