Modern British Art

Exhibition on Duncan Grant and Vanessa Bell comes as interest and stock are both healthy

Detailed and dark, the prints of Gerald Brockhurst (1890-1978) offer striking portraits of both the famous and fictional from the first half of the 20th century.

He was among the most prolific and longest serving official war artists of the Second World War, yet Anthony Gross (1905-84) remains an obscure name among 20th century British talents.

More than £730,000 worth of pictures changed hands at Edinburgh saleroom Lyon & Turnbull’s (25/20% buyer’s premium) recent sale of Scottish art.

A painting by Rex Whistler (1905-44) which was believed to be the last he painted before he was killed during the Second World War sold at Chiswick Auctions (25/12% buyer’s premium) in London.

Algernon Newton (1880-1968) is one of those British artists whose pictures went unnoticed for many years.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of the London Art Fair (LAF), which has grown from 30 UK exhibitors in its first edition to its current 131-strong international line-up. They will fill the floor at Islington’s Business Design Centre from January 17-21.

Abbott and Holder kicks off 2018 with an exhibition celebrating the art of London’s East End.

Our weekly selection from salerooms and dealerships.

Art assembled by Peter Mangold, the late political historian, led a strong line-up of Modern British pictures at Woolley & Wallis (25% buyer’s premium) in Salisbury.

The so-called ‘Great Bardfield Artists’, named after the Essex village where a community of painters and designers lived from the 1930s onwards, has become fertile ground for local auction house Sworders (22% buyer’s premium).

“Modern British sculpture is making extremely good money at the moment – it is a market moving as quickly, if not slightly quicker, than paintings.” So said Philip Smith, department head of Mallams (20% buyer’s premium).

A market-fresh figure study by Mod Brit giant LS Lowry (1887-1976), pictured below, topped the sale at Woolley & Wallis.

It may be strange and surreal, but John Spencer-Churchill’s (1909-92) landscape panorama of the evacuation of Dunkirk is the only depiction of the event known to have been painted by an eyewitness.