LONDON.- Harry Moore-Gwyn has brought his intellectual vigour and well-developed eye to the picture auctions at Blythe Road since July 2014. Buying from the auction does not require a ready fortune, £50 may pay for a good but small watercolour from the circle of Paul Sandby.

An established dealer and curator with a focus on Modern British art, Harry catalogues pictures from all epochs, discovering new artists on the way. He is a keen guide to collectors; offering advice at the low and high end of the art market.

Highlights from his auction of over 200 lots, include a collection of works by Jonas Plosky consigned directly from the artist’s family as well as pictures by Walter Sickert, Sir Stanley Spencer, Oliver Messel, James Isherwood, Charles Cundall, Edward Ardizzone, Henri Hayden, James-Jacques-Joseph Tissot and Henri-Joseph Harpignies.

Further highlights will include a collection of works associated with the Arthur William Acland Hood family and Mackinnon Clan, as well as a collection of rare political caricatures by James Gillray.

Among the 20th century paintings are a collection of works by the highly individual artist Jonas Plosky. Largely unknown, apart from several strong prices at auction, Plosky’s world expands beyond the streets of his own north London, into the industrial-coloured blacks and greys of the Welsh and Cornish landscape and the English coast.

Plosky studied at Hornsey College of Art before leaving to become a designer and illustrator. He exhibited frequently at the Royal Academy and the Royal Society of British Artists and his work can be found in the permanent collections of Glasgow Art Gallery, the National Library of Wales and the University of Portland, Maine, USA.

Norman Adams, the former professor of painting in the Royal Academy Schools, always has a spiritual intensity underlying his paintings. His work continued a rich tradition of romantic visionary painting with close links to Blake and Turner.

In the late 1940's Alfred Daniels studied at the Royal College of Art, London. As a young graduate he visited Florence, Venice, Ravenna and Siena where he was particularly drawn to the Italian Primitives. One of his early achievements was completing the award winning murals (1952-54) at Hammersmith Town Hall, depicting life on the Thames.

An example of his early painting compared to the work of the American artist Ben Shahn, was included in a recent survey of 1950's British paintings at the Barbican Centre, London. He was elected a member of The Royal Watercolour Society in 1973, The Royal Society of British Artists in 1983, and it’s Keeper in 1991.

Among the earlier 20th century works there are two paintings by the British Impressionist painter Herbert F. Royle including this Yorkshire scene in snow.

Another artist of a similar period whose works are also full of light and movement is Charles Cundall. Cundall studied at the Royal College of Art and the Slade. He became noted for his panoramic pictures, including Bank Holiday Brighton in the Tate Gallery. He was a member of NEAC, RP, RWS and was elected RA while he was an Official War Artist in World War II. A new exhibition ‘Charles Cundall - A Working Method’ at the Young Gallery in Salisbury, opens from 12th March – 21st April.

Included in the 18th and 19th century works is a watercolour by George Cattermole, a talented illustrator and painter. As a teenager he was an illustrator for John Britton’s ‘Cathedral Antiquities of England’ and his interest in medieval buildings did not cease there; many of his paintings depict scenes in or outside of finely executed edifices of the Middle Ages. He did the illustrations for his brother, the Rev R Cattermole’s, Historical Annuals on the Civil War, and also collaborated on illustrations for his friend Charles Dickens’ ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’ and ‘Barnaby Rudge.’ He was a member of the Royal Watercolour Society and at the Paris Exhibition of 1855, the artist received one of the five first-class gold medals awarded to British painters. Scenes of medieval monastic life interested Cattermole, and the Tate have some other examples of this subject in their collection.

A pair of paintings of Trinity College and the Wren library by Richard Bankes Harraden are another highlight in this category.

Drawings include a work by Sir Stanley Spencer, pictured right, of his first wife Hilda Carline, with whom he had two daughters. Hilda features here as the central figure around whom he and the family revolve. This drawing was completed whilst Spencer was still married to Hilda, and was formally in the collection of Hilda’s brother, the artist Richard Carline.

For a few months in 1890, Walter Sickert produced character sketches, reviews and art criticism for a periodical called ‘The Whirlwind’. Portrait vignettes, like the present work on the left, were drawn to break up the text within the periodical’s columns and remain rare examples of some of Sickert’s only graphic work in this vein. John Addison, depicted, was a well-known Liberal MP of the period.

Sickert was an admirer of Walter Greaves, whose etching features among the etchings, lithographs and prints in the auction, entitled ‘The Cremorne Gardens’ from 1870. Like Sickert, Greaves was a disciple of Whistler (as well as being his boatman on the River Thames) but unlike Sickert, had little recognition during his lifetime. Also included in this category is ‘Le Croquet (Wentworth 37)’ by James Jacques Joseph Tissot.