Tennants Auctioneers’ Modern and Contemporary Art Sale on 17th October attracted a high level of interest, and confident bidding both online and in the room helped the sale achieve strong results and a healthy 93% sold rate.
One of the top lots of the sale was ‘Second Version, Triptych’, a signed limited-edition lithograph from 1989 after Francis Bacon (1902-1992), which sold for £17,000 (all prices quoted exclude buyer’s premium). Bacon is undeniably one of the most engaging artists to emerge from the post war era, and the triptych realised a comparable price with other versions sold in the London salerooms.
Good prices were also seen for limited edition prints after L. S. Lowry, the market for which continues to go from strength to strength. The leading print was Lowry’s ‘Going to the Match’, which sold for the top estimate of £20,000, despite minor condition issues. The print had been purchased as new in 1972 and passed by descent to the present vendor.
Selling well above estimate at £8,500 was ‘Les Peupliers’ by Marcel Dyf (1899-1985), and ‘Luberon, Provence’ by Frederick Gore (1913-2009) performed well too, achieving a hammer price of £5,500. Further highlights included ‘Impasse de Paris’ by Carlos Nadal (1917-1998), which sold for £10,500, and ‘Painter with Samantha, St Anthony Theme, Project 18’ by Robert Oscar Lenkiewicz (1941-2002), which sold for £8,500.
In addition to prints after L. S. Lowry, further good lots of Northern Art proved in demand too, with top results seen for ‘Misty Street’ by Norman Cornish (1919-2014) selling for £7,000, ‘Drifting’ by Peter Brook (1927-2009) selling for £6,000, and ‘Tennants Brothers Brewery’ by George Cunningham (1924-1996) selling for £1,500. York sculptor Sally Arnup’s silver sculpture ‘Fledgling Blackbird’ sold well at £2,500.
Finally, a set of seven prints after Bob Dylan’s ‘Drawn Blank’ series of pencil studies sold strongly to achieve a combined hammer price of £9,700. The drawings were created when Dylan was on tour between 1989 and 1992, and were published in a book of the same name in 1997 before being worked up into an altogether bolder and more vibrant style before being turned into a run of prints in 2007.
The sale achieved a total hammer price of £190,440 for 124 lots, with a 93% sold rate.
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