Live Bid Online ™

Auction 357 - Australian Art

Session 1
Session Starts:
Tuesday 15 December 17:00:00 PM EST 2009
lots (1 - 39)

Dear Clients and Friends,

With the arrival of December we are pleased to bring you this full colour fine art catalogue, the first of a series of auctions featuring some wonderful collections.

Our auctions this month include our traditional sporting memorabilia, stamps, coins and banknotes and general memorabilia. But the range is extended with our catalogues this month featuring toys and model aeroplanes, railway memorabilia and a selection of ceramics. All of these catalogues can be accessed from our website at www.leski.com.au, but if you would like a printed copy, please let us know.

Watercolours from the collection of the late Dr George Bearham

Within this catalogue, Leski Auctions is pleased to offer a lovely group of watercolours from the collection of the late Dr George Bearham (1899 – 1994) of Melbourne. Bearham, a Collins Street gynaecologist and obstetrician, started collecting watercolours in the late 1940s. Like many professional men of his generation, Bearham had extensive intellectual interests outside his work and particularly loved Australian landscape paintings. He was very proud of his collection.

Watercolour paintings were, for Bearham, a source of great pleasure and this in turn enabled him to develop friendships with the Melbourne art dealers and galleries from whom he made his purchases over a period of 25 years. Bearham was a man of many interests and apart from his successful medical career he served as a lay Canon at St Paul’s Cathedral in Melbourne.

Dr Bearham’s preference for watercolours derived from his admiration for the technique itself. His daughter recalls that it was the softness and subtle luminosity of watercolours that appealed most to him. The few oils to be found in the collection also illustrate a subtlety not usually associated with this medium. In his lifetime, Dr Bearham gathered a modest yet representative collection of some of the best Australian exponents of the art of watercolour. The landscapes by Penleigh Boyd, Harold Herbert and Hans Heysen were among his most prized possessions. The collection forms a time-capsule of taste, dating from a period when traditional landscapes and still life paintings were an essential part of serious art collecting.

We are delighted to offer this “fresh to the market” group for your enjoyment and consideration.

Charles Leski & Peter Struthers

Collectibles
Paintings & Artworks 1-39