The still-life oil on canvas Wild Flowers was hammered down at £130,000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) on April 13 in Chichester.
Signed and dated ’23, the painting topped the previous high for the self-taught artist set in April 2016 when Henry Adams sold Summer Garden Flowers at £81,000.
Wild Flowers was consigned by a local family that had inherited the painting from a grandparent, with memories of it hanging in their Sussex home in the 1960s. There was also evidence that it had once been hung in the historic Sussex house Broyle Place.
After bids from five phone lines, the painting was sold to one of these bidders at more than double its high estimate of £50,000.
Henry Adams’ director Andrew Swain, said: “This painting had lovely provenance and the owners’ jaws dropped when the bids came in. This is great result for a small auction house. We held the record last year and it would be wonderful if we could repeat this every spring.”
