The Collection

A private collection of fine art and sporting memorabilia.

This is the sporting memorabilia, film poster and fine art collection of X, a collector living on the South Coast.

 

Artists in the collection

 
Edward ‘Ted’ Seago

Norfolk school and immensely popular painter of landscapes in East Anglia . ‘Ted’ Seago was particularly coveted by the Royal family. He taught King Charles and was collected voraciously by the late Queen Mother . He accompanied the Duke of Edinburgh on Britannia to Antarctica. He was also a war painter who in the company of Lord Harold Alexander painted in the foothills of Tuscany during the WW2 Italian campaign. My picture is of Waxham Beach is in my option every bit as good as one by a French impressionist.

Ken Howard RA (1932-2022)

Ken was born in Kilburn and essentially a self-taught artist although he did study at Hornsey College of Art with David Hockney His breakthrough came when he was commissioned by the Imperial War Museum to be the official artist in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’ and he went on to become an immensely popular and collectible artist specialising in light with a wide range of subjects from portraiture to landscape to overseas locations. I have 3 pictures of Brighton which he painted on the terrace of a flat in Marine Parade, three of Venice where Ken had apartments, The Eiffel Tower and two studies of women: Irene ( featured in one of his books) and The Letter.

Jack Russell

Jack was Gloucestershire’s & England’s wicket-keeper for many years and came to painting as a second career after sketching in the pavilion. He paints landscapes as well as cricket grounds and cricketers. I acquired a picture of his of Arundel Cricket ground we became friends and he has painted West Wittering Beach in all seasons.

Rob Pointon

Rob is a Manchester-based artist who is the official artist of the household cavalry. I have collected three of his paintings of Seville.

 

Individual paintings

 

Film Posters

Large scale portraits of Sharon Stone, Catherine Deneuve and Lauren Bacall by Muriel Villiers.

Film Photographs

  • Casablanca ( Humphrey Bogart/ Ingrid Bergman; Sidney Greenstreet; Paul Heinreid/ Humphrey Bogart )
  • Sean Connery ( Goldfinger) by Aston Martin
  • Claudia Cardinale
  • Anita Ekberg/ La Dolce Vita
  • Marilyn Monroe
  • Michael Douglas/ Sharon Stone -Basic Instinct
  • Faye Dunaway taken by husband Terry O’Neill

A collection of tortoise shell antiques inherited from my late mother (d. 2013)

 

Building a collection

Auction houses v Art Dealers

Auction houses and art dealers are in competition and both have both advantages and disadvantages. An auction house will charge a buyer ‘s premium of 30% plus a consignment charge so if you’re successful on the hammer price ( the price sold at the auction) this will not be the amount you have to pay as they will also be VAT, a premium and consignment. An art dealer can charge up to 50% premium on a sale. If you have access to Artnet you can trace the history of sales . The two main auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s have been fined for collusion. A dealer is more susceptible to negotiation and may let you have the picture on approval before you buy it. There is also a more personal service whereas the auction houses do have viewings are you basically have to buy and view as you bid.

Internet

Increasingly the Internet is playing a role in art dealing and this is because the cost of maintaining an art gallery presence and an auction room is costly whereas browsing and buying on an Internet portal is far cheaper . There are professional buyers who engage people to browse Internet sites for potential purchases so to set up your own website is probably a cheaper way of selling them through auction houses or dealers

Provenance and condition

Provenance and condition are both vital components of a picture. Many people know are reluctant to buy a picture unless the provenance is 100% because those who have had their paintings looted by for example the Nazis can have descendants who claim by way of restitution as Ms Bauer -Bloch did of the painting of her aunt Adele which hang in the Albertina museum in Vienna after being looted by the Nazis.

Condition is also very important though the enterprising dealer can and does improve a picture in poor condition have improved for resale

How the painting fits into an artist’s corpus of works?

An artist’ s work very much varies in the course of his painting lifetime for example Salvador Dalí at the end of his life would sell a blank picture with his signature and tell the buyer any resulting painting can be authenticated because of his signature.

Furthermore an artist can deteriorate either through losing his eyesight or his physical condition. . Maurice Utrillo for example drank heavily at the end of his life . Matisse conversely recovered miraculously from cancer and had a nurse called Louise Bourgeois who became a nun and Matisse out of gratitude painted and created the Rosalie chapel at her Dominican Convent in Vence.

Buying ex studio

Over the last few years I have purchased directly from the artist studio. The artist is not always happy about this if he has an appointed dealer. It does mean that you do not pay as big a commission and provenance is established

Tax breaks

There are tax breaks if you put up your collection for public view in your home but be careful some have called this a “burglar’s charter “

There are tax breaks if you keep the painting in a tax free depot such as you find in Geneva or you leave the painting to a museum

Some appoint a art dealer as Executor but the risk here is that the dealer retains the collection for too long so the impression of their ownership is given .

