I buy the works that galleries file under difficult.
Twenty years of collecting post-war works on paper, and a standing preference for the piece the room argues about. Every acquisition here is documented, provenance first.
The last three lots.
Study in Grey, No. 4
Gouache on prepared board, 1961. Bought unattributed from a house clearance and confirmed by the artist’s estate eleven months later.
Harbour, Late Afternoon
Oil on canvas, 1955. Currently hanging at a regional museum.
Untitled (Two Figures)
Charcoal, undated. Foxing under treatment until autumn.
I started with one bad print.
Mis-framed, foxed and attributed to nobody. I paid eleven pounds for it in 2004 and spent two years finding out who made it. That is still the whole method.
He found a Hepworth drawing in a box of postcards. Twice.
Marguerite Vell
Dealer, Cork Street
Where the collection lives.
On buying badly, on purpose.
What a condition report will not tell you
Three things I check with a torch before I check the paperwork.
The saleroom is not the market
Why the hammer price is the least interesting number in the room.
Buying from a bad photograph
Half my best acquisitions were listed with one blurred image.
Provenance, condition and what I nearly bought.
Roughly a thousand words, once a month. It covers what I looked at and what I turned down.
No sales list, no investment tips.