Open House Sunday: 27 February 2022

Henry will be opening his home gallery again for an Open House on Sunday 27 February. The collection spans many centuries and types of media, including paintings, drawings, prints and photography from the 17th Century to the present day.

Online booking is essential via the website and link below. Numbers are limited per hour to ensure that visitors are evenly spaced across the day. We hope to see you there.

If you are unable to make it, and would like to know about any of the pictures in the collection, do not hesitate to get in contact with Henry

Exhibition: Battersea Decorative Fair: 25-30 January 2022

Henry shall be taking a selection of paintings, works on paper and photography to the Battersea Decorative Fair from 25-30 January 2022. The fair is held at Evolution London, Battersea Park, London SW11 4NJ.

Henry will be exhibiting on Stand A30. Online booking is required and can be done via the link below.

Below is a sample of the collection of works that Henry will have with him at the fair. Do not hesitate to get in contact, should you have any queries about any of the works in his collection.

Walter Stuempfig, (American 1914-1970), Bathers at Cape May, c.1943, oil on canvas, signed (lower right), 81cm x 89cm (100cm x 110cm framed), £9,500

One of Philadelphia’s most highly regarded painters of the mid-twentieth century, Stuempfig maintained a resolutely realistic style firmly based in the academic tradition. Purchasers from his first solo show in New York in 1943 included the Whitney Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. The painting in MOMA’s collection is titled ‘Cape May’, painted in 1943.

Brian Stonehouse, M.B.E., (British 1918-1998), Striped Shirt and Cap, c.1970s, charcoal, watercolour, gouache and ink on pink paper, 62cm x 48cm (83cm x 66cm framed), (Provenance: the Artist’s estate), £1,750

Following a career in Special Operations during the war, Stonehouse went to the US and continued his career as a fashion artist painting for magazines like Vogue, Harper's Bazaar and Elizabeth Arden. He was also an accomplished portraitist.

There will be a selection of works by Stonehouse at the fair.

Francis West, (British 1936-2015), Ennui, 2009, charcoal on paper, 69cm x 98cm (79cm x 107cm framed). £5,000

Difficult to categorise in any particular style or movement, his work is steeped in the knowledge of the great traditions of figurative art. An extraordinary draftsmen, his work exudes an inimitable style of its own, full of wondrous people, mythical creatures and performing animals.

French School, Academic Study, 1857, pencil on paper, dated (lower right), 55cm x 44cm (76cm x 64cm framed). £3,000

Drawings and paintings of the nude, called "académies", were central to academic art training in France from the 16th century onwards. Only after acquiring enough skill were artists permitted to draw a posed live model.

Grigori Minski, (Ukrainian 1912-2011), Naval Cadet, c.1960s, oil on board, signed (lower right), 33cm x 43cm (42cm x 52cm framed), £1,250

A hugely successful Soviet/Ukrainian artist, who was awarded a solo exhibition of his work in the National Museum of Ukraine, Kiev in 1998.

Open House Sunday: 5 December

Henry will be showing works from his large collection on Sunday 5 December. The collection spans many centuries and types of media, including paintings, drawings, prints and photography from the 17th Century to the present day.

There are still a few places left. Online booking is essential via the website and link below. Numbers are limited per hour to ensure that visitors are evenly spaced across the weekend. We hope to see you there.

Exhibition: Coningsby Gallery, 5-11 September 2021

We shall be taking our collection of paintings, prints, photography and works on paper to the Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London, W1T 4RJ from 5-11 September 2021. Things remain a little different; there is no private view and no printed catalogue. However, there is no need to book and all are welcome. We very much hope to see you there.

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Open House Weekend: 31 July | 1 August

Henry will be showing works from his large collection across the weekend of 31 July | 1 August. The collection spans many centuries and types of media, including paintings, drawings, prints and photography from the 17th Century to the present day.

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Online booking is essential via the website and link below. Numbers are limited per hour to ensure that visitors are evenly spaced across the weekend. We hope to see you there.

Open House Weekend: 26|27 June 2021

Henry will be showing works from his large collection across this coming weekend. The collection spans many centuries and types of media, including paintings, drawings, prints and photography from the 17th Century to the present day.

