Elephant dung artist tipped to breach £1m mark at auction

TURNER PRIZE winner Chris Ofili, who is famous for using elephant dung in his work, could be the next British artist to breach the £1million mark at auction.

Ofili, whose works are on show at Tate Britain, has had comparatively few works sold at auction. But his painting Through the Grapevine sold for £802,250 last week - a record for the artist. Sotheby's expert Oliver Barker said: "There are 20 more ambitious works than this out there in private hands.

"It's taken a long time for Ofili's market to move but there's a shortage of his work at auction and a long waiting list at his dealer. In my view, he will soon be selling over a million and once that happens, for much more."

If so, Ofili will follow a string of British artists including Frank Auerbach and the younger Peter Doig now selling for seven figures at auction.

Last week Sotheby's saw some of the most successful contemporary art auctions of the last decade.

French artist Yves Klein's F88 of 1961 earned £3,289,250 from a Zurich private buyer. At Christie's, Klein's Anthropometrie ANT 65, an abstract of a nude model he created using cobalt blue paint and a Bunsen burner, sold for £4,129,250.