Fine Art

Artist battles back to regain favour with auctioneers, private buyers and dealers

The ROSC art exhibitions – ‘rosc’ being an Irish word roughly translated as ‘the poetry of vision’ – were the first major series of large-scale international art shows in Ireland.

An early coastal scene of Australia sold for more than five times its top estimate to an online buyer from New South Wales at Ewbank’s anniversary sale.

Impressionistic pastoral landscapes, often featuring cattle, are the signature works of John Alfred Arnesby Brown (1866-1955).

A 19th century English painting of two prize cattle – a bull and a heifer in a field– was one of the top lots in the sale held by Bruneau in Cranston, Rhode Island, on March 14.

The Limerick-born painter Norman Garstin (1847-1926) was an engineer, architect, and a diamond prospector before he settled on art as a career.

With Storm Ciara getting under way (in pre-coronavirus days…) it was not, perhaps, the ideal time to launch the new weekend sales at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium).

Painting of Evening Star reflects end of an era as coal-fired locomotives started to hit the buffers.

Irish painter William Conor (1881-1968) received many official commissions during a prolific artistic career, including from King George V, but it was his warm and sympathetic portrayals of working-class life in Ulster that are best known today.

Three modestly valued works selling at regional sales including a William Gear acrylic painting.

MADAM – I wonder if your readers can help us.

Works by artist Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864- 1946), were the chief focus of a sale held by Sotheby’s (25/20/13.9% buyer’s premium) in New York.

Sim Fine Art has sold a 28-work collection of pictures by Second World War artist Paul Drury (1903-87) to the Science Museum in London.

An album of 35 photographs relating to the Alaskan ‘Gold Rush’ of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries sold for £1900 rather than the estimate of £50-70 in a recent North Yorkshire sale.

Although championed by Stanley Spencer and the poet and critic Herbert Read, Francis Plummer (1930-2019) is a name few will have heard of.

Three works selling at regional sales below £1500, including a Rosalie Emslie watercolour.