The Art Gallery of NSW will sell two paintings by famous Australians to raise funds towards the $16.2 million purchase price of Paul Cezanne's landscape Bords De La Marne.

Brett Whiteley's Balmoral and John Perceval's Pleasure Craft will be auctioned by Sotheby's in Melbourne on November 24.

Even if the works reach their top estimates, the profits will fall short of the $1.7 million the gallery still has to pay towards the Cezanne.

The Whiteley is valued between $700,000 and $900,000 and the Perceval between $150,000 and $200,000.

"We're not far off, but I have another payment to make at the end of the year and it is getting a bit tight," says the gallery's director, Edmund Capon. 

NSW's Battle To Pay For $16m Cezanne 

meanwhile ….

A Francis Bacon self-portrait failed to sell at auction in New York on Wednesday, in another sign the souring economy is having a crushing effect on autumn season art sales.

Bacon's 1964 Study For Self Portrait - billed as a highlight of Christie's contemporary art auction - was estimated to take in about $US40 million ($63 million).

But when the bidding stopped at $US27.4 million the auction house halted the proceedings, to a chorus of gasps.

Times Tough When Bacon Self-Portrait Fails To Make $63m