Unique Australian snake sculpture nets record price

A sculptured slithering copper snake by renowned artist Bronwyn Oliver has sold for a recording-breaking $1.25 million at auction.

Tide (2000) toppled the record for an Australian sculpture when it went under the auction hammer on Wednesday night.

Auction house Smith & Singer – formerly known as Sotheby’s – had billed the work as the most valuable Australian sculpture ever offered for auction in Australia.

Bronwyn Oliver’s Tide with Brett Whiteley’s Dove in Blue Palm, Lavender Bay.

It was sold as part of a sale of important Australian works, a star lot alongside Brett Whiteley’s Dove in Blue Palm, Lavender Bay (1983), which sold for $2.75 million (with buyer’s premium), above its estimate of between $1.6 million and $1.9 million.

The harbour scene painted from Whiteley’s window ledge at his Lavender Bay home, eschewed his usual ultramarine blues. Whiteley had produced a “literate, sensual and quietly joyous celebration of the good art and the good life”, Geoffrey Smith, chairman of Smith & Singer, said. Two other Whiteley works were passed in.

The standing auction record for Australian sculpture was achieved by Smith & Singer in August 2023, when Joel Elenberg’s Mask 1 (1982) fetched $1,156,250 (including premium), more than double the lower estimate of $350,000 to $450,000.

Earlier this year, another work by Oliver, Sun (2004), sold for $875,000, a record for the artist.

Sculpture is having something of a moment in the sun.

John Keats, chief executive of Menzies, said his auction house had been championing sculptures at auction for several years and achieving some outstanding results and records.

These included Australian auction records for overseas sculptors Robert Indiana and Manolo Valdés, and world records for Deborah Halpern and Mackenzie Thorpe.

“Our recent sales indicate that there is an increased awareness of sculpture as an art form in and around the home environment, and it is no longer just the purview of public gardens and commercial spaces,” Keats said.

“The beauty of sculpture is its capacity for display beyond the two-dimensional wall setting. Sculptures can form statement pieces within garden design and architectural settings, such as establishing a point of focus in a vista, a light well or a living room.”

Smith said Bronwyn Oliver remained one of the most influential and sought-after Australian artists in the current market.

The Oliver had been held by the same collector for 25 years. Renowned for her fluid metal works, made of trademark copper mesh, the artist is thought to have created almost 300 works before her death by suicide in 2006.

“Oliver’s untimely death at the age of 47, combined with the restricted output of her work due to its complex and time-consuming production, has resulted in demand far outstripping supply,” Smith said. “Oliver’s work was avidly collected during her lifetime, and there was always a long waiting list for works.”

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