Fine Art

Donations to museums via inheritance tax schemes grew 22% in the past year, according to the latest Arts Council annual report.

Used as the catalogue cover design for an Illustration Art sale held by Swann (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) of New York was the George Lepape watercolour, ‘Après la Tempeste’ shown below.

A retrospective of William Tillyer (b.1938) running at Bernard Jacobson this month is only the first in a series of events planned relating to the British artist at the Duke Street gallery this year.

The picture dealer element of BRAFA is substantial, but increasingly these days the emphasis is on works from the 19th century onwards, be they Impressionist and modern or post-war and contemporary art.

He was among the most prolific and longest serving official war artists of the Second World War, yet Anthony Gross (1905-84) remains an obscure name among 20th century British talents.

More than £730,000 worth of pictures changed hands at Edinburgh saleroom Lyon & Turnbull’s (25/20% buyer’s premium) recent sale of Scottish art.

Algernon Newton (1880-1968) is one of those British artists whose pictures went unnoticed for many years.

BRAFA has long been a fair with a speciality in early (medieval and Renaissance) works of art, which is something that dates back to the years when it was a Belgian National fair in the city centre. It thus serves a venerable collecting tradition drawing in buyers from the local area and further afield.

A painting by Rex Whistler (1905-44) which was believed to be the last he painted before he was killed during the Second World War sold at Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) in London.

Roy Bolton is cofounder of Sphinx Fine Art, an Old Master and Russian pictures specialist on Kensington Church Street in London.

Abbott and Holder kicks off 2018 with an exhibition celebrating the art of London’s East End.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the London Art Fair (LAF), which has grown from 30 UK exhibitors in its first edition to its current 131-strong international line-up. They will fill the floor at Islington’s Business Design Centre from January 17-21.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

The traditional Christmas Old Master series in London provided the first test of the market since the spectacular sale of Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi in New York three weeks before.