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If you haven’t booked already, there are still a few places left. Numbers are limited to 6 people per hour to ensure social distancing and to remain covid compliant. We hope to see you there.

The Male Form at Bonhams, a collaboration with Henry Miller Fine Art: 16 June 2021

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The Male Form at Bonhams, to be held on 16 June 2021, is a cross-disciplinary sale celebrating the myriad representations of the male form throughout history. Held at New Bond Street, London, and assembled in collaboration with Henry Miller Fine Art, this auction will bring together artefacts and artworks from different cultures and eras, all concerned with the depiction of masculinity and male beauty.

The full catalogue is now available online, with extended commentaries for each lot, as well as curated selections by Henry and the artist and designer, Luke Edward Hall.

Exhibition: Coningsby Gallery, 19-25 April 2021

Following the planned opening up of non-essential retail in April, we can announce that we shall be taking our collection of paintings, prints, photography and works on paper to the Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London, W1T 4RJ from 19-25 April 2021. Things remain a little different, due to the ongoing restrictions; there is no private view and no printed catalogue. However, there is no need to book and all are welcome. We very much hope to see you there. (PLEASE NOTE THE EXHIBITION HAS BEEN EXTENDED UNTIL 25/4)

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Welcome to 2021! Some new additions to the collection....

Happy New Year to everyone. We hope you have had the best Christmas possible during these extraordinary times.

Thank you to all those who came to our December exhibition at the Coningsby Gallery. It was wonderful to see people in person for the first time for a year. Covid permitting, we are hoping to be back in Fitzrovia in April. Henry’s home galllery remains closed to visitors, although please do not hesitate to get in contact should you have any queries about pictures. High resolutions photos can be provided, and international and domestic shipping is working as normal. Free delivery is available in the London area.

Despite everything that is going on, Henry continues to update his collection of works for sale. Below are some new additions.

(N.B. If you are reading this in your email feed, the piece reads better on the website. Just click the title and it will take you to the blog.)

Claudio Bravo, (Chilean 1936-2011), Fur Coat (Front and Back), 1976.

Lithograph, signed and dated (lower right), and marked 66/75 (lower left), each work 56cm x 49cm (79cm x 60cm framed), £4,000 for the pair.

Bravo was a hyperrealist artist of extraordinary talents. Leaving Chile aged 21, after spells living in Spain and New York, Bravo settled in Tangiers in 1972. Despite exhibiting internationally throughout his highly successful career, he resided in Morocco for the remainder of his life. He had found the colours and light he was searching for, away from (as he put it) the drabness and cement of cities. His work, although retaining its destinctive character, became infused with Morocco culture and the people around him. Most of his models were workers in his houses, their friends and even the telephone repair man. He was known mainly for his paintings and drawings of still lifes, portraits and packages, but he also produced series of prints. This print is after a pencil drawing of the same name, also from 1976.

His work is included in many public collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York, and the Museum of Fine Art, Boston, to name but a few.

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Jean-Marc Prouveur, (French b.1956), The Portugese Man.

Cibachrome print, five works to be displayed as one, overall size, approx 101cm x 160cm, framed, £1,950.

A French artist and filmmaker who, after moving to London in 1976, collaborated with Derek Jarman. He was involved in the making of Jarman’s cult film Jubilee in 1977. This Cibachrome print (a process which reproduces film transparancies onto photographic paper), recreates fragments from a wall mural; five separately framed pictures combine together to make a striking, perhaps revolutionary, image. Prouveur exhibited widely in New York, London, Paris, Amsterdam and Rome.

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Harold Kitner, (American 1921-2004), Male Figure, 1958.

Oil on paper, signed and dated (upper left), 58cm x 45cm (77cm x 61cm framed), £1,250.

Kitner had a successful career as an artist, alongside his tenure at Kent State University, Ohio for 38 years. He exhibited widely in the US. This work is clearly influenced by the artists of the Bay Area movement, such as David Park (American 1911-1960).

