Coleman's Art started with the purchase of the below nude oil painting. A finely executed study of the female form, with vibrant primary colours bursting in the background, and a rich satin cloth in the foreground. A festival of delights for preying eyes. Purchased online for £140 from Chiswick Auctions in West London, I was excited to see exactly what I had brought. In the flesh, the painting was large, very large, almost life size! The painting was also set within a substantial fine guilt plaster frame, adding significant weight when lugging it back home onto the London Overground.
The painting was clearly signed 'Hodgkins' in the bottom left corner, although sold as 'unknown artist'. I was confident that given a few searches on Google the full artist details could be identified. This would give the painting a new identity, as well as instantly increasing its value. Unfortunately however, after searching through the many pages of images of artists work named 'Hodgkins', many of which were linked to the popular modern British abstract artist Howard Hodgkin, I had little evidence to link an artist to my painting. A few months past and the painting, too big and heavy to display on my walls, had been left to rest along a wall downstairs. Visitors to the house would comment on the painting's interesting subject and fine execution, and although an interesting talking point around the dinning table, I was keen to sell and complete the journey.
Emailing several London auction houses regarding a possible sale, the painting got a largely luke-warm response due to the lack of any real artist attribution. One auction house however, in South London, Rosebery's Auctioneers suggested they knew the artist given a previous sale of a similar lot. They gave the artists dates as b.1962- and gave an encouraging estimate of £200-300. Rosebery's suggested submitting the painting to their saleroom through their online bidding platform Vertu.
With a £150 reserve, and with bidding lasting a week, it wasn't until the sixth day that the first bid matching the reserve of £150 was made. I was then hopeful that this encouraging first bid may start a late flurry of activity in the final 24 hours. No more bids however, were forthcoming and the painting was sold for £150, a mere ten pound profit on the hammer price. When all costs considered the naked truth was that I was £50 down! However, more importantly, aside from an interesting dinner table anecdote the nude had taught me a valuable lesson in the buying and selling of fine art, and the vital importance of artist attribution and provenance.
