£13,000 Raised at Fine Art Auction
Arts Alive celebrated its 20th Anniversary with a Fine Art Auction at The Angel Hotel, Abergavenny on Friday, 6 March 2009. The Auction saw the works of some of Britain’s finest artists go under the hammer raising £13,000 for Arts Alive
Held in collaboration with The Art Shop in Abergavenny, the Arts Alive team invited both contemporary artists living in Wales as well as artists with recognised Welsh collections, to contribute works from their precious collections. The result was a sumptuous mix of paintings, sculptures, drawings and jewellery from prestigious artists including John Macfarlane, Michael Strang, Clive Hicks-Jenkins, Sarah Thwaites, Kumar Saraff, Tessa Waite, Niel Bally, Lorraine Bewsey, Glenys Cour, Shan Egerton, Robert Macdonald, Catharine Marr-Johnson and Tim Rossiter amongst others.
Over 150 guests at the auction enjoyed a lively evening in the beautiful Angel Ballroom with music, wine and tapas. Former Arts Alive tutor and professional artist Harry Iles, who now heads the Wales Charity Commission, spoke with passion and enthusiasm about Arts Alive’s work over the past 20 years and asked guests to dig deep to support our work. The response was encouraging: Auctioneer Jeremy Rye ran the auction at a lively pace and sold 44 works for nearly £18,000 in a little over an hour.
Commenting on the auction, Arts Alive’s director Justine Wheatley said: The evening was a huge success and we are delighted to have raised so much money for Arts Alive in this, our 20th anniversary year to help us continue our work and create access to arts for all.
