Monumental work which adorned upmarket Sydney restaurant Quay for almost 25 years was billed as the most valuable Australian sculpture offered for auction in the country

The late Sydney artist Bronwyn Oliver has broken the sales record for Australia sculpture, with her monumental 2000 work Tide fetching $1m at auction, or $1.25m with buyer’s premium, in Sydney on Wednesday evening.

The sale surpasses the record set by Joel Elenberg’s 1978 sculpture Mask 1, which sold for $925,000, or $1,156,250 including buyer’s premium in August 2023, against an estimate of $300,000-$450,000. It also bests Oliver’s previous sales record of $700,000, which was set in April this year with the sale of her smaller 2004 sculpture, Sun.

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