The Message by Beatrice Glenavy, $9000 (£7210) at J Garrett Auctioneers.
The 20in x 2ft (51 x 61cm) oil on canvas titled The Message came for sale at J Garrett Auctioneers (28% buyer’s premium) in Texas on September 10. It carried an inscription to a label on the back reading: Lady Glenavy, R.H.A., Clonard, Kimmase Rd Dublin.
Born Beatrice Elvery, she was the daughter of the artist Theresa Moss and the Dublin businessman William Elvery. She studied at Dublin’s Metropolitan School of Art (now the National College of Art and Design) where one of her teachers was William Orpen (he later used Beatrice as a model).
Becoming a painter, stained-glass artist and sculptor, she first exhibited her work at the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1902 and would go on to show a total of two hundred works at the institution. After marrying Charles Campbell, 2nd Baron Glenavy in 1912, the couple settled in London but returned to Dublin after the First World War.
Good examples of her Surrealist figurative works do not emerge at auction very often but when they do they can easily fetch £5000 and beyond.
One tilted The Intruder sold at Christie’s for £24,000 in 1996, a sum that still holds the artist’s record. The picture in Texas was smaller in scale and had fewer figures than that earlier work, but it nevertheless generated solid interest against a $4000-7000 estimate and sold to an online bidder at $9000 (£7210).
