Art Market

Leading regional salerooms are reaping the rewards of the bullish Modern British art market with more robust results.

A small vibrant work by Jack Butler Yeats (1871-1957) from the collection of Irish art assembled by the late businesswoman Gillian Bowler topped Adam’s sale on May 31.

Spring sale results provide promising upturn as Irish art market shows signs of recovery.

Mirroring Whyte’s recent auction and its own Irish sale back in April, de Veres’ top performer on May 21 was another work by William Scott.

A painting by equine artist Lucy Kemp-Welch (1869-1958) sold for four times its top guide at Bellmans (20% buyer’s premium).

“In the 19th century, before football came along, it was all about field sports,” says Iain Byatt-Smith of Bonhams’ (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) Scottish picture department.

A Charles-Francois Daubigny (1817-78) painting that had been in the same private collection since 1963 topped Nesbits’ (19% buyer’s premium) sale in Portsmouth on May 17.

This depiction of a 16th century bullfight in Siena’s Piazza del Campo starred in Christie’s (25/20/12% buyer’s premium) sale of the collection of the late Lord Weidenfeld.

Seventy years ago, councils around the UK launched Pictures for Schools, a scheme to bring original works of art into the classroom.

Watercolours by the polar explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959) were discovered among thousands of works from Stanley Studios in Chelsea.

“The good thing for Welsh art is the maturity of the tourist industry. It’s no longer, ‘if you want to go to Wales, you go to Butlin’s in Pwllheli’.” Ben Rogers Jones of Rogers Jones (20% buyer’s premium) puts much of the increased demand for Welsh art over the last 20 years down to that tourism trend.

The Cubist-inspired oils of Manchester artist Geoffrey Key (b.1941) regularly feature at Peter Wilson (20% buyer’s premium) in nearby Nantwich.

A rather shabby portrait of an unknown woman sparked a bidding battle at W&H Peacock (17.5% buyer’s premium) in Bedford on May 5.

“I think the secret to our success is that we now hold an art sale every four weeks.” A 90% sell-through rate from 400 lots was the latest bullish stat to come out of John Nicholson’s (24% buyer’s premium) monthly picture auctions, started this year by specialist Buffy Parker.

Jenny Saville’s (b.1970) contorted and grotesquely fleshy female nudes are hot property on the contemporary art market.

Unusual appearance of mountain views by painter whose career was cut short by tuberculosis

Bronze busts of the Queen and Prince Philip from the Oxfordshire studio of Czech émigré sculptor Franta Belsky (1921-2000) took top honours at Mallams (20% buyer’s premium) in Oxford on April 25.

A Newlyn School work by Albert Chevalier Tayler (1862-1926) topped David Lay’s (18% buyer’s premium) April 27 sale in Penzance.

A collection of early 20th century German works on paper, brought to England in the possession of a German academic who fled the Nazis on the eve of the Second World War, appeared at Canterbury Auction Galleries (20% buyer’s premium) on April 4-5.

A scarce complete portfolio of 26 prints from Erté’s (1892-1990) famed Alphabet Suite appeared at Henry Adams (20% buyer’s premium) on April 12 in Chichester.