Forgotten art collection sells for £40k at auction in Kent

A collection of artwork that had been left in the basement of County Hall in Maidstone, Kent, has sold for about £40,000 at auction.

The artwork included about 350 lithographs, linocuts, screen prints, etchings, wood cuts and engravings depicting Dover, Tenterden, Maidstone, Ivychurch, Canterbury and Sepham Heath, near Sevenoaks.

Most of the art was purchased 40 years ago as part of the Kent Visual Arts Loan Scheme (KVALS), designed to be lent to schools and work places, Kent County Council (KCC) said.

A total of 86 of the 93 listings from the collection were sold.

The KVALS scheme aimed to offer the opportunity for people to experience and benefit from art on a daily basis, when otherwise that might not have been a possibility, the council said.

The scheme has not run for more than 10 years, and the artwork had been in storage since that time.

Prior to the auction, Paul Webb, KCC’s cabinet member for community and regulatory services, said the reason for selling the art was a practical one, with the closure of the basement store where the art works were kept.

The council said the total proceeds from the sale of the artworks was between between £30,000 and £40,000.

“Prices for individual pieces ranged from £100 to £3,000, with two of the Edward Bawden lithograph prints of Covent Garden and Smithfield Markets from 1967 each selling for the top price,” a KCC spokesperson said.

“An etching, Birds by Julian Trevelyan, and some Kent landscapes featuring Tenterden and Goudhurst by Robert Tavener also exceeded their estimated values.”

The council also said that the proceeds from the auction were not ringfenced for any particular area.