Kitchen Sink artist's portrait up for auction
Mark Knopfler album artist’s painting to be sold on Tyneside. Tony Henderson reports.
A painting, by an artist who provided the cover for an album by North East legendary guitarist and songwriter Mark Knopfler, will be sold by auction on Tyneside.
John Randall Bratby was the celebrated founder of the Kitchen Sink Realism style that defined the British art scene in the late 1950s.
This was a movement which focused on everyday objects, such as kitchen utensils, rubbish bins, beer bottles, bathrooms.
A portion of Bratby's painting Four Lambrettas is featured on the cover of the Dire Straits frontman’s 2007 solo album Kill to Get Crimson.
Bratby mixed with celebrities and performers, with one of the collectors of his work. Paul McCartney, sitting for him in 1967, which produced three portraits.
The artist’s portrait of Sir Michael Caine sold for £25,000 at Bonhams in 2022.
Now Newcastle auctioneers Anderson & Garland will sell a Bratby portrait of Irish novelist and playwright William Trevor Cox, signed by the artist, with an estimate of between £1,000 and £2,000 and which will highlight the Modern Art & Design Auction on September 25.
The vendor said: “For over two decades, our father cherished this John Bratby painting, which he purchased.
“Our father collected several works from him, primarily portraits, and today each of his three daughters proudly holds at least one Bratby in their personal collections.”
A spokesman for the auction house said: “The portrait of William Trevor, one of the most respected short story writers of the modern era, represents a unique opportunity for collectors to acquire a piece of art and literary history.”
Kitchen Sink Realism has been considered an aspect of John Osborne’s 'Angry Young Men movement, with Bratby, who died in 1992, often painting with bright colours, capturing family daily life.