FIRST DAY’S SALE WEDNESDAY 24th APRIL 2013 PAINTINGS, PICTURES, MINIATURES AND SCULPTURES Commencing not before 2.00pm Pictures will be on view on: Saturday 20th April 9.00am to 1.00pm Sunday 21st April 2.00pm to 4.00pm Monday 22nd April 9.00am to 5.15pm Tuesday 23rd April 9.00am to 5.15pm Limited viewing on sale day Enquiries: Martin Scadgell Enquiries: Daniel Goddard Tel: 01392 413100 Tel: 01392 413100 Email: [email protected] Email: [email protected] 301 • Alan Cotton [b.1938] Hartland, Autumn Sunset, 1985 signed bottom left further signed, inscribed and dated on the stretcher oil on canvas 90 x 100cm. £1000 - 1500 302 • Alan Cotton [b.1938] Hartland, Lavender Light 1985 signed bottom right further signed, inscribed and dated on the stretcher oil on canvas verso a preparatory oil sketch for a landscape with sheep at Bicton Park. 76 x 60cm. £1000 - 1500 68 303 • Alan Cotton [b.1938] The Hidden Valley - Harvest signed bottom right further signed and inscribed on the stretcher oil on canvas 90 x 100cm. £800 - 1200 304 • Alan Cotton [b.1938] Sunlight through Summer Leaves signed bottom left further signed and inscribed on the stretcher oil on canvas 101 x 90cm. £800 - 1200 69 305 • Alan Cotton [b.1938] Hidden Valley in Springtime signed bottom centre further signed and inscribed on the stretcher oil on canvas 45 x 60cm. £600 - 800 306 • Alan Cotton [b.1938] Farmstead, Vacluse Valley, Provence [near Gordes] 1986 signed bottom right further signed, inscribed and dated 1986 on the stretcher oil on canvas 39 x 50cm. £800 - 1200 70 307 • Alan Cotton [b.1938] Rachel in Summer Meadows: signed bottom right further signed and inscribed on the stretcher oil on canvas 90 x 100cm. Rachel is the artists’s daughter 71 Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood are pleased to be offering the following five lots, the work of the late Michael Seward Snow, the property of Justin Snow, son of the deceased. It is Justin’s hope that a comprehensive retrospective exhibition will be held in St Ives in the near future. The following paintings offer a broad cross section of Michael Snow’s work as a means of introduction to those unfamiliar with the artist. 310 • Michael Neville Seward Snow [1930-2012] Untitled (Sun) signed and dated 89/90/92 on the reverse further dated 1992 on the reverse oil on canvas 122 x 122cm, (unframed) £1200 -1800 With no formal training Michael Snow showed an early interest in poetry, literature and the arts at school in Rugby and as a librarian in Manchester and with Tony Connor and Malcolm Bishop he founded the Peterloo Group in Manchester. After seeing an exhibition of St Ives artists in Liverpool, including Alexander Mackenzie, Snow moved there in 1951. Two years later he was elected member of the newly found Penwith Society along with Hepworth and Nicholson. Snow was particularly enamoured with the lyrical literacy of John Wells, W.Barns Graham, Alex Mackenzie, George Dannatt and Ben Nicholson. His work continued to change and evolve; his 1960s works bearing more resemblance to the painterly expressionism of Bryan Winter, Terry Frost and Roger Hilton. By the 1970s Snow’s personal interest in science, ranging from mineralogy to cosmology, resulted in works such as Sun & Moon and Blue Planet. From 1965 to 1985 Snow entered the field of education. He taught at the vibrant Exeter College of Art where he became Director of the Combined Honours Course. His interdisciplinary openness made him an instant hit with his students. Michael’s succinct catalogue statement for his 24 work show at London’s Rowan Gallery in 1964 explained his pictures as ‘additions to nature, not imitations of it. I may receive a stimulus to start work from a new landscape but my real problem is the solution on the canvas - painting matters if it is honest...because it is not only a visual addition to our environment..it is the only way to learn to see’. Michael Seward Snow, painter and teacher, born Manchester 27 June 1930, married 1950 Sylvia Jarrett (divorced 1956), 1957 Margaret Lambert (one son, Justin). Died Hillerton Cross, Devon, 15 July 2012. With recognition to Peter Davies from whose obituary in The Independent extracts are included in the above. 