Hi Everyone – so as we’re getting into the process of cataloguing and sorting for this next sale a week on Sunday, I wanted to let you know a little about what should be an interesting part of the catalogue for next time.
We were fortunate enough to have had an instruction and consignment from the family of a local artist and collector a few months ago, by the name of Ian Colverson – he sadly passed away earlier in the year, but left behind him an array of amazing collectables and art in his Huddersfield home. As some of you might have noted from our last sale and from my verbal introduction to the antiquities/artefacts part of the 04/09 auction, all of those Roman, Greek, Chinese and Egyptian pieces came from Ian’s gallery of treasures. What we didn’t get into in September, was Ian’s own artworks, of which there were and are lots!
So, as a part of this next auction on Sunday 16th October, we will be auctioning off a number of his pieces and allowing our middle floor of the building here in Halifax, to double as somewhat of a gallery space for a few days. Viewing for this next sale will accordingly commence from the Thursday at 10am, giving an extra day for people to just come and view the art if they wish. The catalogue in its initial format, as the BBC’s Antiques Road Trip are dropping additional consignments to us next week too, will be released online over the weekend.
There are plenty of references online as to Ian’s work and legacy, but to start you off, Jon has kindly put together the below part biog to whet your appetites – we will start to post into Facebook and Instagram with photos and more detail over the coming days.
Artist Ian Colverson, born in London, was a 1962 graduate from the highly regarded Slade School of Fine Art, focusing his talents within the world of printmaking. Following graduation, he taught at the University of California, Los Angeles, at a time when the city was a key focus of ‘60s art movements, developing a reputation as one of the leading exponents of printmaking from photographic collage in the late 1960’s. A number of the works offered for auction with us, (all directly from Ian’s estate), demonstrate his influence and the significant link he and other international printmakers forged between ‘60s art movements (eg Pop Art) and the cut-up styles of punk in the late 70s and beyond.
Ian returned to the UK and as a result of contributions to the Bradford Biennale, in 1969 Ian was invited to take up the position of founding director of the printmaking department (known as the Department of Two Dimensional Studies) at the Regional College of Art at Bradford College, a position he held until his retirement in 2005.
Ian Colverson’s prints are held by galleries worldwide, including at the National Gallery of Canada, Spencer Museum of Art in Kansas, Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York, The Art Institute in Chicago, and The Tate Modern in London.
Exhibitions:
- Young Contemporaries (London, 1960, 1961, 1962)
- Rome (1963, solo show)
- Cologne (1964, solo show)
- Lisbon (1969, solo show)
- Paris (1970, deuxieme Biennale de l’Estampe)
- [various worldwide locations] (1971-3, British Print Biennale travelling exhibitions)