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Valentin Stepanovich Tereschenko (Russian b.1941), Academic Study, c.1960s.

Charcoal on paper, signed (lower left), 74cm x 49cm (83cm 57cm framed), £1,250.

A Russian artist who has exhibited widely both in Russia and abroad. Drawings of the nude, called academic studies, were central to academic art training in Europe from the 16th century onwards. With the decline of academic art in the Western art tradition, the practice declined in importance. However, in Russia the practice still continues today.

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Patrick Hennessy, R.H.A, (Irish 1915-1980), Bound Figure.

Pastel on paper (fixed to board), signed (lower right), 110cm x 77cm, (120cm x 89cm framed), £5,000.

Throughout his career, but especially in the early years, Hennessy made a living from flower paintings, still-lives and portrait commissions. However, alongside this conventional output, he also created a body of work which was far more personal and, for its time, ground-breaking. He addressed issues of masculinity, sexual identity and homosexuality, which, for post-war Ireland where it was still illegal and considered morally repugnant, was highly extraordinary and extremely brave. A major retrospective of Hennessy’s work was held at the IMMA Dublin in 2016. Discovered in Paris, this work is possibly from the period immediately prior to WWII, when Hennessy was briefly resident there.

For further information about Patrick Hennessy, please click HERE

ART FOR £1,000 or LESS

In addition to the wider collection, the catalogue of works for sale at £1,000 or less remains online, with free domestic shipping for unframed works, and the remainder of shipping at cost.

Please do not hesitate to get in contact, should you have any queries.

Exhibition: Coningsby Gallery, 14-20 December 2020.

It is with great pleasure that we can announce, that we shall be taking our collection of paintings, prints, photography and works on paper to the Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London, W1T 4RJ from 14-20 December 2020. It is our first exhibition in a public space in 2020! There is no need to book and all are welcome. We very much hope to see you there.

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Exhibition: Open House Weekend: 31st Oct / 1st Nov, 11am - 6pm

Henry will be opening his home gallery again over the weekend of 31st October / 1st November. With advance bookings and limited numbers of people every hour, previous Open Houses have been a real success, being fully booked on every occasion. Everyone has been very respectful of social distancing and mask wearing, and we offer hand sanitizer throughout the gallery, so the whole experience is easy and enjoyable.

Henry will be showing works from his large collection, including some recent acquisitions in the catalogue linked below. The collection spans many centuries and types of media, including paintings, drawings, prints and photography from the 17th Century to the present day.

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Due to the ongoing covid-19 situation, attendance is by appointment. To ensure safe social distancing, places are limited to 4 people per hour. Booking can be made online via the link below. Once the booking is made, you will receive a confirmation email. Please check your spam, if it does not arrive! If you have difficulties with booking online, do not hesitate to contact Henry. We hope to see you across the weekend.

Artist Focus: Sascha Schneider, (German 1870-1927)

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Sascha Schneider in his studio in front of his painting “Um die Warheit’ (The Truth), c.1902

Born in Saint Petersburg in 1870, Sascha Schneider grew up in Zürich and moved to Dresden in 1889 where he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts. He started exhibiting in 1894 and opened his first studio in 1900 where he created works that optimised and glorified the male body as an object of desire, as depicted in his large scale masterpiece “The Truth” (Um Die Warheit) from 1902. 

An enfant terrible of the German symbolist movement, his work rejected a realistic depiction of the natural world, in favour of imaginary dream worlds populated with mysterious figures from literature, the bible, and Greek mythology. What set him apart from other symbolist artists of the time was the overriding homoeroticism which permeated most of his work, perhaps explaining why, although highly successful, he never actually received proper recognition from the art establishment (one of his sculptures was rejected for “incitement to unnatural fornication”).