72 311 • Michael Neville Seward Snow [1930-2012] Landscape Archipelago, 1964 inscribed on the reverse with artist’s name and title and dated 1964 oil on canvas 91 x 152cm. £2000 - 3000 312 • Michael Neville Seward Snow [1930-2012] Incised Painting Sun and Moon, 1959 signed M N Seward Snow and inscribed with title on the backboard oil on board 99 x 47cm. £1000 - 1500 312 73 314 315 • Michael Neville Seward Snow [1930-2012] • Michael Neville Seward Snow [1930-2012] Drawings for Constructions Untitled inscribed with title and dated 2.2.53 bottom collage centre 59 x 79cm further inscribed on the backboard, signed and £250 - 350 dated 1953 oil on board 39.5 x 30.5cm. £800 - 1200 The Michael Snow Art Reference Library; 21st August 2013. In the Book Sale on the 21st August 2013, Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood will offer for sale the art reference library of Michael Snow. The collection reflects the influence of a previous generation of ground breaking artists, who painted in the “Warmth of the Sun”, and their own earlier influences of Turner, Mattise, Braque, Picasso and Mondrian, etc. The history of art is fully covered, constructivism and abstraction is explored and there are also many works on sculpture. There are catalogues, books, and collections on artists such as Terry Frost, Patrick Heron, Peter Lanyon, Ben Nicholson, Roger Hilton, Tony O’Malley, Alfred Wallis, Bryan Winter, etc. etc. The second part of the library consists of poetry books, with an extensive collection on the Cornish poet (who was a personal friend of Michael Snow) W. S. Graham. 74 316 • Istvan Szegedi Szuts [1892-1959] My War Book two volumes of the original pen, ink and wash drawings Volume I. Front page inscribed ‘My War Book - Third baby Edition’ (second is crossed out), signed Szegedi Szuts and further signed Sugady Szuts, with 116 ink drawings, each numbered and most titled, each drawing on a sketch paper, 19 x 14cm, each page and the bound volume 28 x 21cm. Volume II. 103 ink drawings, as above, most being titled, and a volume of the published work. (3) Provenance. Michael Seward Snow and thence by family descent £2000 - 3000 Referencing these drawings to the published book My War - John Lane The Bodley Head Limited, Published 1931, 1st edition, there are a few original drawings not published (approximately 10), and some of the original titles have been changed in the printed book. Istvan Szegedi Szuts [1892-1959], born in Budapest, a friend of the composers Bela Bartok Zoltan Kodaly and Gyorgy Ranki. Szuts served in the First World War and produced a book about his experiences, My War (published in 1931 by John Lane). He first visited England in 1929 and held a solo exhibition at the Gieves Gallery, London, in the same year. In 1936 he moved to Cornwall with his partner Gwynedd Jones-Parry, whom he married in 1937. The couple lived at Caunce Head near Mullion on The Lizard and remained there for the rest of their lives. He exhibited with The Newlyn Society of Artists and The Penwith Society of Arts. An extract from The Daily Mail about Szuts and the exhibition of paintings and drawings held at Gieves Gallery in December 1929. “The mere fact that Mr. Campbell Dodgson, the distinguished Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, acts as sponsor to Mr. Istvan Szegedi Szuts, is sufficient guarantee for the merit of the work shown by that young Hungarian artist at the Gieves Gallery in Bond Street. But Mr. Dodgson discreetly confines his praise to Mr. Szegedi Szuts’s drawings, and there can be no doubt that the drawings represent this artist’s highest achievement. They seem, almost without exception, to be the work of inspired moments, in which the true significance of a scene, a type or movement is revealed to the artist in a flash and transferred to paper with a few vigorous strokes or accents. They are akin to Mr. Paul Nash’s memorable war drawings in intensity of realisation and simplicity of statement. Mr. Szegedi Szuts does not appear to belong to any particular group. His art bears no marked national characteristics, although it is inspired by profound sympathy with national characteristic life and scenery. His gifts of synthesis and swift notation are akin to Vaszary’s, but unlike the older artist he has remained unaffected by Parisian influences.” 21 of the 219 original drawings are illustrated here and overleaf. To see all the drawings and to read the forward to the book by Ralph Haze Mottram, please use the following link to our website http//bhandl.eu/go/szuts 75 76 77 The following 14 lots are from the estate of the late Michael Seward Snow, the property of Justin Snow. As with an earlier sale of works (see Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood 27 January 2011) this small collection was formed by exchanges of work between artists. ‘Over forty years, during which I occupied studios in St Ives, or nearby, my closest friends were Ben Nicholson, Terry Frost, Dennis Mitchell and the poet W S Graham. The little collections artists make from groups or exchanges, sometimes provide interesting evidence of experiments from which the later and better known works of art have developed’. Michael Seward Snow, January 2011. 317 • Ben Nicholson [1894-1982] Columns, possible preparatory to Aquieia etching, signed and dated ‘65 in pencil in the bottom right border blindstamp bottom left corner of sheet plate size 23.5 x 14cm, sheet size 37.5 x 28cm.