Register now to participate in our captivating Aboriginal art auctions. Don't miss the opportunity to bid on extraordinary artworks from renowned Indigenous artists. Gain access to exclusive auction events and immerse yourself in the world of cultural significance and artistic brilliance. REGISTER TO BID AUCTIONS AUCTION 18 NOVEMBER 2025 WATCH LIVE AUCTION REGISTER TO BID ONLINE BID TELEPHONE/ABSENTEE/PRIORITY CATALOGUES & RESULTS BUYING FROM CONSIGNING NOW Art Leven [formerly Cooee Art] offers several ways to participate in one of our auctions. Bidding forms are also available in our showroom in Redfern during the auction preview. Bidding forms can be submitted in person, online or emailed. If you have not previously bid with us, upon receiving your bid form we will request photo identification, such as a drivers licence or passport. To learn more about the process read Buying From Our Auctions. If you have any questions about the bidding process please contact us . TELEPHONE BID ABSENTEE BID ONLINE BID REGISTER TO BID AS AN ATTENDEE or select to bid via: TELEPHONE BID ABSENTEE BID or ONLINE BID First name Last name Email Select an Address Write a message Terms and Conditions* The hammer price is final and does not include buyer’s premium or GST (where applicable). Bids are made in Australian dollars. Buyer’s Premium - A buyer’s premium of 25% (including GST) is added to the hammer price on each lot. The day following the sale, the Post Sale Service team will send you an Invoice. The final amount due will include the hammer price, the 25% buyer’s premium (including GST). Electronic Bank Transfer is the simplest payment method and your invoice will include our bank details. A 2% surcharge (inclusive of GST) applies to Visa and MasterCard payments. Alternatively, payment may be made by cheque, cash or eftpos. Please note: payments made by cheque are subject to a 5-day clearance before goods can be collected. Collection, Transport & Shipping - ALL collection notifications, shipping requests and requests for carrier recommendations are to be emailed to our Post Sale Services email address auction@artleven.com.au Proof of identification is required upon collection and lots not collected within seven days of the sale may incur costs associated with external storage and freight. I understand it is my responsibility to enquire whether any Sale-Room Notices relate to any lot on which I intend to bid. I also understand that should my bid(s) be successful, a buyer’s premium of 25% (inclusive of GST), will be added to the final hammer price. Full terms found here I agree to the terms & conditions Submit Thanks for registering to bid as an attendee AUCTIONS | REGISTER | CONSIGNING NOW | CATALOGUES & RESULTS | BUYING FROM AUCTION

AUCTION ADMINISTRATOR < Back Dr Ksenia Radchenko AUCTION ADMINISTRATOR Dr Ksenia Radchenko completed a PhD in Cultural Studies from the University of Southern California, and a Master of Art Curating from the University of Sydney. With experiences working at the University of Sydney, Chau Chak Wing Museum, and Sydney Living Museums, Ksenia has also lived in Moscow and Los Angeles, deepening her understanding of the global art world. Ksenia brings a unique perspective to her work. As an Auction Administrator, she combines her creative and practical skills to excel in her role at Art Leven. ksenia@artleven.com +61 (02) 9300 9233

ARTIST TALK WITH KITTY NAPANANGKA SIMON Paddington Gallery for the Kitty Napanangka Simon artist talk. 6 - 8pm From 19 April to 19 April 2018 ARTIST TALK WITH KITTY NAPANANGKA SIMON From 19 April to 19 April 2018 ARTIST TALK WITH KITTY NAPANANGKA SIMON From 19 April to 19 April 2018 Paddington Gallery for the Kitty Napanangka Simon artist talk. 6 - 8pm

INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION 17 Thurlow Street Redfern NSW 2016 11 October 2022 | 7PM START INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION 11 October 2022 | 7PM START INDIGENOUS FINE ART AUCTION 11 October 2022 | 7PM START 17 Thurlow Street Redfern NSW 2016 Once more, the enthusiastic and dedicated team of Cooee Art specialists have assembled a wonderful selection of regionally diverse and historically significant Indigenous paintings, sculptures, and artefacts. These artworks were sourced from collections around Australia, the Americas, and Europe, and will now be offered to our discriminating collectors. This wonderful collection proves, without doubt, that the allure, resilience, and appeal of Australian Aboriginal art is eternal. The sale, consisting of 103 lots with an estimate value of $1.8 - 2.5m, will be on view at Cooee Art showroom in Redfern from October 4th to October 11th. VIEW CATALOGUE VIEW AUCTION RESULTS

MINNIE SHOW FOR MINNIE PWERLE From 11 August to 11 September 2021 MINNIE SHOW FOR MINNIE PWERLE From 11 August to 11 September 2021 MINNIE SHOW FOR MINNIE PWERLE From 11 August to 11 September 2021 The bold linear patterns of stripes and curves throughout Minnie’s painting depicts the womens ceremonial body paint design. After smearing their bodies with animal fat, the women trace these designs onto their breasts,arms and thighs singing as each woman has a turn to be ‘painted up’. The songs are all related to the Dreamtime stories of the Awely-Womens ceremony demonstrates respect for the land and in performing these ceremonies they ensure well being and happiness within the communities.

