Dora Akunyili’s daughter breaks record as her painting sells for over N517million ($1.1million)

Njideka Akunyili Crosby, daughter of the revered Dora Akunyili is an artist based in the U.S.A

Her painting Drown recently sold for $1.1million an auction record for the fast rising artist

International auction house Sotheby’s confirmed the sale

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Njideka Akunyili Crosby with her work The Thing Around Her Neck, 2011.

For every story of the recession that makes the news, there is a positive story of Nigerians like Njideka Akunyili Crosby whose talents are making

them millionaires – legally.

The artist who is a daughter of Nigeria’s former minister and Director General of NAFDAC Dr. Dora Akunyili recently sold her painting Drown for a whopping sum of $1.1million (official rate N346.7 million, black market rate N517million).

The painting was initially expected to sell for $200,000-$300,000 in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Evening Sale. But it eventually sold for $1,092,500, three times the high estimate breaking her auction record in the process.  No fewer than 11 bidders competed for the work that was eventually sold to an anonymous buyer on the telephone.

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Drown the painting by Njideka Akunyili Crosby that was recently sold for $1.1 million

Drown is an intimate self-portrait of the artist with her husband, Justin, and demonstrates beautifully how the layers of Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work reference the layers of her own identity.

Congrats to her.