This group of works by Sir William Reid Dick comes for sale at Curated Auctions on March 16. A 14½in (36cm) high bronze cast of Sling Boy (estimate £6000-8000) is pictured here alongside a life-size plaster portrait bust of the sculptor’s wife from 1924 (£2000-3000) and a maquette for Self Sacrifice, the equestrian statue of Lady Godiva now in Broadgate, Coventry (£200-300).
Curated Auctions, based in Eltham, is run by former Bonhams and Chiswick Auctions specialist Rachael Osborn-Howard.
This group of 27 lots – finished sculptures, maquettes, paintings and photographs –comes direct from Reid Dick’s grandchildren. A 14½in (36cm) high bronze reduction of Reid Dick’s most famous work, Sling Boy, first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1911, is guided at £6000-8000.
Artist’s comeback
“Reid Dick was arguably the most famous sculptor in Britain in the 1920s and 30s,” says Osborn-Howard.
“For many years his work fell out of favour, hidden in the shadow of the great Modernist masters such as Henry Moore and Jacob Epstein, but his work and that of the New Sculpture movement in general, has enjoyed a revival in recent years.”
Curated Auctions is run by Rachael Osborn-Howard.
Osborn-Howard worked at Bonhams until 2017 when she joined Chiswick Auctions to set up fine European works of art and sculpture sales. She left Chiswick last year.
She hopes now to “move away from the traditional idea of an auction house, with a large saleroom and lots of staff, to having a small premises where we hold a limited number of sales”. The focus will be very much on digital marketing and objects that are “expertly researched and footnoted in the same way that a gallery or museum would catalogue its works”.
The March 16 sale titled The Classics: Including Fine Sculpture also includes a group of works by fellow Scottish sculptor Sir Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) that come from artist Cathy Ward.
She was tutored by Paolozzi at the Royal College of Art, London from 1986-88 and subsequently worked in his studio. Ward was given this collection of 23 works – including a rare collage triptych – as payment for the casts that she made for him.
Ellis Willis & Beckett
A revived auction house set up last year will hold its first country house sale this June.
Ellis Willis & Beckett was relaunched by two former staff members of Derbyshire firm Bamfords and held its first auction in September 2021.
Originally founded in 1870, it operated as a family business for more than a century but closed around five years ago. Then last year the owner of the family firm, Nick Todd, agreed for Simon Billing and Max Bettney’s new auction company to trade under the Ellis Willis & Beckett name with Todd as a consultant.
Based in Arundel Street in Sheffield, it now holds monthly auctions. The first two-day country house sale will be the contents of Hassop Hall, a 17th-century country house near Bakewell. The sale will be held at the hall.
