The late, great Emily Kam Kngwarreye was the prime mover behind the most financially successful Indigenous art auction in this country since 2007, with a much-travelled work once owned by a leading corporate identity becoming the artist’s second most expensive painting under the hammer.

Kngwarreye’s Untitled (Awelye), 1992, soared away from its pre-sale estimate of $400,000 to $600,000 to fetch $1,196,591 including 25 per cent buyer’s premium in Deutscher + Hackett’s auction of Important Australian Indigenous Art in Melbourne on March 26.