Auction Location: London, UK
Our sale of Fine Paintings and Works on Paper features 80 lots spanning four centuries. It includes works from two significant
deceased estates: art dealer Alexander Iolas who promoted the bright and playful works by Jean Hugo and Nikki de Sainte
Phalle (lots 44-52), and gallerist Karsten Schubert, led by a green revolver on a vibrant red background by Michael Craig-Martin
(lot 53), currently the subject of a retrospective at the Royal Academy, Piccadilly.
Colour dominates many of the post-War works. A stripe painting by the leading Washington Colour Field artist Gene Davis is
a sale highlight. Davis worked alongside Morris Louis and Kenneth Noland also from D.C. in the 1950s and ‘60s perfecting
his distinctive style. 65-6 by Davis (lot 58) dances and rhymes before the viewer’s eye. From the same collection and similarly
optical are the works by Joe Tilson (lot 60) from 1965, and a rare painting by Justin Knowles (lot 59). Fellow colourist Howard
Hodgkin is represented by Here we are in Croydon from 1979 (lot 63).
Modern British is led by an attractive group of watercolours by John Nash (lots 34-37), all acquired from the artist by the present
owner’s grandfather. Other British figurative painters featured in the sale include Alan Lowdnes with a street scene in Altrincham
near Manchester (lot 40), and three sketches by the young Michael Andrews (lots 41-43). Elsewhere there are works by John
Piper and humorous illustrations by graphic artists Ronald Searle and Quentin Blake (lots 71 & 72).
Artists from further afield include two 18th/ 19th century Cuzco paintings from Peru and good Australian examples: a watercolour
by John Russell of the Pont de Neuilly, and an atmospheric painting of a dust storm in the New South Wales out back by John
Charles Goodhart of 1907 capturing a storm that year (lots 31 & 38). ‘en plein-air’-ists in the sale include Otto Modersohn,
co-founder of Worpswede school in Bavaria in the 1890s (lot 19) and three delightful paintings of children by Scottish painter
Gemmel Hutchinson, influenced by Barbizon in France and the Hague School in Holland (lots 27, 28 & 30).
For more information please contact us | pictures@olympiaauctions.com | +44 (0)20 7806 5541
Viewing times
PUBLIC EXHIBITION:
Sunday 8th December: 12:00pm to 4:00pm
Monday 9th December: 10:00am to 8:00pm
Tuesday 10th December: 10:00am to 5:00pm
Sale contact
Name: Adrian Biddell
Email: adrian.biddell@olympiaauctions.com
Name: Tazeena Thorowgood
Email: tazeena.thorowgood@olympiaauctions.com
Name: Hebe Reynolds
Email: hebe.reynolds@olympiaauctions.com
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Lot 70
⊕ JEAN COCTEAU (FRENCH 1889-1963) AND ZIKA ASCHER (CZECH 1910-1992)