Art sales at auction this year in Australia were down 3.7 percent from 2010, according to the Australian Art Sales Digest. And the sub-$100 million total (A$99.1 million) was way down on the feverish days of 2007 when $175 million was turned over.

Perhaps upheavals in the auction house world were unhelpful. Bonhams entered the fray as the only international player after Christie’s and Sotheby's had deserted. And the local Sotheby's Australia never felt like the “real deal.” Then Bonhams employed the old Sotheby's Indigenous team, which may have helped it to claim market leadership in this section of the business. But it was the most depressed section — totaling just $8.1 million, down 20 percent from last year and almost halving its percentage of the total booty compared with 2007's heady $26.4 million.

AASD consultant David Hulme reckons comparisons with the housing market are valid. “A great house in a great street will always find a buyer willing to pay a good price in a depressed market,” he opined.

So, the late 62-work seller Brett Whiteley topped the year at $8,453,758, managing two sales over $1.5 million at the leading auction house, Menzies Art Brands. Living artist of the year, Ben Quilty — who took out the high-profile Archibald Prize — also took Hulme's eye: “That painting [“Frog Torana,” 2003] at Menzies last week had an estimate of $30,000 to $40,000, and it went for $66,000.''

Whiteley's indigenous opposite number — selling 27 works at $1.7 million — was the late Kimberley master, Paddy Bedford, whose estate sold 26 paintings at Bonhams after an international tour, 40 percent of them to overseas buyers. That was the first-ever solo sale for an Aboriginal artist, and may set a trend in 2012 towards more concentrated auctions — no more than 80 works. Indeed, local auctioneers Deutscher & Hackett pioneered a 12-day “gallery”-style sale in Melbourne, but offloaded just 33 of its 83 lots.