Works by leading names in British Modernism from the collection of art historian and founder of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Sir Herbert Read, will be offered for sale at Bonhams Modern British and Irish Art on Wednesday 22 November in London. 

Yorkshire born Read was a towering figure in the story of British art in the mid-20th century, and a tireless champion of emerging artists struggling to make their mark against prevailing orthodoxies.  In gratitude for Read’s support, many artists gave him works as tokens of their appreciation. These hung on the walls of the Queen Anne rectory in Stonegrave that Read bought in 1949. The house, a few miles from his birthplace in Muscoates near Nunnington, was Read’s home for the rest of his life.

As Herbert’s son, the celebrated novelist, Piers Paul Read, writing in the Autumn 2017 edition of Bonhams Magazine, recalls, “There were around a hundred works in his collection…almost all of it given to my father by artist whom he had encouraged and defended at a time when modern are was widely despised.”

Three of these works, eventually inherited by the Reads’ youngest son Benedict, feature in Bonhams November’s Modern British and Irish Art sale and two will be on view at Bonhams Leeds office, together with an important early work of 1958 by the pioneering Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama and a collage construction by the German artist Kurt Schwitters.

1936 by Ben Nicholson (1894-1982), estimated at £150,000-200,000, was a Christmas gift to Read and his wife, Margaret known as ‘Ludo’. In 1933, Read had left his first wife and son and eloped with Margaret, a fellow lecturer at the University of Edinburgh. They moved to one of the Mall Studios in Hampstead belonging to Nicholson and Barbara Hepworth. (The two artists were later to marry). The dedication on the back of 1936 – a gouache on card - reads 'Ben Nicholson 1936/gouache/version 3/12 hand painted by B.N./ for Herbert + Ludo Xmas 1938/Nicholson/Mall Studios/Park hill Rd/NW3 London.'

The Peacock Path by Paul Nash (1889-1948) entered the Read collection via a bequest in 1947 to the then infant Benedict. It is estimated at £70,000-100,000.

Bonhams Director of Modern British and Irish Art, Matthew Bradbury said: “It is impossible to imagine British art and art history without the contribution of Herbert Read. Against the hostility of the art establishment, he stood up for the new and distinctive talents that emerged in the 1930s and ‘40s and gave them a voice. The artists he encouraged are among the greatest creative minds of the 20th century, and it is a privilege to be entrusted with works that meant so much personally to Herbert and Ludo Read, and which have such public significance.” 

In 2018, Bonhams will be offering two other works from the Read Collection: Für Herbert Read by Kurt Schwitters (1887-1948), executed in 1944, and a piece by the Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama (b1929).

Herbert Read (1893-1968) was an art historian and poet who wrote numerous influential books on art. A champion of the Avant Garde, Read promoted the work of leading modern artists from Britain and abroad, and was a co-founder of the Institute of Contemporary Art. His strong interest in art education and the value of children’s creativity transformed the way art was taught.

Ben Read (1945-2016), the youngest son of Herbert Read, was an art historian who specialized in 19th and 20th century Art. He was an acknowledged expert on Victorian sculpture, about which he wrote extensively, and senior lecturer in Art History at Leeds University from 1990 until his retirement in 2010.