The Spanish Still Life oil painting by Antoni Clave (FS18/402) attracted more pre-sale interest that any of the other paintings in the Quarterly Fine Art Sale held on 24th and 25th April 2013.
Spanish Still Life By Antoni Clave (FS18/402)
Clave was a well known and celebrated Catalan painter who trained at the Barcelona School of Fine Arts and his work is influenced by artists such as Bonnard, Vuillard and Roualt. He is well known for his lyrical abstractions and mixed media works incorporating collage. The 1955 Still Life by Clave sold by Bearnes Hampton & Littlewood last week was a very powerful image in dramatic saturated colour titled Nature Morte Rouge. The painting had good and interesting provenance, which is always a bonus, having been exhibited by Arthur Tooth in London in 1955 and it also had the distinction of being unsold in a Christies Contemporary Art Sale in 1990 when the estimate was £30,000-£40,000. This time the painting caused great interest and with a more realistic estimate was competed for by a number of telephone and internet bidders and sold for £11,500.
