Fine Art

MADAM – Might I ask whether one of your readers is able to assist with a little piece of identification?

Paris Enchères Collin du Bocage will be holding a single-lot sale on July 22 in Paris of a painting by Nicolas de Staël (1914-55).

The De Morgan Foundation charity is searching for a painting by artist Evelyn De Morgan that it believes could be the first portrait she ever painted.

'Concetto spaziale' (1960) by Lucio Fontana is one of the works on offer at The Arts Club exhibition Block Party.

Millon of Paris will offer this painting of a Tunisian street scene by Alexandre Roubtzoff (1884-1949) at its Antiquities and Orientalist sale on July 21.

When once asked how long he had spent painting a certain picture, Scottish artist William Johnstone (1897-1981) is said to have replied: “Only 10 minutes, I suppose, but it’s taken 70 years of looking.”

Pitching a work at the right level is crucial to demand and price when it comes to selling unattributed or loosely ascribed Old Masters at auction.

Two pictures from local deceased estates drew solid competition at a recent sale at East Yorkshire auction house Hawleys (20% buyers premium) thanks to being offered with ‘there-to-be-sold’ estimates.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

Providing a major boost to Bonhams’ first sale in London with room bidding since the lockdown, a portrait of the writer EM Forster by Roger Fry (1866-1934) set an auction record both for the artist and any Bloomsbury Group picture.

Sotheby’s held the first of this summer’s ‘super sales’ last week as it combined a series of three Modern and Contemporary art auctions into a marathon four-and-a-half hour live-streamed event.

A record price of £10,200 was paid last month for a pen and ink sketch by fell-walking legend Alfred Wainwright at 1818 Auctioneers of Milnthorpe, Cumbria.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

On July 23 Stair of Hudson, New York, will be offering paintings, works on paper and sculpture from the collection of art consultant and adviser Matthew Rutenberg (1956-2019).

The German-born watercolourist and musician John Baptist Malchair (c.1730-1812) was a key figure in 18th century Oxford.

'Still Life with Red Chrysanthemums' is among the works featured at The Fosse Gallery in Stow on the Wold as it celebrates its 40th anniversary. It was painted by Bristol artist Karen Edwards, a regular exhibitor at the now historic gallery.

As might be expected, local scenes were an important feature of David Lay’s Cornish art sale on June 11. Among them was a view of Penzance’s Market Jew Street by Norman Garstin (1847-1926) that depicted a location only a 10-minute walk from the saleroom.

Though largely made up of books, the star turn in a US sale of 100 lots called ‘Churchill in Charge’ was a portrait by the photographer usually known simply as Karsh. The sale was inspired by the 80th anniversary of his assuming the office of Britain’s Prime Minister.