BLAST #21
Christie’s gets it right;
How did the Hobart collection perform as an investment?
While Christie’s did not have a mixed property Modern British art sale this winter, they did secure the collection of leading dealers in Irish and British art, Alan Hobart of the Pyms gallery and his wife Mary, both recently deceased, which they sold on 19 November. By pitching the art with sensible estimates, the auction sold 95% of the 200 lots and made some £6 million including buyer’s premium - over double the presale estimate of £3 million. (NB – auction prices include the buyer’s premium, saleroom estimates do not.)
Because so many of the works had been bought before at auction it is possible to see where Hobart had second guessed the market and where not. Occasionally, something made less than Hobart paid, but on the whole the gains outweighed the losses. For investor interest I have here added the Compound Growth Rate – CGR – or average percentage annual increase in value over the holding period as a measure of improvement.
Starting with the Irish, top of price ranking was Jack Butler Yeats whose O’Connell Bridge, 1925, attracted several bidders before selling above estimate for £882,000 – the highest price of the sale and the highest for Yeats in five years, according to Artnet. The same phone bidder then bought Yeats’s The Sun, 1947, which Hobart bought in 1989 for £50,600, for £113,400. A modest increase (CGR +2%) which comes from buying at the top of the market and selling during a lull. Certainly, at Adam’s Irish art sale in Dublin two weeks later it felt like a lull, as the two top lots by Yeats from horse racing trainer Vincent O’Brien’s collection sold on their low estimates at Euros 400,000 each.
Sir William Orpen, The Thinker on the Butte de Warlencourt, 1918, oil on canvas, 91.8 x 76.9 cm. Sold for £756,000
It is said Hobart’s favourite Irish artist was Sir William Orpen, and indeed Christie’s sale had plenty of examples - oils and works on paper. One of the top prices in the sale was Orpen’s The Thinker on the Butte of Warlencourt, 1918, which Hobart bought in 1989 when the Irish market was booming, for a double estimate £37,400. Back 35 years later with a £400,000 – 600,000 estimate having been shown at the Imperial War Museum and the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin it sold at the upper end for a premium inclusive £756,000, the highest price for Orpen in over ten years (CGR +9%). At the same 1989 sale Hobart bought another Orpen war subject, Changing Billets, Picardy for £20,900 and gave it similar institutional exposure. Back at auction it registered a similar mark up selling for £441,000 (CGR +9.1%). Orpen’s works on paper, on the other hand, held their values less well. A watercolour Study for Café Royal, 1911, for instance, which depicts Augustus John and James Pryde in dispute and for which Hobart paid £6,200 in 1984, now sold below estimate for £4,410 (CGR – 1.1%).
Sticking with the Irish, a 1910 view of Lake Geneva by William John Leech which Hobart bought in 1984 for £2,600, sold just above estimate for £40,320 (CGR +7.1%) but returns on later 20th century Irish art were variable.
Gerrad Dillon’s Three Men in a Bog from the 1950s, which cost him £8,500 in 1988, returned a respectable £40,000 (CGR +4.4%), but some early works by Northern Irish artist William Scott, whose work from the 1950s has hit £1 million at auction, have not improved much. In 1986, Hobart bought two 1940’s landscape watercolours by Scott at a Christie’s sale above estimate for £850 and £1,000 each. This month, one sold for £1,000, and the other for £1,500. In 2002, Hobart paid ten times the estimate at £74,000 for a sombre 1956 painting of a bottle and jug which now sold, within estimate, but at a loss for £47,880 (CGR-2%). Clearly these were not the right sort of Scotts for today’s market.
Another artist Hobart had hopes for was sculptor F.E. McWilliam. In 1990, he bought the artist’s totemic bronze Bilateral Relief, 1959, for £10,450. Unable to sell, he placed it in an Irish art sale at Sotheby’s in 2016 with a £40,000 estimate, but it went unsold. This time the estimate was reduced to £18,000 and it found a buyer at £17,640 (+1.5%). McWilliam’s time has yet to come. Similarly, back in 2002, fuelled by enthusiasm and the timid estimate of £250 at Sotheby’s, he splashed out a goodly £2,300 for Aegean Island, 1994, a small painting by the Scottish born Irish artist, William Crozier. Twenty-two years later, the bidding was more restrained as it returned just £3,500 (CGR + 2.1%).
Hobart did better with the more contemporary Irish abstract artist, Sean Scully. A pastel from 1987 which he bought in 2001 for £12,000 at Sotheby’s sold at Christie’s for £94,500 (CGR + 8.6%) but a watercolour he bought in 2011 after Scully’s market had moved up a gear for £33,650, returned only £17,640 (CGR – 2.8%).
