When a good Atkinson Grimshaw comes up for sale in the provinces private bidders are usually muscled out by fierce internecine competition from the trade. Back in December the Manchester dealer Michael Fulda bid £130,000 at Anderson & Garland for Hampstead Hill and a couple of months ago Richard Green gave the same price for A Chelsea Street at Lawrence’s of Crewkerne.
But a recently retired local Newcastle businessman, having taken the trouble to travel down to London to see what dealers were charging for Atkinson Grimshaws in their galleries, was made of sterner stuff when this 2ft 51/2in x 2ft3/4in (75 x 63cm) canvas, signed and dated 1888, emerged for sale from a local deceased’s estate in untouched condition in its original frame. The subject has been identified by Grimshaw as one of a number of generic scenes produced by the artist based on the streets of suburban Leeds. As usual, Richard Green and David Mason were among the dealers keen to buy the painting, but after a protracted bidding battle they eventually had to give way to the Newcastle businessman at the hefty price of £206,000, a record for any work of art sold in the North East.
According to the auctioneers, this local collector believed that even at a premium-inclusive £230,000 the price he paid was cheaper than he would have been asked to pay in a London gallery. He, like an increasing number of private individuals, had looked at the current range of returns on a variety of investment products and decided that he might as well “indulge himself”.
Businessman knows the going rate of Grimshaw
There were some interesting signs of the times when the superbly preserved Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-93) canvas, Autumn Gold, right, came under the hammer with an estimate of £40,000-70,000 on the first day of the Newcastle sale held by Anderson & Garland (15% buyer’s premium) on June 17-20.
