The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists - Walter Sickert, David Bomberg, L.S. Lowry, Stanley Spencer and Francis Bacon & Lucien Freud. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University of Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction art sales results from 1990 to the time of the study. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work.

LONG LISTED FOR THE WILLIAM MB BERGER PRIZE FOR BRITISH ART HISTORY 2022. A major survey of Dame Laura Knight, first female Royal Academician and popular British artist of the 20th century. Laura Knight (1877-1970) was one of the most famous and popular English artists of the twentieth century. She was the first woman to have a solo exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts, in 1965. In the following decades her realist style of painting fell out of fashion and her work become largely overlooked. A new generation has rediscovered her work, finding a contemporary resonance in her depictions of women at work, of people from marginalized communities and her contributions as a war artist. This beautifully illustrated book, which accompanies a major exhibition at MK Gallery, provides an overview of Knight's illustrious career: from her training at Nottingham Art School at the age of 13 and her time in North Yorkshire and Cornwall, to her visits to traveller communities and a segregated American hospital. It also features her circus, ballet and theatre scenes, paintings of women during the war and her late paintings of nature. The selection of over 160 works combines celebrated paintings with less known graphic and design works, including ceramics, jewellery and costumes that reflect the artist's enduring interest in the everyday activities of people from all walks of life.

The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University of Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction art sales results from 1990 to the time of the study. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work. This publication of the Nobile Index Series, written by Sophie Hatchwell, academic at Bristol University, focuses on the sales history of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, two titans of modern art. Both controversial, revered, and celebrated in their lifetime, this publication will explore how their work has fared at auctions since 1990. Comparing the fortunes of both, Sophie Hatchwell examines how genres, media, significant sales and exhibitions, and their deaths have impacted upon the value of their work individually. The publication comes in two sections - an introduction, results and analysis, and a booklet insert of appendices. This edition on Bacon and Freud marks the fifth and final publication of the Nobile Index series. To celebrate its release, a commemorative edition comprising all five publications, on Sickert, Bomberg, Lowry, Spencer, and Bacon and Freud will be produced.

The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University of Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction art sales results from 1990 to the time of the study. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work. This publication of the Nobile Index Series, written by Sophie Hatchwell, academic at Bristol University, focuses on the sales history of Sir Stanley Spencer from 1990-2015. Stanley Spencer, arguably one of the greatest British artists of the twentieth-century, is also renowned for his chequered sales history and money struggles. This rigorous study into the prices his work now commands at auctions demonstrates the significance of major sales over the past twenty-five years and the increasing value the market place supon Spencer's paintings. Evaluating general market trends, genres and media amongst other factors, Sophie Hatchwell's investigation provides an invaluable source of information on Stanley Spencer as an artist and the legacy and future of his work within the art market. The publication comes in two sections - an introduction by renowned Spencer specialist Professor Paul Gough, results and analysis, and a booklet insert of appendices.

This book explores how Edwardian art writing shaped and narrated embodied, performative forms of aesthetic spectatorship. It argues that we need to expand the range of texts we think of as art writing, and features a diverse array of critical and fictional works, often including texts that are otherwise absent from art-historical study. Multi-disciplinary in scope, this book proposes a methodology for analyzing the aesthetic encounter within and through art writing, adapting and reworking a form of phenomenological-semiotic analysis found conventionally in performance studies. It focuses on moments where theories of spectatorship meet practice, moving between the varied spaces of Edwardian art viewing, from the critical text, to the lecture hall, the West End theatre and gallery, middle-class home, and fictional novel. It contributes to a rethinking of Edwardian culture by exploring the intriguing heterogeneity and self-consciousness of viewing practices in a period more commonly associated with the emergence of formalism.