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images below: Der Anarchist, c.1896-1900, wood engraving on paper mounted on card, Henry Miller Fine Art; Das Gefühl der Abhängigkeit, (The Feeling of Dependence), c.1896-1900, wood engraving on paper mounted on card, Henry Miller Fine Art

In 1903, he met the best-selling author Karl May who commissioned Schneider to create a series of new book covers for his popular novels and travel stories.  May was one of Germany’s most famous novelists, his Western adventures sold millions of copies and brought Schneider’s work to a vast audience. May knew of, and accepted, Schneider’s homosexuality and what started as a unique creative relationship and a visionary friendship between two artists, became the basis for the reinterpretation of May's novels as a complete work of art.  The classically inspired works on the covers though bore hardly any relation to the content of May’s stories and at the end the publisher, unhappy with the ambivalent nature of these pictures, had them replaced in later editions. (These original books are still available through websites such as ebay, and are a great way into collecting his work.)

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images below; Karl May: Old Surehand, 1904; Karl May, Am Rio de la Plata, 1904; Karl May, Peace on Earth, 1904.

In 1904, Schneider was appointed professor at Weimar’s Grand Ducal Art School, a post previously offered to Gustav Klimt who had turned it down. As an artist, Schneider focused on the beauty of the male nude and while he never hid the fact that he was homosexual, he considered himself a social outsider – both as an artist and as a gay man (homosexuality was illegal in Germany at the time) and never fitted in within the local art scene.

At the time he lived with the painter Hellmuth Jahn. Jahn however subsequently blackmailed him, and threatened to expose his homosexuality. As a result in 1908, Schneider fled to Itlay where he started developing new ideas of how to change society through art. He lived in Florence until 1914 and moved back to Germany at the start of WW1.

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images below: Der Gram (The Grief), c.1896-1900, wood engraving on paper mounted on card, Henry Miller Fine Art; Mammon and his Slave, c.1896-1900, wood engraving on paper mounted on card, Henry Miller Fine Art.

In 1919 he founded the Kraft-Kunst Institut in Dresden. It was basically a gym with artistic aspirations in which Schneider’s sculptures and paintings could be displayed alongside exercise equipment, mirrors and actual body builders whom he used as models.

He regarded the beautiful naked male physique as art in its own right. The creation of the institute also corresponded with the emergence of a fresh approach towards the human body and new interpretations of physical beauty. Rooted in classical antiquity and working with the ideal image of man, his work was groundbreaking as it sought to conceptualise and celebrate homosexuality through art; something quite extraordinary 100 years ago.

The Kraft-Kunst Institut, Dresden, c.1920s.

As a sculptor Schneider didn’t want to limit himself to clay and bronze. He wanted to shape the human flesh itself by means of strength training and body building. He could see beauty (and art) in a well shaped musculature so he started working with real people, presenting his ‘ideal bodies’ on stage in a performance at the Dresden Albert Theatre that included choreographies with titles such as ‘Ancient Wrestling Matches’ and ‘Exercises and Games from Ancient Physical Culture’.

Sonnenanbeter (The Sun Worshipper), Schloss Eckberg, Dresden.

Sonnenanbeter (The Sun Worshipper), Schloss Eckberg, Dresden.

Sascha Schneider died in 1927. In recent years he has being rediscovered as one of the first openly gay artists, and a leading light in the health and body culture movement at the turn of the 20th century. In 2013, a major retropsective of his work was held at the Kunsthalle, Weimar, which then transferred to the Leslie Lohman Museum in New York. The exhibition catalogue, Sascha Schneider, Visualising Ideas Through the Human Body, is extremely good, if you are able to find one online.

Exhibition: Open House Sunday: 27 September 2020; 11am - 6pm

Following last month’s Open House Weekend, Henry will be opening his home gallery again on Sunday 27 September for another Open House. With restrictions and rules getting clearer, we decided to see how we could make it work, and with advance bookings and limited numbers of people every hour, the Open House Weekend was a real success. Everyone was very respectful of social distancing and mask wearing, and we offer hand sanitizer throughout the gallery, so the whole experience was easy and enjoyable.

Henry will be showing works contained in his Summer 2020 Catalogue, as well as others from the collection. The collection spans many centuries and types of media, including paintings, drawings, prints and photography from the 17th Century to the present day.

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Due to the ongoing covid-19 situation, attendance is by appointment. To ensure safe social distancing, places are limited to 4 people per hour. Booking can be made online via the link below. Once the booking is made, you will receive a confirmation email. Please check your spam, if it does not arrive! If you have difficulties with booking online, do not hesitate to contact Henry. We hope to see you across the weekend.

