Works in the database
97
Works with images
77
Works with multiple sales
16

Past Sales

(Mural Design for Port Hedland Hospital) 1962
Intransigence
Tranquility

Sales by Medium

Paintings
Sold 75 works for
$386,006
Works on Paper
Sold 4 works for
$12,253

Where to buy or sell art works by Ernest Philpot

Auction Houses

GFL Fine Art
Sold 63 works for
$358,340
McKenzies Auctioneers
Sold 9 works for
$18,661
Menzies
Sold 1 works for
$11,045

Born in England in 1906, Ernest Philpot arrived in Western Australia as a child, aged 7. He trained and worked as a signwriter, and pursued that trade until 1957. Over that period he married and raised a family, exhibited his drawings and paintings with the West Australian Society of Arts in 1936 and studied at the National Gallery School in Melbourne in 1937. He enlisted with the Australian Survey Corps during World War II. Philpot became art master at Wesley College, Perth in 1957 until his retirement in 1968, and from 1961 to 1965 was the art critic for the Perth 'Sunday Times' newspaper. His earlier works from 1934-1954 were mainly still life, landscape and representational paintings, mostly in oils but after 1954 he became absorbed in modern abstract impressionism. He became a member of the Australian Division of the International Association of Art Critics and President of the Perth Society of Artists (1960-1963). He won a number of prizes including the Claude Hotchin 1948 Landscape Prize and the Perth Prize in 1952. After his death, a retrospective exhibition of his paintings was in 1988 at the University of Western Australia.

Our database records art auction sales of works by Ernest Philpot from 1992 and in total 97 works by the artist have been offered for sale, of which 79 (81%) were sold. The highest price recorded for the artist is $32,200 for Bristile Tile Works sold by GFL Fine Art in May 2022. No works have been offered for sale this year, and the last sale we have recorded for the artist was in 2023. Works by Ernest Philpot are held by the Art Gallery of Western Australia, National Gallery of Australia and Heide Museum of Modern Art.

Ernest Philpot is listed in the following standard biographical references:

  • McCulloch, Alan McCulloch, Susan McCulloch, Emily McCulloch-Childs. The New McCulloch's Encyclopedia of Australian Art. 4th Edition, Aus Art Melbourne & The Miegunyah Press, 2006. Page 775
  • Germaine, Max. Artists and Galleries of Australia, Volumes 1 & 2, Third Edition. Craftsman Press, Sydney, 1990. Page 546
  • Australian Prints + Printmaking, a database listing printmaking artists from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific region based on the print collection of the National Gallery of Australia.

Artists' Resale Royalty

Could the second and subsequent works by this artist sold after June 9, 2010 for over $1,000 be liable for the Artists' Resale Royalty? More info…

Yes, eligible, subject to the artist satisfying the residency test. The artist is alive or has been deceased for less than 70 years. Contact the Copyright Agency for information on the residency test.

The Australian Art Sales Digest is a database of over 610,000 works by more than 12,000 artists who are listed as having either lived or worked in Australia or New Zealand, and an additional 36,000 foreign and other artists, offered for sale by auction in Australia and New Zealand from the early 1970s to the present day.

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