Howard Arkley's Large House with Fence sets artist record at $432,500

Howard Arkley's A Large House with Fence (1998) made $432,561 at Bonhams' Important Australian Art auction in Melbourne on August 18.

The figure is a new auction record for the artist, an increase of 7.7% on the previous record - which was set at $401,442 for Family Home (1998) in 2007.

Bonhams Arkley Howard
Howard Arkley's work celebrates suburban Australia

His paintings of suburban homes having taken on an iconic status in his native Austrlia.

According to Bonhams: "Howard Arkley's suburban houses were inspired by and often directly referenced drawings that real estate agents produced to advertise properties in newspapers.

"A Large House with Fence fuses the literal with the psychedelic…It is that tension between representation and abstraction in Arkley's works that make them most fascinating, the real made unreal."

Charles Meere's Australian Beach Pattern (1940) made $301,655.  

Charles Meere
This version of Charles Meere's Australian Beach Pattern was executed in 1940

Meere (1890-1961) was born in London but emigrated to Australia in the aftermath of the first world war.

He painted five versions of the current work, one of which stands in the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

Another version sold for a record $398,412 at Bonhams in August last year.

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