Roseberys’ September Modern British & 20th Century Art auction offers the rare opportunity to rediscover two remarkable works held in private collections for decades: a seascape by the self-taught Cornish painter Alfred Wallis and a surrealist portrait by Argentine-Italian artist Leonor Fini. This is the first time either work has been seen on the public auction market.
Lot 40: Alfred Wallis, British 1855-1942 - Untitled (Harbour View)
Estimate: £20,000 - £30,000
The work by Wallis is a highly expressive oil on board with visible tack holes, characteristic of his use of found materials for canvases. The coastal scene, rendered with economical line work, an atmospheric use of colour and geometrically erroneous perspective, is typical of Wallis’ oeuvre, drawn from his life as a fisherman and scrap dealer in St Ives. A raw, ‘primitive’ style and instinctive use of colour and movement established Wallis as a touchstone for St Ives artists, notably Ben and Winifred Nicholson and Christopher Wood.
According to Matilda Webb, the artist's biographer, the work likely depicts the Firth of Forth, with the Forth Rail Bridge depicted to the bottom left of the scene. Wallis would have seen this in 1894 when he was working on the St. Ives fishing fleet, which sailed up and around the British coast, before travelling east along the Clyde Canal and then the Forth. Wallis made other works including the Forth bridge including a large work which was sold to Peter Lanyon.
A pencil inscription to the reverse of the frame reads “Robin from Jim, 1936,” suggesting that the painting was once owned by Jim Ede, curator, collector and founder of Kettle’s Yard. The handwriting bears a strong similarity to examples of Ede’s handwriting found in the Kettle’s Yard Archive and the frame is typical of the type of frame Ede was using during the mid 1930s. Jim Ede had been a curator at the Tate Gallery prior to the second world war, and was a prolific collector of avante-garde and St Ives art. Ben Nicholson introduced Ede to Wallis’ work and he went on to become his keenest collector, acquiring over 120 works between 1928 and 1939. The pair never met, but corresponded frequently during Wallis’ final years and their relationship was the subject of an exhibition at Kettle's Yard in 2020-21, 'Alfred Wallis Rediscovered'.
The picture was likely intended as a gift for Ede’s friend Muriel 'Robin' Rate, who married Etienne Amyot in 1939. Amyot was a gifted concert-pianist and worked as a music consultant to Sir George Barnes (1904-1960), helping to start the BBC Third Programme (today's BBC Radio 3) at the end of the war. The Amyots moved in artistic circles that included the playwright Noel Coward. The Wallis painting has remained in the family’s personal collection since 1936, making its debut on the auction market at £20,000-£30,000.
Lot 241: Leonor Fini, Argentinean/Italian 1907-1996 - Portrait of Aurelia
The work on paper by Leonor Fini carries an estimate of £2,000–£4,000. It was discovered among the belongings of the current owner’s late sister’s possessions and has likely remained unseen since the 1960s.
In 1945, Fini began her celebrated Aurélia series of “imaginary portraits” in watercolour and ink, named in homage to Gérard de Nerval’s poem. Like Nerval, a precursor to the Symbolists and Surrealists, Fini explored the porous thresholds between waking and dreaming, sanity and delirium. Known for her richly imaginative painting, she often inverted traditional gender roles: in the Aurélia series, women appear arch and domineering, while male figures across her oeuvre are typically passive, effete and androgynous. The present sketch of a woman’s head distills these concerns with striking economy; her steady gaze carries a steely, sadistic sadistic veneer, encapsulating the psychological tension and dream-charged eroticism that runs through Fini’s art.
The present work, undated, belongs to this series. According to the current owner, it was probably acquired by her late sister during travels to Paris and Rome in the 1960s, where Fini was then working extensively.
Born in Buenos Aires, Fini moved to Trieste as a child and later settled in Paris in 1931, entering the circles of Giorgio de Chirico, Paul Eluard and Max Ernst while resisting André Breton’s Surrealist orthodoxy. Across seven decades she developed a singular body of work spanning painting, drawing, book illustration, and set and costume design for theatre, ballet, opera, and film. Fini became a collaborator, muse and friend to leading cultural figures of the 20th century, including Man Ray, Leonora Carrington, Jean Cocteau and Salvador Dalí.
Her work has been shown internationally in New York, Rome, Paris and London and she exhibited at both the Venice Biennale and São Paulo Biennial. Today, her paintings and works on paper are held in the permanent collections of Tate Modern, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Centre Georges Pompidou, among others, and achieve six-figure results on the secondary market. Further examples from the Aurélia series are included in Sotheby’s upcoming auction of Pauline Karpidas’ collection.
"These two remarkable works have remained unseen in private collections for decades and we are delighted to bring them to the market for the first time. They are outstanding examples of Wallis’ and Fini’s distinctive approaches," said William Summerfield, Director and Head of Modern British & 20th Century Art at Roseberys.
Lot 27: Simon Bussy, French/British 1870-1954 - Portrait of a Lady
An additional highlight in the sale includes a portrait by Simon Bussy, likely of Elinor Rendel (née Strachey), which connects directly to the Strachey family’s Bloomsbury circle. Bussy married Dorothy Strachey in 1903, placing him firmly within the Bloomsbury milieu. Dorothy's brother Lytton Strachey, who married Dora Carrington, was close friends with Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. The luminous green backdrop is characteristic of the artist’s work, including similar works in the Tate and Ashmolean collections. It is estimated at £6,000 - £10,000.
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