New World art in demand

Artworks from the New World and Europe were in demand in a recent sale of Fine Paintings and Works on Paper at Olympia Auctions in London.

The auction house reported a well-attended pre–auction view and numerous bidders in the room on sale day.

The top lot was Untitled 65-6 by Gene Davis (American 1920-1985) which sold for £45,000 against an estimate of £10,000-15,000, this was hammered down to an American private collector.

Another American artist’s work, the mysterious Untitled (Drawing) by Richard Serra (1938-2024) sold well above the estimate of £2,500-3,500 at £9,000, to Belgian trade. Downgrade, a striking reinterpretation of a cityscape by Wayne Thiebaud (American 1920-2021), sold for £4,200 against an estimate of £4,000-6,000 to a private collector in America. 

The top lot in the Old Master section at the start of the sale was The Finding of Moses, French School, 17th century, which sold for £9,000, estimate £4,000-6,000. This went to a private British collector. A Peruvian School Archangel, 18th/19th century, likely to have been part of a larger series of archangel paintings commissioned by viceroyalty sold to private collector in Portugal for £2,400 against at estimate of £2,000-3,000. 

Artworks from the 19th century provoked a flurry of interest led by Edward Coley Burne-Jones’ (British 1833-1898) Portrait of a Young Woman thought to be Anne Maria Jones which sold for £5,500, estimated at £2,000-3,000 to a private British collector. A Cornish highlight was Pleasant News by Walter Langley (British 1852-1922), which sold for £6,500 to British trade.  

In the Modern British section, a prolonged bidding battle over the romantic Landscape under snow by John Nash (1893-1977) estimated at £4,000-6,000, one of a very attractive group of four watercolours by the same artist, sold for £15,000 to British trade. All four works were acquired between the 1940s and the early 1960s by the present owner’s grandfather who lived near the artist and knew him well.  

All the Australian works attracted a lot of interest and sold over estimate.  The top lot was ‘La Seine a Neuilly’ by John Peter Russell (Australian 1858-1930), selling at £5,000 hammer, against an estimate of £2,000 – £3,000 to a British private collector. An atmospheric painting of a dust storm in the New South Wales out back by John Charles Goodhart (1873-1952) of 1907 capturing an actual event that took place that year, titled Dust storm over Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, estimated at £500-700, sold for £1,200 also to a British private collector. Le Chaumine by Arthur Baker-Clack (Australian 1877–1955) sold well above estimate to an Australian buyer for £1,800, against the pre-sale estimate of £800-1,200.

The estate of renowned Greek-American art dealer Alexander Iolas included three works by the great-grandson of novelist Victor Hugo, Jean Hugo (French 1894-1984), each lot with three colourful illustrative paintings in gouache on paper which sold to two British and one French private collector towards the top end of their estimates. The top lot was (i) Sailing by the lighthouse (ii) Buoy at dusk (iii) On foot across the plain, which hammered at £3,000 against estimate of £2,000-3,000 to a British collector. Six bright and playful works by Niki de Saint Phalle (1930–2002) all sold to both French and British trade above estimate, with the highest lot Our love was a beautiful flower selling for £1,700, against its £500-700 estimate to British trade.

Elsewhere, an important and rare painting by Justin Knowles (1935-2004) Untitled 1965: 27 was estimated at £800-1,200; its triangular form captured many bidders’ attention and was sold for £5,000 to a private collector.