Penzance auction house to sell abstract work (From Falmouth Packet)

Penzance auction house to sell abstract work

11:34am Friday 2nd October 2009

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One of the most highly praised works by a pioneering abstract painter with strong Cornish connections is to be sold at Penzance Auction House on October 22.

The untitled work – an oil drawing with mixed media on paper laid on board - is by Sandra Blow, who died aged 80 in 2006 after moving to St Ives in the early 1990s.

Auctioneer David Lay has quoted a guide price of £25,000 to £30,000. “It is probably the most important Blow painting ever to come onto the market at auction,” he said. “After Barbara Hepworth, Sandra is one of the most accomplished St Ives artists of them all. It demonstrates once again that the sale of such major works of art is not the exclusive preserve of the big London and New York auction houses.”

In the 1950s Sandra Blow, a Royal Academcian, introduced into British art a new expressive informality, using cheap, discarded materials such as sawdust, sackcloth and plaster alongside the more familiar material of paint.

The influential Zennor-based critic and painter Patrick Heron offered her accommodation at his home, Eagles Nest, from where she found herself a cottage to rent at nearby Tregerthen. Originally used by D.H. Lawrence in 1916, this cottage had a long association with the arts.

In her first few years at St Ives, she worked in a beachfront studio at Porthmeor, but later built a large studio and home at Bullens Court above the town.

In July this year, a Hepworth sculpture was sold at Penzance Auction House for £60,000.

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