MODERN

BRITISH & IRISH ART

Chiswick Auction’s specialist Modern British & Irish Art department hosts three auctions a year, featuring some of the biggest names in the sector. The sales provide an opportunity to buy and sell major paintings, sculpture and drawings by Modern British & Irish artists from the late 19th to late 20th century. Modern British & Irish art has long been a staple of the domestic art market, but its continued success and buoyancy has recently led to widespread international acclaim, recognition, and consequently new collectors.

The broad timespan of the discipline begins in the late 19th century with such Modern British masters as William Nicholson and Walter Sickert, the latter was part of the Camden Town Group, which also included artists such as Charles Ginner, Robert Bevan and Spencer Gore.

This paved the way for the Bloomsbury Group, with artists such as Duncan Grant, Vanessa Bell and Roger Fry who were at the heart of an unconventional group with deep roots in post-impressionism. The group, famously quoted that they “lived in squares, painted in circles and loved in triangles.”

The movement of Vorticism was short lived but highly influential, born in the machine age of the early 20th century, its angular bold forms and geometry are ever present in the works of William Roberts, Edward Wadsworth, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Jessica Dismorr, Christopher R.W. Nevinson and David Bomberg to name just a few.

From here there a plethora of talented war artists such as brothers Paul and John Nash, William Orpen, John Lavery, Stanley Spencer, Percy Wyndham Lewis and Augustus John, all of whom documented the war, and the horrors of it, from their own unique perspective.

Groups emerged from the ashes of others, such as The London Group and Unit One with the gargantuan names of Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth starting to emerge and establish their craft towards the mid-century. Various other movements were equally as significant such as neo-romanticism, surrealism, and minimalism and Pop Art bringing new, now established names into the fold such as John Minton, Graham Sutherland, Cedric Morris, Christopher Wood, Ivon Hitchens, Howard Hodgkin, John Piper, Terry Frost, John Tunnard, Richard Lin, Pauline Boty, David Hockney, Peter Blake, Julian Trevelyan, Mary Fedden, Frank Auerbach, Lucien Freud, Francis Bacon, Cragie Aitchison and Lynn Chadwick to name but a few.

The landscape is ever-changing and constantly evolving but one constant is that Modern British & Irish art is incredibly buoyant and much sought after. At Chiswick we are proud to have handled significant sales previously, including works by Lucien Freud, Lynn Chadwick and Dame Lucie Rie.

We are always open for consignments for inclusion in one of the three auctions hosted a year. For any further information please contact the Head of Modern British & Irish Art, James Flower.

REQUEST A VALUATION

Thinking of selling? Get a free & confidential valuation by submitting your item online. With a strong selling platform for widely recognisable names in addition to lesser-known British Modernists. Chiswick Auctions is available to provide quick and easy valuations or advise you on the growing market. 
 

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UPCOMING AUCTIONS

NEXT AUCTION

26th March

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EILEEN AGAR

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