KantillaKitty Kitty Kantilla Kitty Kantilla 1928 - 2003 Kitty Kantilla was born c1928 at Yimpinari, on the eastern side of Melville Island, and lived a traditional life as a child, only exchanging the paperbark roof of her youth for mission life in her adulthood. The mission settlement located on the eastern coast of Bathurst Island some 100 kilometres across the waters to the north of Darwin had been established in 1911 and those who worked in the mission received rations such as beef, flour, honey and tea to supplement their bush tucker. In 1970 Kitty, along with a number of other countrywomen, created a tiny outstation in her mother’s country at Paru, on Melville Island just across the waters of the Aspley Stait within sight of the growing township of Nguiu. It was here that Kitty first began working as an artist, with a group of widowed women who became renowned during the early 1980’s for their iron wood sculptures of ancestor figures drawn from the Purukupali legend. By the late 1970’s, the pottery, established in Darwin at the Bagot reserve by Eddy Puruntatamerri and others, had been reestablished in Nguiu. This was joined in 1978 by Tiwi Pima Art, which encouraged the production of traditional arts including wood carving, bark painting, and weaving. In the early 1980’s a fabric printing facility, Tiwi Design, was established and by 1985 all three enterprises came under the same management. The Paru women sold their work through this facility on Bathurst Island until, by the early 1990’s, most of them had passed away. Without their support and friendship, Kitty moved in to Milikapiti (Snake Bay), where Jilamara Arts and Crafts had grown from an Adult Education centre supporting more and more artists who lived closer to their own country. Here as she grew older, she ventured away from sculpture and began working on canvas and paper. The roots of Kitty Kantilla’s art, regardless of medium, was always tied to the fundamental Tiwi creation story. This classic morality tale is the equivalent in Tiwi Culture to that of the Ramayana or Mahabarata in Asia and India, or Adam and Eve and their fall from grace amongst Christians. In the Tiwi version of creation, Bima, the wife of Purukapali, makes love to her brother in law while her son Jinani, left lying under a tree in the sun, dies of exposure. Purukapali becomes enraged and after his wife is transformed into a night curlew he begins an elaborate mourning ceremony for his son. This was the first Pukumani (mortuary) ceremony, and tells how death first came to the Tiwi Islands. It remains at the centre of Tiwi culture to this day 'as a nucleus for the entire Tiwi world-view' (McDonald 2003). Kitty Kantilla’s art, and indeed all Tiwi art, is informed by the ornate body painting of the Pukumani ceremony. What makes the art of Kitty Kantilla and those of her generation so inherently important is that the meaning of these designs, characterized by abstract patterns made up of dots and lines, has been largely lost since the missionary era. She was amongst the very last who inherited these designs intact from her father. In her own words, ‘I watched him as a young girl and I’ve still got the design in my head’ (Ryan 2004: 394). In the early period of Kantilla’s works on paper and canvas her style consisted of white, red, and yellow dots against a black background. The fields of dots were punctuated solely by bands of solid colour or geometric shapes. By 1997 she began painting on a white background, thereby reversing the colour dynamics and energy of her works. Still maintaining exquisite attention to detail, her style varied once more in 2002, when she began to employ large blocks of textured colour, punctuated by small segments of dots and lines on both black and white underlay. This subtle mastery over abstraction, anchored to the very essence of her culture, and the trembling impression of her marks at this late stage of her life, evoked the movement of participants as they sang and danced during ceremony. Art critic Sebastian Smee most aptly described Kitty