A large Private Collection of paintings, principally of Yorkshire or by Yorkshire artists, collected by textiles manufacturer George Hopkinson are coming up for auction on 13th June as part of the Modern and Contemporary Art Sale at Tennants Auctioneers. The first part of the collection was sold to great acclaim in a single owner sale at Tennants in 2021, in which a new auction record for a work by Frederick Cecil Jones was set.
To be sold in nearly sixty lots, the pictures on offer are just a small part of the collection built up over fifty years from the 1920s to the 1960s by Mr George G Hopkinson, a proud Yorkshireman and textile businessman who was a director of West Riding textile company Hopkinson and Shore and Bradford fashion house Novello’s. Upon his death in 1969, the collection was divided between his second wife, Joan, and the families of his two sons, John and Gary. The paintings presented in this sale formed part of John Hopkinson’s estate. The collection is a legacy from a remarkable individual whose discerning eye played a significant role in promoting Yorkshire-based artists of his time.
One of the artists featured prominently in the collection is Bradford-born Frederick Cecil Jones (1891-1966), who is known for his closely observed and detailed paintings of Northern towns, and in the sale are examples of his pictures of Ripon, York, Leeds, Bridlington, Keighley alongside his depiction of Tadcaster, which is offered for sale with an estimate of £800-1,200 (all figures exclude buyer’s premium).
Also represented in the sale are artists from the Castle Bolton school of painters, who based themselves in Wensleydale in the middle of the 20th century, including Fred Lawson, Jacob Kramer, and Philip Naviasky. Notable lots include Fred Lawson’s Caravan and Stalls at a Market Cross, possibly Redmire (estimate: £300-500), and Lee Gap (estimate: £250-400), Philip Naviasky’s Beach Scene with Figures in Deck Chairs and Donkeys (estimate: £250-400), and Jacob Kramer’s Portrait of a Lady (estimate: £500-800).
The 13th June will be a celebration of Yorkshire art and antiques, as the sale will take place on the same day as Tennants’ landmark Mouseman: 150th Anniversary Sale.
ABOUT GEORGE HOPKINSON: COLLECTOR
George Hopkinson was no ordinary businessman. A man of strong Liberal convictions, he was deeply committed to the artistic and cultural life in Bradford and the West Riding of Yorkshire and was a vocal advocate for the establishment of a university in Bradford.
George had a deep love of art and spent much of his time in the company of local artists in Yorkshire. He became both a de facto patron and friend to many of the Yorkshire-based artists whose work he collected and championed, including Fred Lawson, Philip Naviasky, Fred Cecil Jones, and Jacob Kramer. He was himself also an amateur painter.
From 1929 to 1934 he became the editor of The Heaton Review, a "Northern Miscellany of Art and Literature" circulated in the parish of Heaton, Bradford. Not content to limit its articles to local matters, George invited and received contributions from the great and the good of British society including John Galsworthy, J B Priestley, George Bernard Shaw, Kenneth Grahame, Hugh Walpole, the poet and art scholar Laurence Binyon, and music from the composer Gustav Holst amongst many others.
He also met Mahatma Gandhi during his tour of the north of England in 1931, and asked Gandhi to sign a recently completed portrait of him by the Leeds artist Jacob Kramer. A lithograph of the signed drawing is held in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. George later invited Gandhi to contribute to The Heaton Review, but by this time Gandhi was back in India and had been imprisoned in Poona (now Pune) so wrote a letter in reply from jail regretting that he was not permitted correspondence with newspapers and reviews.
As editor, George Hopkinson provided The Heaton Review with illustrations and copies of paintings from his collection, including many by his friends such as Lawson, Naviasky, Jones and Kramer, some of whose paintings are included in this sale.
George Hopkinson was also President of The Bradford Textile Society between 1945 and 1947, and for many years was the editor of its annual publication, The Journal. As with The Heaton Review, George broadened The Journal's remit, inviting contributions from notable public figures such as the Archbishop of York (who wrote of "The World in the Atomic Age" soon after the dropping of the atomic bombs in Japan in 1945). Again, George included illustrations by Fred Lawson, Fred Jones, Janet Rawlins, TS Evans, Cecil Hunt, Angus Rands and many others, often from his own collection. In June 1963, as President of the Bradford Arts Club, he hosted an exhibition entitled "The Collection of a Wanderlust in Art" which included 140 paintings and drawings from his private collection, which at that time contained three works by a little known but up-and-coming Bradford artist called David Hockney.
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