Exhibition: Open House Weekend: 22 & 23 August 2020

It is with great pleasure that we can announce that Henry will be opening his home gallery again for an open house weekend on 22 & 23 August. Henry will be showing works contained in his Summer 2020 Catalogue, as well as others from the collection. The collection spans many centuries and types of media, including paintings, drawings, prints and photography from the 17th Century to the present day.

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Due to the ongoing covid-19 situation, attendance is by appointment. To ensure safe social distancing, places are limited to 4 people per hour. Booking can be made online via the link below. Once the booking is made, you will receive a confirmation email. Please check your spam, if it does not arrive! If you have difficulties with booking online, do not hesitate to contact Henry. We hope to see you across the weekend.

Collection Highlight: Peter de Francia (British 1921-2012)

(N.B. If you are reading this in your email feed, the piece reads better on the website. Just click the title and it will take you to the blog.)

Peter de Francia was a British artist, born in France in 1921. He grew up in Paris, studied first at the Brussels Academy, and then, after fleeing the German invasion and joining the British army during the war, at the Slade School of Art in London. For a brief but formative period he lived in post-war Italy, before returning to London in the late 1940s.

Renowned in Britain and Europe as an artist of great integrity, de Francia established his reputation in the 1950s with his distinctly powerful paintings and drawings, often influenced by social realism and as relevant today as they were half a century ago.

The Bombing of Sakiet, 1959, oil on canvas, Tate Gallery, London (on long term long from Tunisian Embassy).

Like many of his post-war contemporaries, de Francia used his art as a means of social commentary, although he did suggest that he only ever made two actual political paintings: The Bombing of Saskiet (in the Tate Modern collection) and African Prison (in Sheffield Museums collection), both from 1959.

African Prison, 1959, oil on canvas, Sheffield Museums Collection.

African Prison exposes the horror of man's treatment of his fellow man. The highly finished study for the painting in our collection, a pen and ink wash drawing, is exceptionally powerful whilst retaining a level of sensitivity found throughout de Francia’s work. The figures despite clearly living in desperate conditions, are bound together in their humanity and common cause. De Francia himself once reflected that he could convey more emotions in his drawings than his paintings.

Study for African Prison, 1959, pen and ink and wash on paper, 45cm x 63cm, (61cm x 83cm framed), Henry Miller Fine Art, £2,000

While some of de Francia’s subject matter has aligned him with the so-called 'Kitchen Sink' artists of 50s and 60s Britain, his work also explored other less gritty topics. In Picnic in the Quarry at Lacoste (in our collection), a group of workers in Provence take a break from their labours. De Francia beautifully captures their camaraderie and simple pleasures whilst sheltering from the sun, in this highly atmospheric picture. In 1957, he had bought a house in the village of Lacoste in Provence and used to spend his long summer vacations there, painting. (We would like to thank de Francia’s widow, Alix MacSweeney, for her assistance in cataloguing this picture.)

Picnic in the Quarry at Lacoste, 1958, oil on board, signed and dated (lower right), 44cm x 97cm (64cm x 120cm framed), Henry Miller Fine Art, £9,500

From 1972-1986, de Francia was a Professor of Painting at London’s Royal College of Art. During this time he commanded such loyalty and respect, that when in 1980 the newly appointed rector, Dickie Guyatt, tried to remove him from his post, the painting school rose up and passed a motion of no confidence in Guyatt and the administration, thereby remaining in position.

Man Carrying Child, 1962, charcoal on paper, Tate Collection.

In rightful recognition of his exceptional draftting abilities, in 2004, the Tate Collection acquired several of de Francia’s works from the 1950’s and 60’s. Dockers, (in our collection) features a group of men resting and smoking, and is a wonderful example of de Francia’s work in this period. As in the Tate drawings (see Man Carrying a Child), de Francia’s confident and expressive drafting realistically captures the lives of the Dockers, with empathy and sensitivity. It is also impossible to look at these works, or indeed any of his work, without feeling the respect and warmth that de Francia clearly had for the subjects in his pictures.

