Equine Art coming up for auction
We are pleased to offer an important selection of early 20th century equine art, to include a collection of paintings by Glasgow Boys-linked artists and friends George Denholm Armour and Joseph Crawhall III.
The horse has played an intrinsic part in human history, including use in agriculture, transportation, war and sport. Little wonder they have found a significant role in our art forms, ranging from stone age cave paintings in Lascaux and the prehistoric Uffington horse hill carving, to the legendary Trojan horse, Chinese Tang figures, medieval battle scenes, and Leonardo da Vinci’s unfinished commission to build the largest bronze equestrian sculpture in the world.
In the UK however, horses really found their place in paintings. George Stubbs arguably revolutionised the genre with his focus on anatomical realism, while the British class system portrayed the ownership of horses as social status, and the popularity of horse-racing and fox-hunting created a whole range of sporting art featuring horses.
Our 27th May Country Pursuits auction includes a collection of watercolours, sketches and illustrations by Scottish artist George Denholm Armour OBE (1864-1949) and preliminary works by his close friend and fellow horse-enthusiast, Joseph Crawhall III (1861-1913).
The pair were both linked with the Glasgow Boys school of art, regularly travelled in Morocco and Spain, and were skilled artists of animals and birds. They met on a hunting and painting holiday before joining up to run a stud farmhouse in Wheathampstead, Hertfordshire. When Armour married in 1898, Crawhall was his best man.
Armour’s career moved into illustrations for Punch, County Life and The Graphic; mainly being country sporting scenes, but also featuring boxing and other sports.
In 1910, he studied military equestrianism at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, and he became an honorary member of the Meadowbrook Polo Club in 1913. Armour fought in the First World War and was awarded an OBE 'For services rendered in connection with military operations in the Balkans'.
Crawhall was given his first one-man show at Alexander Reid’s Glasgow gallery in 1894, where most of his works were purchased by collector and wealthy shipping magnate William Burrell. Burrell’s eclectic collection was gifted to the nation in 1944, and many of the pieces can be seen at the dedicated museum in Glasgow. Sadly, Crawhall died young of pneumonia in 1913. A great perfectionist, few of his works survive due to his habit of discarding pictures which he deemed not good enough. This collection of sketches and preliminary works are a wonderful repository of this hugely talented artist, who did not live long enough to fulfil his full potential.
Armour returned to painting after the war and became a member of the Royal Scottish Academy. Some of his works are held in the City of Glasgow collection, the National Trust and National Galleries of Scotland.
The collection has been consigned to us by a descendant of George Denholm Armour's only child, Robert. They were Armour's own collection and have been passed down through the family. Most of the works were rescued from a serious fire at the family home several years ago - in fact one or two show signs of burns - so it is even more of an amazing survival.
The auction also features further equine works including two oil paintings by Frances Mabel Hollams (1877-1963) - a rare example of a female sporting artist at the time (below), George Thomas Pace and Harold Gressley.
The full catalogue can be viewed here
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