Marketplace

While it is possible that Mani Luki continued to carve Tiwi figures and artefacts up to his death in1980, the only carvings that have appeared for sale in the secondary market were made during a brief period between 1958 and 1972. His sales at auction have been sporadic and it was not until 2016 that his artworks finally transcended the 20 lot lower threshold that enables followers to get an accurate account of his place in the annuls of the Aboriginal art movement. Although a number of very good sales during the period 2006 - 2007 saw him enter the top 100 artists, the lack of entries during the following years has seen him settle at the 117th ranking amongst all artists now that he has sufficient records for his statistics not to be discounted. The fact that 2016 was, despite some dissapointment, such a successful year for the artis saw him land at 88th by the end of 2017.

Unfortunately, when compared to prices achieved 10 years earlier, Mani Luki's recent records have languished. Four of his top five results were recorded in 2007 or earlier (two as early as 1999). His best recent record was the GBP25,000 ($42,885) achieved for an Untitled Purukapali carving in Sotheby's London sale in 2016. This was an atypical and crude work compared to his finely crafted pieces featuring articulated limbs, but it suited the Sotheby's ethnographic aesthetic. In fact no less than four pieces by the artist entered his top 10 results in 2016. Two of these were particularly disappointing results. First sold to the Luczo Family Collection in the USA by  Sotheby's in 2007 for $43,200 (Lot 76), it achieved just $12,200 when offered once more to the market in 2016 in Deutscher & Hackett's October sale (Lot 20). And another purchased in 2009 from Sotheby's for only $7,200 failed to sell in 2015 when offered at Mossgreen with a pre-sale estimate of $10,000-15,000.

Another work gives a far better indication of the value of Mani Luki's works, even though it last appeared at auction more than a decade ago. This particularly nice example of the artist's finest carving failed to sell at Lawson Menzies in 2005 when carrying a pre-sale estimate of $20,000-25,000 (Lot 118). However two years later, carrying the same estimate, it achieved $23,213 when offered once more by Joel Fine Art (Lot 43). In my opinion, this is the right level at which a work by this artist should be offered. His works are rare and unique in their execution. Mani Luki was a senior elder when he began carving his signature works and he created a small number of them. Anyone who loves Tiwi people and their culture would be delighted to be able to live with one of these very special pieces.