Anna Katrina Zinkeisen's All the Colours of the Rainbow sold for £19,230 - a new global auction record – at Chorley’s Modern Art and Design sale this week. Intense bidding on six phone lines, in the saleroom and online saw the unique oil on canvas sail past its original estimate. A rare painting of a male sitter by Dod Procter also sparked huge interest soaring to 7 times its original estimate of £6,000-8,000 with the hammer finally going down at £64,100.
Anna Katrina Zinkeisen's All the Colours of the Rainbow sold for £19,230 - a new global auction record – at Chorley’s Modern Art and Design sale this week. Intense bidding on six phone lines, in the saleroom and online saw the unique oil on canvas sail past its original estimate of £1,000-1,500. A rare painting of a male sitter by Dod Procter also sparked huge interest at the Cotswold-based auctioneers, soaring to 7 times its original estimate of £6,000-8,000 with the hammer finally going down at £64,100.
Chorley’s auctioneer and director Thomas Jenner-Fust said: “We were delighted to see such strong interest in these pioneering artists and it was a particular pleasure to see a new worldwide record being set for a work by Anna Zinkeisen. Results like these suggest that bold and market-fresh works by hitherto-neglected British women modernists are enjoying a healthy resurgence, and we hope that records continue to be broken in future.”
Anna Zinkeisen’s All the Colours of the Rainbow – a unique oil on canvas commissioned by Imperial Chemical Industries in 1942 - was originally estimated cautiously at £1,000-1,500 but garnered significant attention in the lead up to the sale. A flurry of pre-emptive online bidding and then intense bidding from 6 phone lines and in the saleroom saw it sell for £19,230* - a new worldwide auction record. The dreamlike painting, showing a woman sewing a quilt against a bucolic, ethereal backdrop attracted bidders with its arresting composition and echoes of International Surrealism. Its composition and unusual subject matter make it unique among Zinkeisen’s greater body of work, perhaps accounting for its record-breaking hammer price.
Dod Procter’s striking modernist portraits of female sitters are currently on the rise on the UK art market, with impressive results recorded in London and around the country recently. The example at Chorley’s was unusual in depicting a male sitter – a genuine rarity in Procter’s portraiture. It shows a young man called Lancelot Simpson, whose dates suggest that the work was produced in the mid 1920s, making it an early piece – another draw for collectors of Procter’s work. Both of these factors, taken along with the subject’s intriguingly androgynous appearance, contributed to some extremely competitive bidding on the day. Carrying a conservative estimate of £6,000-8,000, the portrait skyrocketed after a few minutes of bidding. It was finally knocked down at a noteworthy £64,100*.
Chorley’s are currently accepting entries for their next Modern Art and Design sale in May 2025.
Antique Collecting Magazine | Anna Zinkeisen painting sets world record
