Sydney - The largest single collection of Grosvenor School prints ever to be offered in Australia will star in The Morgan Collection sale on Tuesday 27 August 2024 at Bonhams' new salerooms and headquarters in Woollahra, Sydney. The 74-lot sale will feature 19 works by some of the school's most prominent artists including Cyril Edward Power, Sybil Andrews and Claude Flight as well as Australian alumni, Ethel Spowers and Dorrit Black.

The Grosvenor School and the dynamism of the modern age

In the 1920s and 1930s a select group of pioneering and dedicated artists directed their talents towards conveying the speeding up of modern life and the dynamism of the modern machine age through the medium of linocut. These artists came together at the Grosvenor School of Modern Art, a private British art school founded in Pimlico, London in 1925 by the Scottish artist, Iain Macnab. It aimed to 'encourage students to express their own individual ideas rather than be forced to accept worn-out theories' and was led by a hand-picked team of teachers whose modern ideas matched Macnab's. Various classes were offered with colour and lino cutting under the direction of Claude Flight, whose own work expressed dynamic rhythm through bold, simple forms expressing his interest in depicting speed and movement.

Students flocked to the school from around the world. Australian artists, Ethel Spowers (1890-1947), Eveline Syme (1888-1961) and Dorrit Black (1891-1951) all enrolled at The Grosvenor School and studied linocut printing with Claude Flight. All three of these Australian artists were instrumental in organising exhibitions and promoting the school in Australia. Works by Spowers, Black and Flight feature in this sale.

Writing in a previous edition of Bonhams Magazine, art critic Mark Hudson notes "The giddily futuristic, brilliantly coloured prints of a small group of artists associated with the school, who became known, appropriately enough, as the Grosvenor school, were ignored for decades after their brief interwar heyday, before being rediscovered in the 1980s. They are now much sought after by collectors..."

Merryn Schriever, Director of Bonhams Australia comments, "Bonhams holds many world records for the sale of works by the Grosvenor School artists and it is an honour to bring this important collection to market. A number of these works are very rare indeed. We expect these vibrant linocut prints, that have such a modern appeal, to command great interest from collectors."

Among the highlights from the Grosvenor School artists featured in the sale include:

• Cyril Edward Power, (1872-1951), The Sunshine Roof, c.1934. Estimate: AU$50,000-80,000. Power co-founded the Grosvenor School of Modern Art in London in 1925 where he became principal lecturer.
• Dorrit Black, (1891-1951), The Acrobats, 1927-28, colour linocut. Estimate: AU$40,000-60,000.

• Sybil Andrews, (1898-1992), Bringing in the Boat, 1933, colour linocut. Estimate: AU$20,000-30,000.

• Ethel Spowers (1890-1947), Resting Models, 1934, colour linocut. Estimate: AU$10,000-15,000

• Lill Tschudi (1911-2004), Sticking up Posters, 1933, colour linocut. Estimate: AU$8,000-12,000.

• Claude Flight (1881-1955), Love on Ice, circa 1930, colour linocut. Estimate AU$8,000-12,000

The sale also features works by leading Australian artists including the Scottish-born Australian artist, Ian Fairweather (1891-1974) with a work entitled Outside the Walls of Peking, 1935, oil and pencil on heavy paper with an estimate of AU$250,000-350,000 and works by John Brack (1920-1999) including Glass of Claret, 1954, oil on board with an estimate of AU$220,000-280,000.

29 July 2024