Kantilla as ‘a poet of small scale contrasts’ (2000: 22). In her final years, though frail, she could imbue her works, despite their lack of figuration, with her mixed feelings about the passing of the old ways and the uncertainty about the new. Her art practice and her reputation during the last decade of her life was greatly enhanced by the very special relationship she shared with Gabriella Roy who promoted her as an artist of renown with regular solo exhibitions at her Aboriginal and Pacific Gallery in Sydney. In 2000 Kitty participated in the Adelaide Biennale of Australian Art, and in 2002 she won the works on paper award at the 19th Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Awards in Darwin. Kitty Kantilla, was honoured with a posthumous retrospective exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria which opened in 2007 and toured nationally. While Kitty Kantilla may not have achieved the highest results of all Tiwi artists, but she has received by far the greatest recognition, due principally to the fact that she was the only Tiwi artist of her generation to have been properly represented by an exhibiting gallery. Her early works were mainly paintings on bark and sculptures decorated in traditional ochre designs. It is her sculptures that took up most of the running in pushing her results during the period post 2010. Despite vast differences in size 13 of the 14 sculptures that have come up for auction have sold for an average of $11,133 and a 30 x 92 cm bark created in 1989 doubled its top estimate selling for $10,800 at Lawson Menzies in May 2005 (Lot 9). Other than that, no other bark paintings have come on the market. Their scarcity has enhanced their value and in time they are likely to become as coveted as her rare and delicate late career paintings. Unfortunately, Kitty only had access to arches paper and stretched canvases toward the end of her life and, being such a tiny, fragile, elderly person who took great care with her artwork, she was unable to produce a large number of paintings. The highest average prices for paintings by Kitty Kantilla have been for works that were created during the last four yeas of her life. The 1999 paintings that have sold achieved an average price twice that of works on canvas produced between 1995 and 1997. Her highest price was achieved for a work measuring 93 x 82 cm and created in 2001 which sold at Sotheby’s in July 2003 (Lot 87) for $67,475 while an equally large work created in 1998 (offered in June 2002 at Sotheby’s (Lot 30)) sold for $54,550. 2015 saw a work created in 1998 achieve her new second highest record. Sold from the Laverty Collection at Deutscher & Hackett it achieved $66,000 including buyer's premium during a year in which all 10 of the works on offer sold to eager buyers. Though her average price for the year was slightly lower than her career average, she was the 14th most successful artist that year compared to her overall career standing in 42nd place. In 2016 she was 31st but this was not good enough to improve her overall career ranking. Kantilla's works on canvas consistently exceeded their estimates until 2004, when the auction houses reappraised the values collectors were prepared to offer for her best quality works. The most graphic indication of this is exemplified by the resale of an untitled work created in 1997. Sold for a mere $3,220 in 1999, it went on to achieve $31,050 in 2004. However, despite the fact that the sale prices for Kitty Kantilla’s works have been rising over the years, it is surprising that a very interesting 2002 canvas, measuring 77 x 96 cm, failed to sell with an extremely reasonable estimate of only $25,000-35,000 (Lot 127) in Sotheby’s July 2006 auction. Kurlama (Yam) Ceremony in Rain, 1999 achieved just $33,600 when sold at Lawson~Menzies in March 2008 (Lot 246) after having first been purchased from the same auction house three years earlier for $40,800. The work had spent the intervening years touring regional galleries in the Masterworks from the Lawson~Menzies Collection exhibition