A collection of more than 20 works by acclaimed painter Emily Kame Kngwarreye is being auctioned tonight in Melbourne for almost $1 million.
Kngwarreye, who painted for the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Agency in her early career, also painted for the Holts, a cattle farming family who owned a station in Anmatyerre country.
Kngwarreye was 79 when she started painting and in the sever years until her death in 1996 she produced extraordinary artworks. The Holt family collected at least one of her works each year.
"She [Emily] was a constant part of the landscape... and it would be her and other women from Utopia, painting and singing and laughing and talking...a lovely part and cornerstone of my childhood," said Annabelle Holt.
Senior Art Specialist Crispin Gutteridge says the Holt collection is comprehensive.
"There's transitional works from her batik years to every style she painted in. [There are] two wonderful black and white yam paintings and one done a number of weeks before she passed awa," Gutteridge says.
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