We’re all about selling this week on Quad Royal. Partly because time for contemplation is a bit thin on the ground, but also because there’s a lot of stuff about demanding our attention.
Firstly, Fougasse.
Quite a number of his posters are currently being sold by a dealer called Neil Jennings. Now I wouldn’t usually bother you with this kind of thing, but these are quite an impressive set.
To start with, they’re not the most reproduced examples of his work (there are some that I haven’t seen before; but then Mr Crownfolio says he’s come across them all, so I clearly haven’t been paying proper attention).
They’re also interesting because of their provenance, which is from the family. Hence the pristine condition.
Finally, I do rather like the series that he did about noise for hospitals, not just because they’re less common and I hate extraneous noise, but also because the one below is curiously modern.
And I’ve definitely never seen it before.
I’m not sure why I’m being nice to Neil Jennings, though. He waved this in front of me.
Now I’ve raved about this before. It’s Barbara Jones’ poster for the exhibition she curated as part of the Festival of Britain, and it’s one of the very small list of posters that Mr Crownfolio and I would buy at almost any price. I didn’t think I’d ever see it turn up, to be honest. But Neil Jennings has only gone and sold it already. Humph.
Elsewhere in the world of dealerism, something which is definitely not for me but I will tell you about as it is slightly out of the normal run of things. The Travelling Art Gallery, who mostly deal in carriage prints, are selling seven Norman Wilkinson original art works.
This is his painting for the 1930 LMS poster of the Cairngorms below.
These come with a good story, too. All seven were apparently found down the back of a wardrobe in North London. A wardrobe which did once belong to an LMS official, so that’s a fair kind of provenance.
They have been priced quite highly though. The Cairngorms artwork has a reserve of £2,500, whereas the poster itself went for just £400 at Morphets earlier this year, so we’ll have to see whether or not Wilkinson’s reputation means that his artwork commands that high a premium over the poster when most don’t. Although the way that the auction is being conducted – bids to be sent in before the 31st October – means that we might in fact never find out. I imagine poster collectors and Wilkinson fans will find that a bit of a shame.
I have to say that I prefer the slightly enhanced contrast and colour of the poster to the original artwork itself. But I may be in a minority there.