Sean Scully, 9.26.87, 1987, pastel on paper, 57.2 x 76.2 cm. Sold for £94,500
Roger Fry, Tulips, oil on canvas, 50.2 x 60 cm including frame. Sold for £69,300
Turning to the Modern British content, most of it sold satisfactorily, yielding some return on purchase prices. Among the better was Roger Fry’s 1917 still life, Tulips which Hobart bought in 1987 for £3,600 hammer. Underbid this time by art advisor Nick Holmes, it now flew over a £10,000 estimate to sell for £69,300 (CGR + 5.7%).This was not a record, but one was set when Augustus John’s serene 1914 portrait of Dorelia McNeill and Nora Brownsword, both mothers of his children, seated together by a lake, sailed past its £80,000 estimate to sell to an online bidder for £214,200.
In 1984, Hobart had displayed some prescience buying From the Broken Branch Came Forth Words and Blood, a 1947 oil on paper by the British surrealist Eileen Agar for £2,800. Agar, as we have observed, has been receiving some attention in the market and this example sold above estimate for £73,080 (CGR +8.5%). The buyer was Lara Daly, the niece of Mary Hobart, a long-term assistant in the business who was bidding at the sale for different clients. One of the busiest bidders in the sale, she also acquired works by Simon-Albert Bussy, Alan Reynolds, Mary Swanzy, and David Tindle.
Patrick Heron, Still-Life with Tin Jug, 1948, oil on canvas, 45.7 x 35.6 cm. Sold for £94,500
Relatives of the Hobarts were also in contention buying works by Rita Duffy and Micheal Farrell. Other bidders included Steven Kettle from Stonehage Fleming, who underbid Thomas Podd of Patrick Bourne & Co for John Tunnard’s Abstract for a Billet, 1942, (£20,160), Richard Riley, author of the John Craxton catalogue raisonné who bought Robert Colquhoun’s Conjuror, 1947 (£22,680), and Portland Gallery, which underbid Cecil Collins’ The Dreaming Fool, 1942 (£20,160).
One of the better post-war performers was Patrick Heron whose early Still Life with Tin Jug, 1946, had been bought by Hobart in 1988 for £8,800, and now sold comfortably above estimate for £94,500 (CGR +6.8%).
Also from the 1950s was an early landscape by the figurative landscape cum abstract and constructivist artist Alan Reynolds displaying the influence of Paul Klee which Hobart bought in 1985 for £1,540. Here it was estimated quite conservatively at £10,000 considering his large landscapes have sold in six figures but sold well for £25,200 (CGR +7.4%).
Alan Reynolds, Snow, The Church, 1950, oil on board, 30.5 x 40.6 cm. Sold for £25,200
Contemporary art results were mixed. In 2009 Hobart bought a 1987 painting, Face, by the expressionist painter Tony Bevan at Christie’s above estimate for £26,200. Bevan is doing quite well on the primary market with Ben Brown, but his secondary market is less vibrant, and Face sold below estimate and at a loss for £10,800 (CGR -5.7%). Similarly, a 6-foot abstract by Albert Irvin, Study for Homerton 1987 which he bought in1987 above estimate for £18,000 sold for a knockdown £6,300 (CGR -2.8%).
Bonhams keeps the Mod Brit market healthy
Bonhams brought up the rear of this trilogy of Mod Brit sales on Nov 20 with a £2 million sale in which the hammer total of £1.6 million only just scraped the lower end of the target estimate of £1.6 – 2.5 million, due largely to the failure of two slightly weak Lowry paintings that failed to sell in the £200,000 range.
Paul Nash, Early Spring, Fulmer, 1919, 38 x 28.1cm. Sold for £95,650
Duncan Grant, Still life with Dahlias, c. late 1930s, 61.5 x 51.1 cm. Sold for £32,000
Otherwise, the 80% sell through rate by lot was healthy, and saw strong prices for Euan Uglow’s Duck, 1965 (a double estimate £165,500), Paul Nash’s 1919 watercolour Early Spring, Fulmer, which was chased by Thomas Podd of Patrick Bourne & Co over the £30,000 high estimate before selling to a phone bidder for a triple estimate £95,650, and a group of Duncan Grant flower paintings which all exceeded estimates in the £10,000 – 30,000 range. One of dahlias in a yellow jug which is still at Charleston, had last been at auction in 1999 when it sold for £4,400 to David Messum who sold it to the current vendor. Hopefully they made a decent return after it sold for £32,000.
The sale was led by Barbara Hepworth’s small polished bronze Miniature Divided Circle, 1971, which soared over an £80,000 estimate to sell for £254,400, causing much excitement in the room for Robert Sandelson who showed me a similar work for sale on his website.
Dame Barbara Hepworth, Miniature Divided Circle, 1971, 21.8 cm. Sold for £254,400
Patrick Heron, French Café, 1950, 91.5 x 46 cm. Sold for £165,000
Close behind were a group of Patrick Herons which all sold comfortably, led by a darkly luminous 1964 abstract, Manganese, Ultramarine and Indigo, which hit a top estimate £190,900, and an earlier semi-figurative French Café, 1950, which sold above estimate for £165,500 – making the Sotheby’s unsold Heron look more like the result of a miscalculated estimate than a weakness in the Heron market.
