Fine Art

It’s fair to say the work of Victorian animal painter Sidney Cooper (1803-1902) is not flavour of the month.

British modernist Kenneth Lauder (1916-2004) used to entreat his opticians to create spectacles that would allow him to see the world upside down. They refused, but he remained determined to view life in a different way.

“Isn’t it possible that the Irish could be just as brilliant in the visual arts as they have been in music and literature?”

Racing round the banking at Brooklands in Surrey, Sir Tim Birkin is shown to dramatic effect in this oil painting by Dion Pears, below.

Plenty to interest European buyers was available at Thomaston Place Auction Galleries (17% buyer’s premium) in Maine on August 25-26.

Three modestly valued works in regional sales, all sold below £700.

This bronze sculpture by Louis-Albert Lefeuvre (1845- 1924), Les Fondeurs du Moyen Age, was one of the highlights of a single-owner collection sold by Alderfer Auction in Hatfield, Pennsylvania.

An art dealership that sold a portrait of Napoleon’s brother-in-law to The Frick Collection in New York has strongly criticised Italy’s decision to retrospectively rescind its export licence.

An intriguing item with important international artistic links is on offer at Towy Fairs’ Carmarthen Antiques and Fleamarket on Sunday, September 9.

Mayfair gallery Connaught Brown is staging the first solo exhibition of French Neo-Impressionist and Symbolist painter Henri Martin (1860-1943) to take place in London for a number of years.

August is the month when Scotland takes it up a notch while the rest of the art world has a breather.

A little-known Jacob Epstein (1880-1959) sculpture of the British actress Sandra Dorne took an estimate-topping £11,000 at HRD Auction Rooms (20% buyer’s premium) on the Isle of Wight.