Fine Art

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

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.

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.

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.

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).

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 exhibition of St Ives Modernism is to go ahead with all works available online.

Houstoun-Boswall consignment includes Robert Adam’s proposal for Scottish country house

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.

Two Italian Mannerist chalk drawings emerged as the top sellers in a section of Old Master drawings and prints at Cirencester saleroom Dominic Winter.

Paul Jenkins (1923-2012), an American Abstract artist and member of the New York School, was born in Kansas City. He worked at a ceramics factory in his youth, an experience that heavily influenced his tactile methods of painting.

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

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

This stellar 17th century Baroque ivory plaque depicting the Pieta attended by angels and putti carries the name 'IC Storer' for the German artist Johann Christoph Storer (1621-71).

Two alluring early-20th century British school portraits of attractive young women caught the eye in recent regional sales. Both modestly estimated, they brought similar four-figure sums.