New Peaks while Kyffin Keeps Shining
The first Welsh Sale auction of 2023 may have landed on April 1st but there was no fooling around from the bidders!
The overall statistics were thoroughly satisfying, demonstrating that the Welsh art market is resistant to difficult times.
A very impressive 84% of auction lots found new homes with a total of just under £350,000
Sir Kyffin Williams RA
The palette-knife master had an excellent day with 30 out of 34 pictures selling with prints and watercolours especially encouraging.
We broke our own auction record for a Kyffin print at £3000 as bidders from all corners of the UK continue to battle it out for an iconic Welsh image by Wales' best loved artist.
Also in the April auction, a watercolour of Patagonia took second place in the record books for a work on paper (we hold that first place too)!
Roger Cecil
A Welsh artist who has reached new peaks in the last few years is Roger Cecil (1942-2015)
During his lifetime Roger Cecil’s work was little known except by insightful collectors and fellow artists but he is now widely recognised as one of the most remarkable artists Wales has produced. Born in Abertillery in 1942, he lived in the same terraced house throughout his life. He was a star student at Newport College of Art and in 1963 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art but he walked out to devote himself to painting independently. He worked as a casual labourer while producing art of extraordinary beauty and sophistication, as documented in the BBC film A Quiet Rebel in 1964.
Many of his pictures evoke the scars of the mining valleys amid the grandeur of nature. He loved to spend days at a time on the hilltops and often walked the 25 miles to the Brecon Beacons. His later works inspired by the layered symbolism of African art helped him to meld figure and landscape in one semi-abstract vision.
Donald McIntyre
There were some very commercial examples of McIntyre's work bringing up the rear of the auction. Ten out of twelve of them finding new homes to the tune of over £30,000. The most popular, and valuable, of the artist's ever evolving style, is his 'electric' acrylics. They are spectacular festivals of colour and we were thrilled to see them all together on the same wall.
Charles Frederick Tunnicliffe RA
Wildlife painter Tunnicliffe is testament to the fact that fine quality will always sell well. The fashion might be for modern and abstract works but Tunnicliffe's paintings remain in high demand from discerning collectors. Like Kyffin, Tunnicliffe's prints can be just as collectable and rare items will always have good interest from around the UK. While the watercolour of golden pheasants amongst autumn leaves was just supreme, one could feel the smoothness and shine of the pheasant's tail-feathers. What a master he was.