Dockers, 1960, charcoal on paper, signed and dated (lower left), 46cm x 58cm (54cm x 76cm framed), Henry Miller Fine Art, £2,000

De Francia, throughout his career, both as an artist and teacher, had a distinctly personal vision. “His work remained combative and brilliant. He was an agile draughtsman and beautiful colourist, but the clincher is the poignancy of his imagery even as it comments excoriatingly on human frailty…” (Michael McNay, The Guardian, 23 January 2012).  

Henry will be preparing a catalogue of new works shortly, which will be available to view online on the website. Throughout the summer, his home gallery space is open by appointment, where the three works by de Francia will be on view. Please do not hesitate to contact Henry should you require any further information about these works, or others in the collection.  

Collection Highlight: Contemporary Works

Depictions of the male form in art goes back centuries, as shown in our collection, which spans from the 17th Century to the present day.

Unsurprisingly, contemporary artists are still fascinated by the subject and are an important part of the collection. In this post, we highlight five artists, aged between 26 and 88, who, while part of a long tradition, create unique and personal work in the late 20th and 21st Century.

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Felipe Chavez, (Colombian b.1994), Boy, 2019, indian ink on paper, signed and dated (verso), 59cm x 84cm, framed, £1400

Felipe Chavez, Boy, (2019): Born in 1994, Chavez is a Colombian artist now based in London, who cites Egon Schiele and Francis Bacon as strong influences in his paintings. Working primarily in the medium of Indian Ink on paper, he often uses his own body to explore the male form and its relationship with sexuality and space as a gay man, constantly experimenting with the concept of the nude and of the self portrait.

Tom Merrifield, (British b.1932), Male Swimmer, 1990, ink and watercolour on paper, signed and titled (lower middle), 30cm x 24cm (50cm x 43cm framed), £950

Tom Merrifield, Male Swimmer, (1990): Originally from Australia, Merrifield is a London-based artist working from his studio in Hampstead. Born in 1932, he moved to the UK in 1956 where he had a successful career as a dancer before finally leaving the stage to focus on his art. An internationally acclaimed sculptor, he is most famous for his portrayals of dancers and athletes whom he always sketches and sculpts from life.

Ronald Bowen, (American b.1944), Jeune Homme nu Assis, 1981, coloured pencil on paper, 138cm x 107cm, framed, price on request

Ronald Bowen, Jeune Homme nu Assis, (1981): Born in Soth Carolina in 1944, Bowen moved to Paris in 1970 where he still lives and paints from his studio in Montmartre, overlooking the city’s rooftops. An artist of international renown, his works are mesmerizing, both in their qualities and technical ability. Bowen is known for his expertly rendered fragments of reality, inspired in part by the upsurge of the American Photorealist movement of the 1970s but even more deeply by a desire to apply the style and techniques of the Italian Renaissance painters to his own everyday environment. Something which is not readily apparent in reproduction, and needs to be emphasised in case missed, is this is a pencil drawing of epic proportions, measuring 137cm x 108cm.

Eileen Healy, (Irish), Male Nude, 1995, Charcoal on paper, signed and dated (lower right), 39cm x 36cm (50cm x 40cm in mount), unframed, £700

Eileen Healy, Male Nude, (1995): Healy is an award-winning Irish figurative artist working mainly in pastel and oil, and always from life at her studio in Cork. While she paints both men and women, her male nudes are often seen from the back or looking away from the viewer (as in the case of the sketches in the collection), capturing intimate moments and the sometimes hidden vulnerability of the masculine body. "Drawing from life is for me a way of life and the backbone of my work. It keeps my work alive."

Ian Cook (Scottish b.1951), Torso 7, 2018, acrylic on paper, signed (lower right), 78 cm x 55cm, framed, £1,950

Ian Cook, Torso 7, (2018): Born in Paisley in 1951, Cook graduated from Glasgow School of Art in 1972. Still based in Scotland, he has exhibited extensively across the UK and Europe ever since. After two travelling scholarships to Spain and Africa he focused primarily on indigenous subject matter. Many of his works are sourced from Latin American, African and European mythology and folklore. Cook’s work, especially with regards to the colour palette and mood of his large and colourful graphic muscular male nudes such as this one, is reminiscent of artists like Picasso, Matisse and Kandinsky as well as the models from 1950’s physique pictorial magazines.

