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An original Brett Whiteley artwork titled Henri's Armchair is auctioned by Menzies Head of Art, Justin Turner, selling for $5 million. The plague year 2020 has seen a boom in Australian art auction records. Apart from the Whiteley, which sets a new high for all local art, fresh benchmarks have been achieved for many well known artists. In February, Menzies sold Jeffrey Smart’s Conversation Piece (1998), for $981,818. In July, Fred Williams’s Hummock in Landscape sold for $2,822,727 at Deutscher Hackett, while Hans Heysen’s A Summer’s Day (c. 1907) went for $601,364 in the same auction.Credit:Wolter Peeters