Abstract waterfront – Sold for £600
Hertfordshire-born painter Helen Hale (b.1936) is best known for her abstract and semi-abstract creations. Three abstract works appeared at Martin & Pole in Wokingham on October 10, with this signed 2ft 6in x 3ft 4in (76cm x 1.01m) oil on canvas, Waterfront, tipping over top estimate.
Portraitist’s advertising picture – sold for £450
As well as a cache of Mouseman furniture (ATG No 2363), an old Horlicks factory in Slough also threw up advertising art by the prolific South Yorkshire portraitist David Jagger (1891-1958). Among the seven oil studies offered at Essex saleroom Sworders on October 9, this 2ft 11in x 2ft 1in (91 x 63cm) example of a smiling woman sold towards its upper guide.
Table tennis scene – sold for £190
Tension Mounts, a 10½ x 8in (27 x 20cm) oil on board of a table tennis match, was created in 1970 by Polish painter Jerzy Marek (1925-2014). It sold for more than double its top guide at Warren & Wignall in Lancashire on October 10.
Prices do not include buyer’s premium
Bloody Foreland – Estimated at £250-350
The north-west corner of County Donegal, this strip of shore gets its name from the intense red hue of its rocks at sunset. A watercolour of this landscape by Irish artist Theo Gracey is included at Halls Fine Art’s sale of October 24. Gracey’s preferred medium was watercolour and scenes of Donegal are among his most popular.
St Michael’s Mount – Estimated at £400-600
An oil on canvas by Simeon Stafford of holiday-makers at St Michaels’ Mount is among the lots on offer at David Lay. Included in the Cornwall auction house’s October 25 Fine Art Sale, the lot is being sold as a fundraiser for nearby Nancealverne School. Stafford was encouraged to study art by family friend LS Lowry. Despite their visual simplicity, his works differ from Lowry in theme, focusing on south-western scenes and drawing on the naïve approach of other Cornish artists.
Winter Ploughing – Estimated at £350-500
Harry Becker was an English painter and printmaker from East Anglia who specialised in rural and farm scenes. One of his lithographs, Winter Ploughing, goes under the hammer at Keys Fine Art Auctioneers on October 26, where it is included in the second part of its East Anglia sale. A prime example of his realist style, it is signed in pencil to the lower left.
