Works by Britain's best known 20th Century artists head to auction
’The Lieutenance Honfleur’ by Edward Seago, one of Britain’s best known and most widely collected 20th century artists, will be sold in Tennants Auctioneers’ Modern and Contemporary Art Sale on March 1 with an estimate of £12,000-18,000 (all figures exclude buyer’s premium).
Edward Seago (1910-1974) is known for his ability to capture a moment in paint with spontaneity and fluidity. Honfleur, on the Normandy coast, was one of his favourite stops on regular sailing trips to France, before going on to Paris along the River Seine.
He was fascinated by the topography of Honfleur and captured it from numerous viewpoints. The present example demonstrates his signature warm, soft palette, cleverly depicting reflections on gentle waters.
A strong selection of Northern Art is also on offer, with two pencil drawings by Laurence Stephen Lowry (1887-1976) from a private collection leading the way.
‘Spittal, Berwick’, a sketch of a beach in a favourite holiday spot, is offered with an estimate of £7,000-10,000, and ‘Lancashire Street’ with an estimate of £6,000-8,000. The sale will include numerous limited edition Fine Art Trade Guild prints after Lowry.
At the age of 65, having dedicated her adult life to raising a family, Helen Layfield Bradley (1900-1979) reinvented herself as an internationally acclaimed artist.
Using a soft yet colourful palette and simple two-dimensional figures, she illustrated short narrative accounts based on childhood memories of growing up in the Edwardian era,to show her grandchildren how different the world was when she was a child.
She was encouraged by L.S. Lowry, who she met early in her new career, and formed a kinship with. Bradley’s ‘Across Windermere’, in which she depicts a springtime trip with her family, will be sold with an estimate of £8,000-12,000.
With provenance from the artist’s estate are three works by mining artist Norman Cornish (1919-2014); ‘Waiting for a Bus’ (est: £6,000-8,000), ‘The Accordionist’ (est: £5,000-7,000) and ‘Back Tenter Street Bishop Auckland’ (est: £4,000-6,000).
Four further works by Cornish from other vendors are in the sale.
Several works by Manchester-born artist Geoffrey Key (b.1941) are also on offer, including ‘Park Dance’ (est: £7,000-10,000) and ‘Macau Study II’ (est: £5,000-7,000).
‘Scottish Art is well represented, with the pastel ‘Tall Red House’ by Joan Eardley (1921-1963) to be sold with an estimate of £4,000-6,000. Eardley is known for her powerful, expressive paintings of the gritty, the elemental, and the dilapidated in post-war Scotland.
Capturing contrasting sides of life, Eardley had two overriding areas of interest which produced her greatest works – the vast skies and roiling seas around the declining fishing village of Catterline, south of Aberdeen and the ragged children in Glasgow’s poverty-stricken tenements.
Also of interest is ‘Pink Rocks Iona’ by John Lowie Morrison ‘Jolomo’ (b.1948) (est: £3,000-5,000), and works by Robin Phillipson and Elizabeth Blackadder.
Further highlights of the sale include works by Bernard Dunstan and his wife Diana Armfield, an interesting Still Life of Apples by Duncan Grant with provenance from the family of writer David Garnett, a fellow member of the Bloomsbury Group, a private collection of works by Paul Maze, a collection of prints by the much-loved etcher Norman Ackroyd, who died in 2024 and a selection of prints by the likes of Julian Trevelyan, Mark Hearld, David Hockney, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan and Damien Hirst.