Trade buyers in the room included Piano Nobile, which bought Henry Moore’s Three-Piece Reclining Figure Maquette No.5, 1977, within estimate for £61,360; Osborne Samuel which paid a double estimate £28,160 for John Armstrong’s surrealistic The Musician, 1929, and snagged Elisabeth Frink’s bronze Lying Down Buffalo just below estimate for £19,200, and Thomas Pod who bought C.R.W. Nevinson’s 1943 view of London from the roof of the Dorchester just below estimate for £11,520.
So, all in all a satisfactory conclusion to a series of Modern British sales which had started somewhat ominously but demonstrated that the market is alive and well for works of real interest and quality with a sensible asking price.
Henry Moore, Three-Piece Reclining Figure Maquette No.5, 1977. Sold for £61,360
John Armstrong, The Musician, 52 x 39.2 cm, c.1929. Sold for £28,160
Other news in brief:
A cluster of Irish art sales followed the Alan and Mary Hobart Collection, all performing rather better than Sotheby’s (see BLAST#20).
Whyte’s Irish and International Art sale in Dublin on December 2nd realised Euros 1.2 million for 151 lots offered. This included some six figure prices for Jack Yeats and Paul Henry, but approximately one third of lots in the lower price strata went unsold. Top lot was Henry’s Killary Bay, Connemara, which sold above estimate for Euros 210,000 hammer, and showed a slight improvement from its last sale in 2018 when it sold at Whyte’s for a triple estimate Euros 140,000 hammer.
Adam’s (Dublin) Important Irish Art sale on 4 December saw works by Yeats and Orpen from renowned horse racing trainer, Vincent O’Brien’s collection sell in six figures, but all on their low estimates (see above).
Bonhams Dublin’s Irish Art Sale closed it’s online only bidding on December 5th after 79% of lots had sold for 336, 589 Euros, surpassing its presale estimate of 231,100 Euros. Top lot was Mary Swanzy’s South of France Landscape which doubled estimates to fetch 43,520 Euros. They also sold all 20 works by Norah McGuiness consigned by her family, with a top price of 20,480 Euros for her Snow on the Hills – still a far throw from the levels she achieved during the boom years of the Celtic Tiger economy.
Bonhams Knightsbridge Modern British & Irish Art sale on 27 November sold 77% of lots for £853,234 against a presale estimate of £537,000 (excluding the buyer’s premium). One of the better performers was a rare appearance at auction by Winifred Knights whose unfinished oil sketch Italian Landscape, c.1921, which was estimated at £700 - £1,000 but sold for £6,400 to art advisor and curator, Conor Mullan.
Exhibitions:
Peter Sedgley (b.1930), Energy, 1980, Acrylic on linen, 150 x 150 cm
It’s 56 years since Peter Sedgely held his first exhibition at London’s Redfern Gallery, and the artist was there to welcome old friends to a retrospective exhibition in November where some of his early kinetic works had been pulled out of storage and restored to working order. Prices ranged from £1,500 up to £75,000, with several works sold, including Energy, 1980, and some to institutions. An early visitor was Bridget Riley who cofounded SPACE, the East London artists support agency and studio provider, with Sedgely in 1968. Less friendly was an encounter between Riley and Jane de Saumarez whom I learned had been rivals in love some sixty years ago.
Dora Carrington (1893-1932), Flowering Cactus, c.1931, Oil on canvas, Private collection, UK
Anyone wondering how Pallant House could afford so many good images in its catalogue for Dora Carrington: Beyond Bloomsbury (until 27 April 2025) look no further than the picture credits and note how many images are from the auction rooms, which may have also been a useful source in tracing the actual works. Here, for instance, is Cabbages, c. 1912, which we illustrated in BLAST #13 when it made a record £21,600 for a Carrington watercolour at Christie’s in March. The most expensive exhibit we could trace was Flowering Cactus which was bought at Mallams in 2017 for a triple estimate £72,000, though an iconic painting like her portrait of Lytton Strachey, on loan from the National Portrait Gallery, would make several times more.
Two contrasting reactions to the Milton Keynes Gallery’s unprecedented focus on Bloomsbury artist, Vanessa Bell (Vanessa Bell; A World of Form and Colour, at Milton Keynes Gallery until February 28th 2025). Roslyn Sulcas, dance critic and general culture writer for The New York Times takes her cue from the press release which describes Bell as “a pioneering modernist painter... at the forefront of British abstraction.” In contrast, The Daily Telegraph’s Evgenia Siotos detects a “sensation of overwhelming mediocrity in her style” and feels that the gallery has “fallen prey to the nagging desire of the British art world for a compelling female Post-Impressionist genius to call their own.”