Please do not hesitate to contact Henry should you have any queries about any of the pictures in the collection.

Catalogue: £500 or less

This month, Henry Miller Fine Art has compiled a catalogue of over 60 works in the collection, all of which are £500 or less, and include drawings, paintings, etchings, prints and photographs, spanning over 100 years of art history. Here’s a small selection to whet your appetite…

The full catalogue is available HERE

(N.B. If you are reading this in your email feed, the piece reads better on the website. Just click the title and it will take you to the blog.)

The price of all unframed works includes UK domestic shipping, with international postage at cost. Regrettably, for framed works, the additional cost of shipping will have to be charged, but again at cost. (Delivery in the London area may be possible for free.) All unframed works are displayed within mounts, unless specified otherwise.

French School, Academic Study, 19th Century, Red chalk on paper, 60cm x 48cm, (73cm x 52cm framed), £500

French School, Academic Study, 19th Century: Drawings and paintings of the nude were central to academic art training in France from the 16th century onwards. This red chalk drawing (and the others of the same ilk in the collection) would have be completed in one of the many art schools in Paris. Only after acquiring enough skill were artists permitted to draw a posed live model. Although this beautifully rendered study would not have meant to be sold and seen as a ‘works of art’ at the time, it can certainly be appreciated as such now.

Louis Jean-Baptiste Igout, (French 1837-1881), 16 Academic Studies, c.1870s, Albumen prints mounted on card, 21.5cm x 14cm (40cm x 30cm in mount), unframed, £450

Louis Jean-Baptiste Igout, (French 1837-1881), 16 Academic Studies, c.1870s: With the arrival of photography, it didn’t take long for the nude to be a regular subject of choice for Victorian amateurs, but while there certainly was a market for early erotic and pornographic images, these academic studies of male nudes would have been taken to be sold as an artist’s teaching aid for life drawing classes. The classical poses are identical to those created by life models from the 16th century onwards.

Eric Kahn, (German 1904-1979), Figure Study, 1955, Sanguine (red chalk) on paper, 38cm x 24cm (50cm x 40cm in mount), unframed, £500

Eric Kahn, (German 1904-1979), Figure Study, 1955: Kahn was a German Expressionist painter whose career was cut short by the rise of Nazism and his imprisonment at Welzheim concentration camp. After the war, he moved to England where he was able to continue drawing and painting, exhibiting extensively throughout his life. As one of the forgotten generation of Jewish German artists, much of his early work has been lost, although the Berardo Collection in Portugal has a large selection of Kahn’s post-war work. He was especially productive in the 1950’s when he exhibited regularly in London and abroad, and this is very representative of his work of that period.

Patrick Sarfati, (French b.1958), In Memory of James Dean, 1982, Silver print, 30cm x 20cm (50cm x 40cm in mount), unframed, £500.

Patrick Sarfati, (French b.1958), In Memory of James Dean, 1982: Born in 1958, Sarfati started taking photographs in his early twenties and soon became the go-to photographer in 1980’s Paris, working with Keith Haring, Grace Jones and Jean-Paul Gaultier amongst others. During that time, he also regularly modelled for fellow artists Pierre et Gilles. An homage to the 1950’s and Jean Genet, this picture of a young and sultry sailor takes its title from the model’s tattoo and is reminiscent of Fassbinder’s film Querelle de Brest with Brad Davies in the title role which was released that year.

