Tuke paintings fetch £55K (From York Press)
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Henry Scott Tuke paintings fetch £55K
10:33am Friday 15th July 2011 in News
Back of a Boy Bather painting
TWO paintings by York-born artist Henry Scott Tuke have sold at auction for more than £55,000.
The Tuke artworks sold at Bonhams, as part of a sale of 19th century art.
Both depict a young man seen from behind, with the sea in the background.
The first, titled Back of a Boy Bather smashed its pre-sale estimate of £5,000-7,000 to sell for £25,200.
The second, Beach Study, is one of the last paintings Tuke exhibited at The Royal Academy before he died in March 1929, and it shows a semi-clad male figure by the sea leaning on rocks and bathed in Cornish sunlight.
It sold for £30,000.
The subject is one of Tuke's most loyal models, Charlie Mitchell (1885 - 1957).
Tuke was born in York, but began painting the nude outdoors as a professional artist in 1886, soon after he moved to Falmouth in Cornwall. He later became part of the Newlyn School of painters.
