Art Market

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 unsigned Frank Auerbach (b.1931) sketch in coloured inks of Camden Theatre in London, a favourite subject of the artist, emerged as the top-selling lot at Scarborough saleroom David Duggleby (22.5% buyer’s premium).

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Limited-edition work showing Salford artist’s famous football scene nets a new high

London became the training ground for many young South African artists during the inter-war years. Among them was Cape Town painter Freida Lock (1902-62) who attended Heatherley School of Art and the Central School of Art where she was introduced to the works of post-Impressionists such as Van Gogh, Cézanne and Braque.

It was scenes of pleasure boats at Lytham St Anne’s on the Lancashire coast like the one shown below that Lowry’s mother supposedly favoured over her son’s darker industrial scenes.

Three works selling at regional sales below £3500, including a print of 'Lowry Walking on Swinton Moss' by Harold Riley.

Textbook watercolour by the British artist takes one of his higher prices in recent years.

This portrait study is by Sybil Atteck (1911-75), a pioneering artist in Trinidad and Tobago of Chinese descent known for her work in watercolour.

The artist Henri Jules Jean Geoffroy (1853-1924), known as ‘Géo’, was a member of the French Naturalist movement and was best known for his paintings of Parisian children and daily urban life.