Modern British Art

THE issue of the Manchester Art Gallery’s missing Eric Gill sculpture has been resolved, Cheshire auctioneer Adam Partridge has told ATG.

GORRINGES are to offer for sale paintings and works of art belonging to Grace Higgens, the former housekeeper at Charleston Farmhouse, the Bloomsbury Group's Sussex retreat.

A NEW auction record has been set for any painting by a Scottish Colourist after Tulips by Samuel John Peploe (1871-1935) sold for £520,000 at Sotheby's.

THE escalating popularity of post-War Northern artists was proved twice last week as auction records for both Helen Bradley and William Turner were set at Bonhams.

THE work of Edward Seago (1910-1974) has always been popular. Even during his own lifetime, Colnaghi’s annual exhibitions of his paintings between 1946 and 1966 on Old Bond Street drew such fierce competition that buyers, some of whom had queued overnight, were restricted to one picture each.

THE artist may not have a famous name or any track record in the saleroom, but arguably the most intriguing lot at Rogers Jones' latest Welsh Sale in Colwyn Bay was a collection of 50 striking Art Deco watercolours by Gladys Williamson (1914-2007).

More details have emerged regarding the ‘breach-of-contract’ lawsuit which claims that Christie’s backed out of a $40m guarantee made to secure a Francis Bacon self-portrait for sale.

DAVID Smith of Neptune Fine Art, the dealer who was duped into buying a fake Lowry painting, has told ATG that potential buyers should be exceptionally careful when considering purchasing a Lowry painting.

STAYING topical but putting a comic slant on events, an exhibition of original artwork for cartoons relating to financial and political crises will be a feature of The Watercolour & Drawings Fair next February.

A Mary Fedden watercolour is among the items for sale on the philanthropic auction site www.buyoncegivetwice.co.uk

DESPITE falling stocks, banks freezing and now top-end contemporary art taking a tumble, Samuel John Peploe's (1871-1935) Roses sold at £440,000 hammer to a UK private buyer at Christie's Scottish art sale in Edinburgh. With premium included, this was a record for a Scottish Colourist, although not a hammer record.

The Lenkiewicz Foundation have exposed two fake Robert Lenkiewicz (1941-2002) portraits after they were seen advertised for sale on a dealer's website. The dealer immediately withdrew the two paintings, a self-portrait and Study of Lisa Stokes, once contacted by the foundation.

The largest ever retrospective exhibition of the work of popular Modern British painter Edward Seago (1910-1974) will be held from September 8-19 at the Bond Street dealers Colnaghi, who represented the artist in his heyday.

A MAJOR loan exhibition of early works by Lucian Freud (b.1922) will run from October 9 to December 12 at the St James’s gallery of Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, 38 Bury Street, London SW1.

SOME 13 telephone bidders made their presence felt at a recent sale at Lawrences in Crewkerne, Somerset, as they turned out to compete for seven iconic 20th century prints by artists from the Grosvenor School of Art.

If Bonhams' July 2 sale of 20th century British art is anything to go by, demand for the humorous art of Beryl Cook (1926-2008) has strengthened since she died in May.

Christie’s English furniture day on June 18 was marked by the £9m auction of a dozen pieces of top-flight examples and by the 369-lot £13.6m sale of the collection of the late Simon Sainsbury.

TWO very different scenes of cricket matches in progress sold recently at very different locations. The artists themselves could also hardly be more contrasting: Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) and L.S. Lowry (1887-1976).

There was high drama at Christie's latest decorative arts sale in London, when half the £3.1m total came from this Glasgow school panel by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh, which sold to an American collector for £1.5m (plus premium).

“THE high point of my career,” was how auctioneer John Anderson described his most recent sale. He had waited 30 years but finally got the chance to offer the Lionel Jacobson collection at Anderson & Garland on March 11-13.