and one would have expected that the additional provenance conferred would have seen this work sell for a premium. It was painted on a black ground and aesthetically it seems like the darker the overall effect of her artwork, the less favourably it is received. Conversely, the lighter the background and the finer the line work, the higher the value collectors have been prepared to pay. Perhaps the overly dark reproduction of this very painting in Sotheby’s July 2004 catalogue (Lot 50) deterred buyers when it first failed to sell with a $40,000-60,000 estimate; with a better enhanced illustration the following year it sold for $40,800 in the 2005 Lawson-Menzies May sale. After Kitty's retrospective held at the National Gallery of Victoria in 2007, 2008 was a good one for this artist. Of the eight works offered four achieved prices that well exceeded her career average. 2009 saw 14 works being offered, of which 11 sold for a total value of $137,760. Kulama (Yam) Ceremony in Rain 1999 sold for $31,200 creeping into Kantilla’s top ten. 2010 brought equally consistent results, 11 of 15 works sold for a total value of $121,579 and a new record was set at sixth place. However this work had been offered three times over the previous five years, and is recorded as the artist’s seventh, eighth and ninth record. Each successive sale has brought a small dip in value. The hype surrounding the artist’s retrospective may have generated heat, but as the years progress, sellers with high expectations have generally been disappointed. This trend is further illustrated in 2017, where, even though 11 out of the 15 works on offer sold, almost everty sale placed either at the lower end of the pre-sale estimate or below it altogether, resulting in an average price of $8,148. The saving grace of 2017 was an untitled work from 1997, selling for a very impressive $34,160 and placing 11th on her list of highes prices. Overall it is worth noting that Kitty Kantilla’s best works have yet to reach the secondary market. Anyone fortunate enough to have bought one of her later canvases with very fine lines and tiny dots on a white background may not wish to part with it unless increasing prices prove just too tempting. Her finest works of exquisite beauty, subtlety, and intricacy will always find an eager audience. Their beauty holds broad appeal for 'the freely drawn geometric patterns and planes, have an instinctive rightness that both invites and defies analysis' (McDonald 2003: 395). This was perhaps the case with the exquisite work that sold at Sotheby's June Auction in Melbourne in 2011 (Lot 72), creating her new fifth record, in an otherwise flat year. Pumpuni Jilamara 2002 could easily be attributed the praise bestowed upon Kantilla's best work, a few blocks of geometric shapes appear almost to float upon a fine sea of dots. Almost universally, works on paper attract far less value in the market than similar works in size and aesthetics on canvas or linen. Yet many of Kitty Kantilla’s very finest works were produced in this less lucrative medium where the vivaciousness and vitality of her art appears enlivened upon the paper’s surface. Collectors would be well advised to seek these out. Kantilla’s works on paper present a fortunate opportunity to own an inexpensive yet beautiful masterpiece, rather than settling for a more expensive, lesser work on canvas. Explore our artworks See some of our featured artworks below ANGELINA PWERLE NGAL - UNTITLED ( BUSH RAISIN MAN) Price AU$3,000.00 ALISON (JOJO) PURUNTATAMERI - WINGA (TIDAL MOVEMENT/WAVES) Out of stock LILY YIRDINGALI JURRAH HARGRAVES NUNGARRAYI - KURLURRNGALINYPA JUKURRPA Price From AU$13,500.00 BRONWYN BANCROFT - UNTITLED Out of stock JOSHUA BONSON - SKIN: A CELEBRATION OF CULTURE Price AU$8,500.00 BOOK - KONSTANTINA - GADIGAL NGURA Price From AU$99.00 FREDDIE TIMMS - MOONLIGHT VALLEY Price AU$35,000.00 NEIL ERNEST TOMKINS - BURN THERE, DON'T BURN THERE Price AU$7,000.00 SHOP NOW

Artist Profile for Lena Pwerle < Back Lena Pwerle Lena Pwerle ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Lena Pwerle ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

