As a result the return from the four lots he sent for sale from the collection of MONA, the largely underground museum Museum of Old and New Art he built in the state's Glenorchy area, grossed just short of £4 million which was around what was estimated.
Although he has previously been required to settle large claims by the Australian Taxation Office, after which a luxury apartment in Sydney was put on the market, the new sales from the collection are stated to have been made to raise funds for an extension on the MONA site. His proposals have included a casino.
The Madonna was one of the most controversial and sensational works in contemporary art and which one might think any showman would be now keen to hang onto...not a card to play on a market that is increasingly seeking out rare, special and trophy items that engage dinner guests and curators alike.
In an evening sale in Christie's main rooms in Mayfair of post war and contemporary art that made £95.65 million, Chris Ofili’s ground breaking Holy Virgin Mary made £2,882,500. This was against estimates of £1.4 million to £1.8 million.
The work shows a black Madonna shrouded in fluttering robes of cerulean blue, parted to reveal a single breast of dried and varnished elephant dung. The work is a smorgasbord of acrylic, oil, polyester resin, paper collage, glitter, map pins and elephant dung on linen measuring a sizable 243 by 182.4 cm.
Originally acquired by Charles Saatchi directly from Victoria Miro’s pioneering exhibition Afrodizziac in 1996, it was first exhibited at the generation defining exhibition of his collection, Sensation: Young British Artists from the Saatchi Collection, at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, in 1997. When shown in New York it was denounced by Mayor Guiliani who called for its removal from a show at the Brooklyn Museum.
The sale grossed £95.65 million and although it sold 87 per cent by lot and 88 per cent by value, the result paled compared with the following night sale by Sotheby's which exceeded that amount.
The four former MONA works on sale were controversial when they were created but are now synonymous with the height of the YBA era, but the Madonna was the star.
Jake and Dinos Chapman’s "sculpture" Great Deeds Against the Dead (1994) also hit the headlines. From the same Sensation exhibition and acquired from the Saatchi Collection it consists of limb-detached figures strung up in a tribute to Goya's Disasters of War series. Great Deeds against the Dead made £422,500 against estimates of £400,000 to £600,000.
Damien Hirst's painting Beautiful mis-shapen purity clashing excitedly outwards made £542,5000 against estimates of £500,000 to £700,000.
Jenny Saville's Matrix, is a monumental work consisting of a complex brush strokes-portrait of transgender photographer Del LaGrace Volcano and is an uninhibited meditation on the human body and the pressures of conformity. It sold for £782,500 against estimates of £650,000 - £850,000.
As estimates do not include premium it appears that all struggled (considering the confidence in the contemporaries) to make expectations, bar the Chris Ofili work which had been estimated at only £1.4 million to £1.8 million.
The Hirst seminal Beautiful misshapen purity clashing excitedly outwards painting is one of the first and largest examples of the artist’s majestic ‘spin’ paintings. It was executed in 1995, the same year that Hirst was awarded the Turner Prize.
It is one of the only spin paintings to rotate mechanically on the wall, causing its kaleidoscopic surface patterns to shatter across its vast circular form.
Mr Walsh said he regarded the consignment as a bit of a gamble but it looks like he will have the funds for his coming extension. Some of the YBAS were clearly not such a good gamble (but still a good hand) but the Virgin was a trophy work which Mr Walsh must have been saddened to see go. His win rate was one out of four.
They are not the first sales from the collection as Mr Walsh has also sold The Bar by John Brack which briefly held the auction record for any Australian painting.