Rustam Khamdamov, (Usbekistan b.1944), Seated Male Figure, 1994, Pencil on paper, signed and dated ‘94’ (lower left), 31cm x 22cm (50cm x 40cm in mount), unframed., £500

Rustam Khamdamov, (Uzbekistan b.1944), Seated Male Figure, 1994: Born in 1944, Khamdamov is an acclaimed Russian artist as well as an award-winning film maker who has been called a legend in his home country for being the first living artist to have his work added to the Hermitage’s Gallery of Modern Art collection. This beautiful drawing is part of a series of seated and standing male figures which all have a strong art-deco feel about them while also being reminiscent of Andy Warhol’s homo-erotic works from the 1950’s. There is something both very timeless and modern about them, sexy without being overtly erotic.

Please contact Henry by phone or email, should you have any queries about any of the works in the collection. High resolutions images of all the works can be provided upon request.

Collection Highlight: Yves Paradis (French, b.1955), by Olivier Joly

With all exhibitions and art fairs in London (and worldwide) now cancelled for the foreseeable future, access to art is understandably limited. As it is not possible for you to come to me, I have decided to come to you and present a series of short pieces highlighting selected pictures from my collection. This is the sixth in the series.

I hope that by providing extended information about certain works, you can become acquainted with artists you may not know, or if you are already familiar with them, develop a further understanding of particular works. In the very least, it will hopefully distract you from the news for 5 mins!

(N.B. If you are reading this in your email feed, the piece reads better on my website. Just click the title and it will take you to my blog.)

Hommage á Constantin Cavafy, 1986.

Yves Paradis is a French photographer whose work was almost synonymous with gay imagery throughout the 1980’s, appearing regularly on the pages of Europe’s most popular gay magazines. His soft and tender black and white photographs captured a kind of romanticised vision of gay life, away from the reality and excitements of the scene, making them as timeless as they are very much of their time.

Born in Brittany in 1955, Paradis grew up in rural France where, at the age of thirteen, one of his teachers introduced him to photography, which, for someone who struggled with writing, became a life line. His father, a farmer, quickly realised how important it was for him and set up a studio and dark room in their attic so he could experiment and develop his own pictures.

Sur la Route Delphes, 1984.

Little did he know that it would give his son the opportunity to explore his burgeoning homosexuality, taking naked photographs of himself and his then boyfriend. As a gay teenage boy in the late 1960’s Paradis soon realised that photography was going to be the only way for him to approach – and interest – the boys he fancied at school. He once said that he started taking photographs to recapture time and possess the images of boys that were already disturbing him.

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Images below: Le Dormeur du Val, 1993; What do I see?, 1984.

While his first photographs were of handsome friends on holiday and army mates during national service, he spent the 1970’s working as a journalist and focusing on reportage style photography. And despite still experimenting with homo-erotic compositions during that time, he still thought of art photography as a hobby rather than a career. 

As a young and engaged gay activist, he welcomed the arrival of Gai Pied, France’s first mainstream gay magazine, in 1979. He soon sent them a series of photographs he took of two soldiers kissing on an army tank, which they loved and published as part of a big spread. From that moment on, Paradis worked regularly with them as well as other European gay publications for over a decade, creating some of the most iconic images of the gay 1980’s.

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Images below: Sur le Pont des Arts à Paris, 1986; Le Jeune Homme aux Pied Nus, 1986.

In contrast with a lot of fantasy and fetishist gay photography of the time though, his pictures usually featured young men of the ‘boy-next-door’ and ‘bit-of-rough’ types, definitely sexy but not physically perfect, making them more realistic as well as more romantic.

Paradis did not embrace the gay scene of bars and clubs and while he sometimes found willing models via ads in the gay press, he used to meet most of them randomly on the streets of Paris. Many were straight boys – or so they told him – but he still managed to convince them, not always easily, to get naked for him in front of the camera.

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Images below: Le Garçon qui Attend, 1992; Nus dans la Grenier, 1985.

In 1991, Aubrey Walter published ‘Joie de Vivre’, a collection of his photographs, now sadly out of print, introducing Paradis’ work to a British audience. And while he retired from photography soon after the book’s publication, his work is being re-discovered by a new generation of millennials, potentially craving a sense of innocence and nostalgia currently missing from their overly self conscious and insta-friendly world.

Henry Miller Fine Art has a selection of Yves Paradis available for sale. For details, contact Henry Miller and click the link HERE