Antiques Trade Gazette 23


good investment?


Above: City Mill River by Mark Raggett ARWS, 16 x 12in (41 x 30cm), mixed media on paper – £450 from the Royal Watercolour Society.


A very British collection


Anna Brady reports


Above left: Richard Hamilton’s 1955 collage exhibited at the Man Machine Motion show – £6000 at Mitchells of Cockermouth. Above right: Red Buses by Ian Stephenson – £3400 at the same Cumbrian sale


A LARGE collection of works belonging to North East artist Derwent Wise (1933-2003) was offered for sale at Mitchells’ (17.5% buyer’s premium) sale in Cockermouth on June 14-15. The consignment comprised primarily


pictures and prints by artists associated with the art department of Newcastle University, where Wise had been head of sculpture – names such as Ian Stephenson (1934-2000), who was his contemporary when they studied there, and fellow lecturers Kenneth Rowntree (1915-1997) and Richard Hamilton (1922-2011). On the day, 95 of 102 lots got away


led by four early works by Pop artist Hamilton. Three were 1950s etchings estimated


at £200-300 apiece which sold to the same New York internet bidder at £7200, £4200 and £4000. But there was also spirited competition for a rare collage which Hamilton had exhibited in the 1955 show Man Machine Motion at Newcastle University’s Hatton Gallery. Incidentally, the same gallery staged a retrospective of Wise’s own work in 2007. Works at this exhibition were


deliberately conceived to look like an advertising display rather than conventional artworks, and Hamilton’s collages prefigured his contributions to the This Is Tomorrow exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery in London the following year which helped to establish him as one of the UK’s leading exponents of Pop Art. Estimated at just £50-80, the


mounted pictures here of the Wright Brothers in their early careers as bicycle manufacturers to one side and Mercedes racing cars to the verso measured a total


Four early Hamilton works pop up at Cumbria sale


AT their Bankside Gallery home in the shadow of the Tate Modern on London’s South Bank, the Royal Watercolour Society host two large exhibitions a year, a chance for their members to display and hopefully sell their latest endeavours. This summer’s exhibition, Picturing


Britain 2012, from July 27 to August 12, takes its inspiration from the two events that have dominated the UK this year – the Diamond Jubilee celebrations for the Queen, the society’s Royal patron, and, of course, the imminent Olympic Games in London. The title is reminiscent of the Recording


Britain scheme of the Second World War, a project intended to record the British people and landscape on the home front at a time of change, and some original works from that time will be on display alongside works by artists working during the Coronation year of 1952, all taken from the society’s archive and diploma collection. Three watercolours by The Prince of Wales, an Honorary Member of the society, will also be on view. While these pieces are not for sale,


Above: Uldale by Percy Kelly – £4500 at Mitchells.


of 23in x 3ft 11in (58 x 1.19m). Sparking a fierce battle, the collage


was eventually knocked down to a London buyer at £6000. Also drawing interest from the


same source was an oil on board by Stephenson. A 3ft x 3ft 11in (91cm x 1.19m)


abstract inspired by the red buses in Newcastle in the late 1950s and early ‘60s, it was sold with a copy of the Northerner Magazine which had a similar cover image designed by the artist. Estimated at £300-500, it sold at £3400. Elsewhere at the sale, the good run of prices at Mitchells seen for Percy


Kelly (1918-93) continued as a large charcoal and watercolour entitled Uldale overshot a £2000-3000 estimate to sell at £4500. Showing the now demolished church


in the Cumbrian village, the 20in x 2ft 5in (51 x 74cm) picture was rated as good a landscape as has come to auction so far by the Workington-born artist. The price is thought to be the highest


so far for Kelly at auction. Three works on paper by Kelly were


also sold at the sale for a combined £1670, as well as an artist’s proof etching of houses in a landscape which took £650.


works by current members are available to buy and priced affordably from the low hundreds to a few thousand pounds. The show aims to “capture the


celebrations and events of 2012 as well as the warp and weft of British life”, according to Thomas Plunkett, the society’s president, and subjects range from the expected scenes of Britain’s best-known sights, such as Trooping the Colour and the Thames, to numerous records of the building of the Olympic site at Stratford, a theme that has occupied so many British artists of late. RWS artists exhibiting include Richard


Bawden, Wendy Jacob, Dennis Roxby Bott and Caroline McAdam Clark. www.royalwatercoloursociety.co.uk


galleries@ antiquestradegazette.com


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