Art as an investment

Although art can be an investment (British Rail Pension Fund invested 3% of their fund in art) you would be fortunate to see any painting rise immediately in value. Aside from the dealing charges there is insurance and no income. The Great Masters will inevitably rise in value but increasingly these have been bought up by the big collectors like Niarchos, Goulandris and Thyssen in the past and the Getty Foundation now . The dealer Joseph Duveen made his fortune by the commercial equation of new money in the USA and old art in Europe. He was a renowned dealer but never disclosed that his authenticator the art historian Bernard Berenson was working on a covert 25% commission.

New money is now found in the world of football ( Fabio Capello the international manager has a big collection ) and music ( Lord Webber has a fine collection whilst Sir Tim Rice has a superb collection of cricket memorabilia).

Women painters are in fashion such as Dora Carrington ,Dame Laura Knight , Gwen John and at the top end Freda Kahlo. Conversely some painters are no longer fashionable such as Graham Sutherland, John Piper and Carel Weight. The astute buyer will be aware of this as much as realising he / she may be paying top dollar just because a painting or painter is fashionable

The golden rule is to buy what you like on your wall.

Appreciating art

It is vitally important to have an understanding of art in building up a collection. This is not difficult to do as in this digital age there is so much information available on the Internet. Add to this very good art programmes on Sky Arts and on BBC Four and art courses . I was very fortunate as I enrolled for a course at our local adult learning Centre . The tutor was of a high standard for less than £100 I could follow her on a course which included a curated visit to a museum or gallery . If you were to attend a more sophisticated course at Christies for example the cost would be very much more but comparing notes not that much more informed. Most highbrow newspapers generally have an art correspondent but these can be variable in quality as with so many critics they can have their own agenda. For example I read an appreciation of Gwen John by a feminist art critic who said that she no longer lives in the shadow of a more famous brother Augustus John. In fact Augustus John had said many years ago that he thought that his sister Gwen would prove in time to become the better painter. The article also neglected to mention the patronage she had from John Quinn as a result of which she was able to exhibit at the famous 1913 Armoury exhibition in New York . One popular arts programme the critics sometimes castigate is Fake or Fortune. Personally I think this is a very good introduction to art very well presented by art dealer Philip Mould and TV journalist Fiona Bruce which provides an interesting art history and forensic examination of paintings. It is also an excellent introduction to art for younger people.

Art critics tend to have ‘bees in their bonnets’ with predefined prejudices influencing their critique. My personal favourite as he wears his considerable scholarship lightly is Martin Gayford and I’ve had the privilege of being part of curated tours of Van Gogh and Michelangelo on both he is an authority. It is important to build up a knowledge of art and I have found this also as enjoyable as it is productive

Selected Library

  • The Great Collectors of our Time/ James Stourton
  • Rogues and Scholars – The London Art Market 1945-2000/ James Stourton
  • The Value of Art/ Michael Findlay
  • The Big Bucks/ Georgina Adam
  • Rogues Gallery / Philip Hook
  • All That Glitters/ Orlando Whitfield
  • Dark side of the Boom/ Georgina Adam
  • Boom/ Michael Schnayerson

Musings on Madrid

In November 2024 I visited Madrid and I would certainly recommend its museums for anyone interested in art . There are three main museums all situated in the centre and within easy reach of each other – the Prado, the Reina Sofia and Thyssen. I have visited the Prado and Reina Sofia previously so in November I went to the Thyssen which I thoroughly enjoyed. It is one of the great collections of the world and was offered to London in the 1980s but at the time the government was more interested in developing Canary Wharf and offered this as a venue . Madrid offered the Palazzo Bornemisza and that together with the fact that Baron Thyssen’s wife Carmen was Spanish swung it for Madrid. The collection begins on the second floor with mediaeval art then court portraiture but on the first and ground floors are the more modern collection . Almost every well-known artist is featured including Velazquez . Hans Holbein , Rubens , Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock, Mirò, Picasso, Lucian Freud, Kitaj, Paul Klee, the German expressionists, van Gogh, the French Impressionists and post- impressionists. A happier two hours I have never spent and the joy is there unlike blockbuster exhibitions devoted to one artist there’s not a big crowd.

Alas another great Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla ‘s museum is closed until 2026.

Madrid has an inferiority complex of Paris and France yet it’s finest painters – Velazquez , Goya, El Greco , Mirò, Dali and Sorolla bear comparison to any French or other country’ s artists.