Siren Call | 20th Century classics to brighten up your day
Modern Art & Design Auction | Tuesday 27 October, 10am
Bright and beautiful, classic and contemporary….Chorley’s bi-annual auction of Modern Art & Design includes something for all tastes and budgets.
Gordon Russell is a household name, designing furniture during of the first half of the 20th Century which now looks well-ahead of its time. The Hoyland Collection of Gordon Russell furniture includes a sideboard, chairs and standard lamps commissioned by Geoffrey Hoyland in the 1920s for his own house. Geoffrey Hoyland was very instrumental in helping Gordon Russell establish his reputation and was an old-fashioned ‘patron’ of the fledgling company. While Headmaster of The Downs School, Colwall, near Malvern, he also commissioned Gordon Russell to produce the panelling which is still in the hall today and many items of furniture in the school, particularly in the dining-room.
This collection is complemented by other Arts & Crafts pieces, including a rare set of 7 dining chairs, to a design attributed to W H Lethaby for Morris & Co or Liberty, circa 1900. Immaculately reupholstered in stunning blue and green peacock design fabric, these are ready to become the feature of a lucky bidder’s dining room.
Modernist tastes will all be well catered for, from Scandinavian lighting and furniture designed by Poul Heningsen, Alvar Aalto and Hans Wegner to an effortlessly cool contemporary Italian coated steel dining table and Philippe Starck designed chairs.
Collectors of studio ceramics will be excited by the array on display in our cabinets. The ‘nom du jour’ is Dame Lucie Rie, an Austrian born British potter whose bowls are currently fetching stratospheric prices. The auction includes a number of her works, including a coffee cup, milk jug and teacups as well as a number of saucepan-type vessels – illustrating her intent that her pottery should be useable as well as beautiful.
Another shining star in this category is the ethereal porcelain of Edmund de Waal. Author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes, de Waal porcelain vessels range from vast installations to tiny ghost like beakers, of which we are thrilled to have six examples in the sale.
A John Ward large mottled cream stoneware bowl and a sea urchin-like vessel by Ursula Morley Price will also attract attention.
The walls of our saleroom will soon be covered in a vast selection of paintings, drawings and prints. For anyone looking for a statement piece for their dining room (or poolside), Rob and Nick Carter’s 2.5 metre artwork, Light Drawing Blue, mesmerises with its waves and tones. Decorative prints include the well-known artists Elisabeth Frink, John Piper and Pablo Picasso, offering an affordable addition to anyone’s collection. We are also proud to include a large number of etchings and drawings by Leslie Duxbury (1921-2001) featuring brooding Welsh farmhouses and Lancashire characters, with estimates starting as low as £30.
For a more traditional home, the natural hues of a painting by Arts & Crafts painter Charles March Gere will suit most décor. From the foreground view of workers quarrying limestone from the hills above Cheltenham, the eye is drawn to the distant Malvern hills and mackerel sky above. Painted in 1932, it was purchased directly from the artist by Geoffrey Hoyland, around the same time as his Gordon Russell furniture mentioned above.
A great favourite with the Chorley’s team, a Tamworth Boar painted in a modern naïve style by James Lynch will find favour with farmers and families alike.
AUCTION Tuesday 27 October, 10am
VIEWING Sunday 25 October, 10am-4pm, Monday 26 October, 9am-4pm
ENQUIRIES Catrin Hampton catrin.hampton@chorleys.com 01452 344499
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