Balgo Horizons | Stories and Places Across Time Art Leven - 17 Thurlow St, Redfern, Gadigal / Sydney 1 - 22 February 2025 Balgo Horizons | Stories and Places Across Time 1 - 22 February 2025 Balgo Horizons | Stories and Places Across Time 1 - 22 February 2025 Art Leven - 17 Thurlow St, Redfern, Gadigal / Sydney From its beginnings, Balgo art has been celebrated for its daring use of colour, striking iconography, and dynamic, boundary-pushing styles. Early works often depicted ceremonial iconography and Tjukurrpa (Dreaming) stories, capturing the essence of Country and the journeys of ancestral beings. These paintings were deeply rooted in cultural knowledge, acting as both a visual language and a connection to the artists’ homelands. From very early on, Balgo artists have seemed to veer comfortably in and out of abstraction, while still allowing space to employ the traditional iconographic elements. This resulted in the development of an extremely diverse mix of styles. To this day, Warlayirti Artists studios continue to play host for a wide range of artistic styles and voices, making diversity of style a timeless theme. "Dotting used to highlight the content in Balgo paintings, the Kuruwarri, [the sacred design associated with ‘traditional iconography] bringing an optical dynamism to painted forms. Over time it has pulled away from those forms, and seemingly become the content itself." (p. 9) "Balgo Horizons" offers a glimpse into the history and evolution of one of Australia’s most vibrant artist communities. Made up of two parts, the exhibition consists of primary market artworks by the working painters of Warlayirti Artsists, as well as secondary market works from private collections representing the founding and early stages of the Balgo art movement. Originally, the concept was to juxtapose ‘the old’ and ‘the new’, expecting a clear contrast between the two (as one may see in the history of other communities such as Papunya wherein, for a multitude of reasons, the present abstract geometric style has all but entirely replaced the early representational imagery of the 70s). Quickly, however, it became clear that this narrative did not suit the works in“Balgo Horizons”. "The jukurrpa is not an enduring edifice, however much it is presented as such. It persists because it changes, or because it has always helped desert people make sense of change." (p. 361) As the movement developed through the 1990s and into the 21st century, Balgo artists began experimenting further with abstraction and technique, resulting in artworks that were more individualistic while remaining firmly grounded in cultural tradition. Colours became more vivid, compositions more innovative, and traditional imagery transformed into highly personal expressions of place and identity. On one hand, we have stylistic shifts that affect entire generations of artists. On the other hand, within a community that features so many disparate styles of painting, there are individual stylistic lineages that evolve separately, sometimes linking different generations of a single family. It is not just the Dreamings themselves that are inherited as is common in most communities, but the language to describe them. In this way, the ‘old’ feels ever-represented by Wartlayirti Artists. No memory is left behind, the horizon never out of reach. In the opening to his fantastic book ‘Balgo: Creating Country’, author John Carty presents us a key to begin understanding the meaning of a painting by Elizabeth Nyumi: "It means everything. Literally, everything. It is not a retelling of a Dreamtime story. It is not a picture of a place, or a representation of it. It is Country. Balgo artists don't say 'this is a painting of my Country': they say that the painting is their Country." (p.1) John Carty; Balgo: Creating Country, UWA Publishing Request a Catalogue RSVP Opening LUCY YUKENBARRI NAPANANGKA - UNTITLED Sold AU$20,000.00 ELIZABETH NYUMI NUNGURRAYI - UNTITLED Sold AU$6,000.00 SUSIE