DALLAS — At Dallas Auction Gallery’s November 20 auction, a 1973 synthetic polymer paint on composition board by the Australian Aboriginal artist Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1926-2002) sold for $93,750 with premium.

Untitled (Artist’s Stories) is inscribed verso with “AAB (Aboriginal Art Board),” and the Tula Artist Catalog number, “CP731098.” DAG owner Scott Shuford said, “When we got the word out about the aboriginal art in the SMU collection, we were inundated by interested collectors worldwide. Many were bidding by phone, and that caused a problem for one woman who would have continued to bid, but her phone had a problem.” The painting did sell to another collector on the phone.

The provenance is perfect, going from Papunya Papunya Tula Artists, Alice Springs Argyle Arts Centre (Possum Tjapaltjarri was chairman from the 1970s to the 1980s), to a Sydney Private Collection to the SMU Taos campus collection. The 36-by-48-inch work came with an estimate of $8/12,000 and was one of several works from the collection being sold to benefit scholarships to the university. A full review of the auction will appear in a future issue.