Rare self portrait makes £24,000 in Modern and Contemporary Art Sale
A rare 1951 Self Portrait etching by Richard Hamilton, the father of British Pop Art, sold for £24,000 in the Modern and Contemporary Art Sale at Tennants Auctioneers on October 4 (all figures exclude buyer’s premium).
Hamilton was one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century, leading the Pop Art movement to create youthful, witty, popular art designed to be transient and capable of being mass-produced.
The vendor’s mother was an artist; during the 1960s she was a model for the Royal Academy and possibly the Slade School of Art, and for a time she was Hamilton’s lover.
From the same collection was a further etching, that was also executed in 1951, ‘Heteromorphism’, which sold at auction for £5,500.
Strong prices continued throughout the sale, with notable results achieved for ‘Model in Black’ by Jack Vettriano (sold for £16,000), ‘Beach Café, Soller’ by Scottish artist Alberto Morrocco (sold for £8,000), and ‘Grey Horse Head’, a lithograph by Dame Elisabeth Frink (sold for £5,000).
Among the contemporary art represented in the October sale was ‘Together We Dream’ by Mr Brainwash, which sold for £6,000, and ‘Bust’ by Anglo-German sculptor Sir Tony Cragg, which sold for £7,500.
Northern Art continues to attract competitive bidding in sales, with works by key artists selling strongly.
Among several works by Brian ‘Braaq’ Shields was ‘Runcorn Fair, Won Three Fish on Tuesday, Dead Now Though’ (sold for £5,000).
Other highlights included Mountain Sunrise by Geoffrey Key (sold for £4,500), and ‘After the Gala, July’ by Peter Brook (sold for £5,500).
The sale also offered a collection of paintings from the estate of Wensleydale artist Piers Browne, which attracted a great amount of interest.
Among his own works was ‘Idyllic Wensleydale, Haytime Scene’, which sold for £1,100, and from a selection of works by other artists which he owned was Bernard Dunstan’s ‘Shower on the Beach’, which sold for £6,000.
The sale achieved a total hammer price of £191,230 for 162 lots, and an 88 per cent sold rate. All prices quoted are hammer price, excluding buyer’s premium of 24 per cent plus VAT.