BOOTJA BOOTJA - KANINGARRA price AU$5,500.00 NINGIE NANGALA - UNTITLED price AU$3,800.00 BOXER MILNER TJAMPITJIN - WINDJAREE price AU$3,500.00 EUBENA NAMPITJIN - CANNING STOCK ROUTE, W.A. price AU$2,200.00 IMELDA (YUKENBARRI) GUGAMAN - WINPURPURLA Sold AU$0.00 SUSIE BOOTJA BOOTJA - UNTITLED price AU$7,500.00 ELIZABETH NYUMI NUNGURRAYI - UNTITLED Sold AU$6,000.00 FRANCES ANN NOWEE - NYNMI Sold AU$4,800.00 SAM TJAMPITJIN - TWO LARGE CLAYPANS price AU$3,600.00 BAI BAI NAPANGARTI - UNTITLED Sold AU$3,000.00 NINGIE NANGALA - WALUPARN price AU$1,800.00 WINIFRED NANALA - WILKINKARRA Sold AU$0.00 BOXER MILNER TJAMPITJIN - DJARINGARRA price AU$6,000.00 BOXER MILNER TJAMPITJIN - UNTITLED Sold AU$6,000.00 IMELDA (YUKENBARRI) GUGAMAN - WINPURPURLA Sold AU$4,400.00 MICK GILL - ARTISTS'S COUNTRY price AU$3,500.00 BAI BAI NAPANGARTI - LUMUNBUNDA price AU$2,500.00 CARMEL YUKENBARRI - WINPURPURLA Sold AU$1,400.00 MUNTJA NUNGURRAYI - COLLECTING BUSH FRUIT Sold AU$0.00 EXbalgo

A COOEE CHRISTMAS | NEXT GEN 21 From 27 November to 31 December 2021 Viewing Room A COOEE CHRISTMAS | NEXT GEN 21 From 27 November to 31 December 2021 Our selected artists from 2021 will deck the walls with Christmas jolly, their artworks spanning sizes small and large within any price range. Discover the bold colours and powerful gestural brushstrokes by some of Australia’s most interesting contemporary Aboriginal artists.

Artist Profile for Janelle Napurrurla Wilson < Back Janelle Napurrurla Wilson Janelle Napurrurla Wilson ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Janelle Napurrurla Wilson ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .

COOEE ART AT AUSTRALIAN GALLERIES From 05 April to 24 April 2016 Viewing Room COOEE ART AT AUSTRALIAN GALLERIES From 05 April to 24 April 2016 For this exhibition at Australian Galleries, Coo-ee Art Gallery has sourced works from local and international private collections and remote Aboriginal art communities, showcasing the very best the movement has to offer, including a number of major masterpieces. "The story of the modern Aboriginal art movement is one of the most exciting and transcendent chapters in the history of contemporary Australian art. Within the space of just 50 years Indigenous artists have transformed the perception of their culture from something of strictly ethnographic interest into one of the worlds most dynamic contemporary art movements. Today, high quality polymer paints, imported Belgian linen and the finest art papers are as likely to be used as materials gathered from the immediate environment. From its origins in rock painting, body art, ceremonial regalia, low relief sand sculpture and utilitarian objects, Aboriginal material culture has moved into the shrines of contemporary art and significant art collections all over the world. Coo-ee Art Gallery has traversed this terrain for over 30 years and is now the oldest exhibiting Aboriginal art gallery in Australia. The founding Director, Adrian Newstead OAM has worked with revered elders and cultural custodians in the Tiwi Islands, Arnhem Land, the Kimberley, the far reaches of the Tanami Desert and through to the Torres Strait Islands. Australian Galleries has its own rich history. Since 1956 it has been intimately associated with many of Australias greatest non-indigenous artists including Arthur Boyd, Sidney Nolan, Brett Whiteley and Fred Williams. Today, Stuart Purves AM walks in his parents founding footsteps, representing many of Australias most prominent contemporary painters and sculptors. I am of the opinion that the Australian Aborigine is probably the best artist in Australia. Recently we toured Australia, and the Aboriginal art amazed me. The Aborigine has a wonderful, dreaming philosophy which all Australian artists should have. Sidney Nolan, 1949 For this exhibition at Australian Galleries, Coo-ee Art Gallery has sourced works from local and international private collections and remote Aboriginal art communities, showcasing the very best the movement has to offer, including a number of major masterpieces."

