Roseberys’ September Modern British & 20th Century Art sale was led by an important work by British Impressionist Philip Wilson Steer, which soared past its £8,000-12,000 estimate to realise a price of £54,840. Following competitive bidding online and over the phone, the work was acquired by a private collector in London.

Lot 25: Philip Wilson Steer OM, Sunset, Hawes, Wensleydale, 1904
Price Realised: £54,840

The painting is part of Steer’s celebrated Hawes series, a group of works from 1904 depicting the landscape surrounding the Yorkshire market town. In these paintings, Steer focused intently on capturing the shifting skies, employing subtle gradations of light and colour. Widely regarded as a pioneer of British Impressionism, Steer drew inspiration from J.M.W. Turner and John Constable, revolutionising British landscape painting.

 

Another highlight of the sale was an untitled harbour scene by Alfred Wallis, which achieved £26,240 after lively bidding. The self-taught Cornish painter, who worked as a fisherman and sailor in St Ives, drew deeply from memory in his art. His work later inspired modernist painters Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood, who discovered and championed him in 1928.

Lot 198: Egill Jacobsen, Roo Dobbel Maske, 1974
Price Realised: £18,368

A striking portrait by Danish painter Egill Jacobsen also drew significant interest, realising a price of £18,336. Formerly in Galerie Moderne, the painting reflects Jacobsen’s fascination with saturated colour and the abstracted human form. After meeting Pablo Picasso in Paris in 1934, Jacobsen abandoned his earlier style and developed the masked figures that became central to his practice. His bold compositions helped define the CoBrA movement, the groundbreaking postwar group that sought to reintroduce spontaneity, colour, and expressiveness into European art. A further work by CoBrA artist Carl-Henning Pedersen from 1982 achieved a price of £11,152, demonstrating a healthy market for Scandinavian modernism.

"This sale demonstrated the appetite for exceptional examples of Modern British painting," said William Summerfield, Associate Director and Head of Modern British & 20th Century Art. "Collectors responded to works with strong provenance and artistic significance, from Steer’s atmospheric Yorkshire landscape to Jacobsen’s bold, CoBrA-period work. The results reaffirm Roseberys’ position as a destination for serious collectors of 20th-century art."

Lot 287: Kurt Ard, Interior scene with a woman and two men, c.1950s
Price Realised: £9,184

Part II of the sale was anchored by an evocative work by Danish illustrator Kurt Ard, which sold for £9,184. Known as the “European Norman Rockwell,” Ard often drew inspiration from domestic life, using family and friends as subjects. This work, created during the 1950s when Ard was based in New York, is illustrated in one of the artist’s archival albums and numbered No. 18.

Lot 317: Ken Currie, The Crane Driver’s Dream, 1986
Price Realised: £9,184

A final highlight was The Crane Driver’s Dream by Ken Currie, which realised a price of £9,184. The circa 1986 work, formerly in the Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol, is a quintessential example of Currie’s linear style. A key figure among the “New Glasgow Boys” alongside Steven Campbell, Adrian Wiszniewski and Peter Howson, Currie’s oeuvre confronts themes of mortality and corruption, drawing inspiration from the great European masters including Goya and Velázquez.