Price on request

Copper and zinc plates, engraved and cancelled by Robert Sargent Austin
Provenance: the artist’s family
Literature: Campbell Dodgson, Robert Austin, exh. cat.,Twenty-One Gallery, London, 1930; Gordon Cooke, Drawings and Prints by Robert Austin, exh. cat.,The Fine Art Society, London, 2001

This large collection represents the vast majority of surviving plates by Austin and includes examples of all aspects of the artist’s oeuvre, from his first engraving (The Bridge 1913) to his last (Frost in May 1971). Works from Austin’s mid- and late career, such as Girl by a Gate 1938 (illustrated following, with detail), and Empty Church, Concarneau 1949 (opposite), demonstrate that he was still at the height of his powers long after his period of greatest acclaim during the etching boom of the 1920s, which ended abruptly with the Wall Street Crash.

The collection also includes examples of the line engravings of which Austin was one of the greatest exponents of his century, including The Flight Into Egypt 1925 from his period as Rome Scholar (1922–5), when he first began to use line engraving, and Bellringer’s Wife 1934 (following). Campbell Dodgson, Keeper of Prints and Drawings at the British Museum, who compiled the standard reference work on Austin, compared him to Albrecht Dürer, noting that Austin had ‘more than a touch of that master in him’ (Dodgson, Robert Austin, exh. cat.,Twenty-One Gallery, London, 1930).

The plates have been restored and posthumously printed by David Maes.

A full list of plates in the collection is available on request. The collection is for sale to a public institution only.

We are grateful to Rachel and Clare Austin, Gordon Cooke and David Maes for assistance.

£2,200

Signed and dated in pencil
Red chalk with black chalk highlights, sight size 7⅞ × 5½ in. (20 × 14 cm.)
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist’s son
Literature: Drawings and Prints by Robert Austin, exh. cat.,The Fine Art Society, London, 2001 (no. 12), p. 23 (similar portrait repr.)

Austin and Woodford were brothers-in-law. Both were 1922 Rome Scholars (in Engraving and Sculpture respectively), along with Monnington, who was the 1922 Scholar in Decorative Painting. Austin’s portrait of Woodford was undertaken during 1926, their last year at the British School at Rome. A related, though slightly later, portrait of Woodford was included in The Fine Art Society exhibition Drawings and Prints by Robert Austin in 2001 (no. 12).

£1,900

Gouache on paper
Signed with initials
17 1/2 x 17 in. (44.5 x 43.2 cm.)

In a gessoed revesrse section stepped frame the middle flat painted black

The circus was a theme that Austin was often drawn to.  The Circus came once a year and set up on the shingle foreshore outside the artist's studio at Burnham Overy Staithe. The combination of animals and performers always fascinated him.This is likely to date early in his oeuvre.

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Signed, inscribed and dated, pencil,
11¼ x 17¾ ins. (28.5 x 45.5 cms.)
Exhibited: Fine Art Society, October, 2002 (30)

Peach was the name Austin used for his daughter Clare, (b. 1929).

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Watercolour, stamped with studio stamp, 18¼ x 13 ins. (46 x 33 cms.)

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Black chalk and watercolour on paper, 22W X 17E ins. (55.9 X 45.1 cms.)
Provenance: the artist's daughter, Claire
Literature: Paul Liss, Robert Austin, The Fine Art Society, 2002, p. 40

Amongst the subjects that Austin was most naturally drawn to were his two daughters. In his studio at Burnham Overy Staithe, a huge North-facing room with high ceilings, they often served as models. Austin fixed a trapeze in the studio for their amusement.