Artist Profile for Jack Dale < Back Jack Dale Jack Dale 1922 - 2013 ARTIST PROFILE ARTIST CV MARKET ANALYSIS READ FULL ARTIST PROFILE top Anchor 1 PROFILE Jack Dale 1922 - 2013 I'm a paragraph. Click here to add your own text and edit me. It's easy. ARTIST CV Market Analysis MARKET ANALYSIS Though they met briefly in the late 1980s, it was not until April 1997 that Jack Dale began painting and recording his cultural stories with the assistance of Melbourne art entrepreneur and publisher, Neil McLeod. McLeod began his association with artists of the Kimberley during projects in the region as early as 1977 when he first recorded and photographed ceremonies, the manufacture of artefacts and traditional food gathering. In the late 1990s, Dale participated in a number of group exhibitions at Coo-ee Aboriginal Art, Sydney, as well as Michel Sourgnes Fine Art, Brisbane during 2001 and 2002. These were followed in quick succession by no less than seven solo exhibitions between 2001 and 2006, all organised through Neil McLeod. Amongst the venues were Flinders Lane and Vivien Anderson Gallery in Melbourne, Kintolai Gallery in Adelaide, Coo-ee Gallery in Sydney, and Japingka Gallery in Fremantle. The works included in these exhibitions were created during workshops conducted at Dale’s home in Derby. Several times each year McLeod would drive from Melbourne to the Kimberley with art materials and equipment for workshops that could last up to a month in duration. His absence from the Kimberley for extended periods enabled the owners of a Perth gallery to claim they had signed Dale to an exclusive contract and to demand that McLeod hand over all of the paintings in his possession to the artist’s ‘new agents'. When the works Dale produced for them proved to be inferior, they insisted that those created for McLeod could not be in the artist’s own hand and called the fraud squad. Confronted by police in Derby, the old man, quite naturally afraid, made no secret about receiving appropriate family assistance. Works were confiscated from his exhibition at Japingka Gallery and sent to anthropologist Kevin Shaw who concluded, as did others who visited Derby to watch Dale paint, that the venerated old artist had no case to answer. The confiscated paintings were returned. The 'exclusive' contract with the Perth Gallery was deemed to be invalid and Dale once more resumed painting for McLeod. While Dale’s works were freely available in the primary market, his results at auctions were less than auspicious. In 2007, two works sold for what remain the artist's record and third highest price to date. The first of these appeared at Lawson~Menzies in May (Lot 25). Offered with an estimate of $30,000-35,000 this eye-catching 180 x 231 cm image, Male Wandjinas - Baby Dreaming, created just 12 months earlier, sold for $31,200 to a buyer who had already announced his intentions prior to the sale. It was obvious that powerful primary market influences were at play in underpinning the work of an important old artist of whom most collectors were, as yet, largely unaware. At its next sale in November 2007 Lawson~Menzies featured another major work, this time measuring 143 x 199 cm. This canvas, Wandjinas at Iondra 2006 was an even more impressive painting than the former lot and sold above its high estimate for $45,600, the artist’s current record price. As a direct result of these two sales Jack Dale shot to 120th on the most successful artist list. Further success in 2008 when two works sold for $38,400 and $13,200 saw him leap to become the 66th most successful Aboriginal artist of all time. In 2009 strong sales pushed him further to 60th, with a highly impressive average of $20,518. This was all the more remarkable because he had yet to reach the threshold of 20 works offered. In 2010 another seven works appeared at sale pushing over the threshold for the first time. However it was not the most opportune time for it to do so even though three new works entered his top ten sales records. In 2013 and 2014 two fine examples entered his top 10 records but his results have not been nearly as impressive since and his ranking has dropped sharply. He is currently the 100th most successful artist of the movement. While one would expect that Jack Dale’s rating and position to have continued to rise, they have not done so. His high value works tend to be large, and for this reason, few are offered for public sale. Major paintings sell for $35,000-40,000 in the primary market, as no other artist has portrayed these iconic creator beings on such a scale other than perhaps David Mowaljarli. They are now being shown internationally. As time progresses these paintings are likely to become emblematic of the last artistic outpouring of a generation of genuine characters that embodied the spirit and Aboriginal heritage of the West Kimberley region. Disclaimer: At Cooee Art Leven, we strive to maintain accurate and respectful artist profiles. Despite our efforts, there may be occasional inaccuracies. We welcome any corrections or suggested amendments. Please contact us with your feedback .