Modern British Art

Lists of artwork by Geoffrey Clarke (1924-2014) can read like a travelogue.

A collection of market-fresh pictures with a distinctive Surrealist streak found favour with buyers at Charterhouse (21% buyer’s premium) in Dorset.

Fitzroy Square to the north of central London was a key location in early 20th century British art. Virginia Woolf lived here for several years, a few doors down from Bloomsbury Group artist Duncan Grant, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler also had a studio.

This archetypal still-life by Cecil Kennedy (1905-97) topped Halls’ (20% buyer’s premium) £300,000 auction on October 18.

The work of non-combatant artists in wartime is covered in two separate exhibitions...

Dorchester auctioneer Duke’s said it has changed its due diligence procedures after advertising fake works it claimed were by Cornish artist Alfred Wallis (1855-1942).

A brace of unrecorded pastels by celebrated Scottish Colourist SJ Peploe (1871-1935) sold strongly at Lawrences (22% buyer’s premium) in Crewkerne.

Figuring why a specific lot did unexpectedly well is part and parcel of reviewing auctions but this oil on board lunette of a pastoral idyll below is more of a challenge than most.

'A Dawn', a 1914 picture by CRW Nevinson (1889-1946) in his trademark Vorticist style has been consigned to Sotheby's from a private source.

Albert Irvin (1922-2015) is known as one of the few UK artists to work in abstract expressionism and his paintings are popular among collectors and the public.

“I was astonished by the group, both in terms of their individual quality and how cohesive the collection was,” says Waterhouse & Dodd’s Jamie Anderson, who earlier this year went to see a private collection of works by David Bomberg (1890-1957).

Austin Desmond Fine Art, the Modern British gallery across from London’s British Museum, is currently showing 'Keith Vaughan: On Pagham Beach, Photographs and Collages from the 1930s' (until December 8).

During his nights spent ‘fire-spotting’ for flying bombs during the Blitz, it is said the artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare (1888-1956) would while away the hours filling sketchbooks.

Half a dozen works by the obscure British artist Valentine Dobrée (1891-1974) sold for multi-estimate sums at Reeman Dansie (20% buyer’s premium) in Colchester on September 26-27.