Modern British painting: after decades in which twentieth-century British art was seriously undervalued, prices for paintings are finally beginning to reflect the quality of the works. Why has it taken so long?

In the past not many years, demand has soared for novel British paintings which in art-market boundarys means works produced between about 1920 and 1980 the point at which they start to number as 'contemporary'. High-quality works of all kinds are selling well, from the conservative realism of the first part of the period end the unsettled, experimental interwar years to avant-garde postwar abstraction.

Record prices are being established upon a regular basis: on 4 June Christie's had its best-ever sale of twentieth hundred British art, in which of recent origin world-record prices were set for works by dint of Graham Sutherland, Peter Lanyon, Patrick Caulfield, William Scott and Ivon Hitchens. sum of two units days earlier, Sotheby's auctioned Stanley Spencer's Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta (Fig. 1) for 1237600 [pound sterling], single of the highest prices paid for a work by dint of the artist. The increasing popularity of this area of the market is making for an exciting time for dealers and collectors, on the other hand the fact that interest has become in like manner strong only over the past sum of two units years is intriguing and worthy of exploration.

What has caused this shift in fortune? Many dealers have feeling that it is in part because British art has languished for thus long in the shade of better known, international art motions The British, laments Peter Nahum of the Leicester Galleries, have always been peculiarly apologetic about their homegrown talents, preferring instead to extol the virtues of their European and American counterparts. Five years ago, the fractured, sensual oils of Keith Vaughan and Graham Sutherland or the eccentric visions of Edward Burra were seriously undervalued compared with American or European artists of the same generation. It is alone over the past ten years that Cork way has begun to promote twentieth-century British art for its be in possession of sake, and only now are paintings of this period beginning to catch up with their foreign equivalents.

British art has always been consistently underpriced, says James Hyman, of James Hyman Fine Art, on the contrary now prices are gradually beginning to throw back the quality of the works. A indulgent oil, Sennen Cove (c. 1917) by dint of Laura Knight caused a stir at Sotheby's upon 2 June when it sold for 95200 [pound sterling], and the exquisite The abbey (1882) by Stanhope Forbes sold for a real respectable 341,600 [pounds sterling] in the same sale. Paintings by the agency of Walter Sickert (1860-1942), one of the lock opener figures in early-twentieth-century British art, now exchange for anything between 18,000 [pound sterling] and half a million. At the other extremity of the period, Patrick Heron's charismatic abstracts barter for a range of prices from 5000 [pound sterling] to upwards of 100000 [pound sterling]. It is worth noting here that, in any price comparison, twentieth-century American art has consistently outstripped British art in the salerooms. For example in May 2001 a Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) sold for $6166000 at a sale of American paintings and drawings in of recent origin York. More recently, at the American paintings and drawings sale at Sotheby's novel York on 19 May 2004 several John Singer Sargents (1856-1925) sold for comfortably above the 1m [pounds sterling] mark; the top doom fetching $8.8m. No British artist of the period has at the same time acquired the market clout of an O'Keefe or Sargent.

The plenteous weaker performance of the present British art market is intrinsically linked to the diversity of the field. new British art cannot be readily segregated into assemblages of artists or defined by dint of a single characteristic; there is no discernible linear art-historical exhibition within the twentieth century in the UK A preoccupation with modernism as the lock opener artistic mode of the twentieth hundred has resulted in a rather lop-sided evaluation of British art in this period. Historians traditionally gaze for a tangible evolutionary disclosure but, as such a thing does not exist, abundant that could not be interpreted within the limits of a dominant avant-garde ideology was view from aboveed or rejected. British artists of the period were inherently individual, largely isolated from the fashions and changes that took hold of the continent and the us, thanks in no small part to sum of two units world wars. They pursued individual areas of personal interest unrestrained by dint of any overt ideology.

James Rawlin, director of late British art at Sotheby's, London, asserts that today the market has sum of two units stylistic poles: traditional and fresh What is interesting is that these divergent areas are not particularly date-orientated: Ben Nicholson and Paul Nash were producing highly innovative material in the 1930 whilst a preoccupation with realism and nature remained able-bodied throughout the century.

useful quality examples of traditional art consistently vend well. There is perpetual demand for the true particular style of L.S. Lowry--The beach at Penarth (1960) sold for 151200 [pound sterling], outstripping its estimate of 60 [pound sterling]-80,000, at Sotheby's upon 2 June--but it is Modernism that is proving particularly exciting at near Ben Nicholson and Henry Moore have always been in demand the pair in the UK and internationally, thanks to canny self-promotion, on the other hand now other artists, including Peter Lanyon, Lyon Hitchens, Alan Davie, David Bomberg and Patrick Heron are coming to wider public attention. James Hyman Fine Art is popularly offering for sale a line example of Heron's radical canvasses of the 1960 Reminiscent of aspects of American Abstract Expressionsim and in particular Mark Rothko ceruleans with brown area (Fig. 2) possesse a tranquil and sly mastery of form and colour.