Portland Gallery offers Composition: Black, Red and Grey, 1957, oil on canvas, for a price in the region of £50,000-80,000.
In its first Modern British art market report of the year, Portland Gallery of St James’s, London, assessed some of the major auctions and top prices achieved in the field already this year.
The report includes some of the gallery’s recent endeavours, such as its participation in the London Art Fair where it says it sold the work of artists including Wilhelmina Barnes-Graham, Mary Fedden, Gillian Ayres and Barbaa Rae. It also privately brokered the sale of a John Cecil Stevenson oil.
On the open market it acquired a John Wells painting on behalf of a client as part of its advisory service during Lay’s Auctioneers’ sale of the collection of Pep and John Branfield.
In its report, it counts the auction from February 29 as one of the major events of the year so far. The white-glove sale included strong results for Alfred Wallis and Wilhelmina Barns-Graham.
Other key auctions were Dreweatts’ Modern and Contemporary sale in March, which included good results for Keith Vaughan and John Lavery as well as Roger Fry as results for the Bloomsbury group remain strong.
At the top end of the market was the Christie’s evening sale, which was up on last year and resulted in good prices for Lowry, Pauline Boy and RB Kitaj – the last two both records.
