In spite of being elected to the Royal Academy in 1943, he was not afforded a significant retrospective at the RA until 1980 – nearly two decades after his death. More recently, a dedicated show at the Daniel Katz Gallery in 2012 has helped to raise the artist’s profile, and prices for his paintings have climbed.
This late 2ft x 3ft (61 x 91cm) Landscape Oil painted by Newton in 1963, pictured above, topped the sale at Dreweatts on November 28. The catalogue note describes the work as “not wild, but empty. The single tree, the only focus point of the painting, stands tall and exposed in this stylised English landscape.”
Last on the market at the RA in the year it was painted in 1963, it sold to the trade at £24,000 against a £15,000-20,000 guide. The price is in line with two similar works that appeared at Bonhams in recent years: Landscape with cottage, sold for £26,000 in November 2016, and Summer storm clouds, which took £30,000 in November 2014.
