Original railway art sold at railwayana auctions in 2020

 Only original paintings depicting railways in Britain and sold at the main railwayana auction houses during 2020 are added below, namely at GCRA, GNRA, GWRA, Railwayana Auctions UK Ltd and Talisman RA. The auction year’s live events have been severely disrupted by the pandemic, but all the auction houses have shown creditable ingenuity in adapting to challenging circumstances, by organising alternative online sales in a variety of formats. Results do not include general auction houses that hold occasional railwayana auctions, nor those that have a limited railwayana section within a mixed sale. Only lots containing paintings advertised in auction catalogues and listed as sold on the day are included. It is highly likely, of course, that railway paintings will also have changed hands in fine art and other sales during the same period. All of the information from which this summary has been taken has been available on the auction houses’ own websites. Railway paintings continue to make a notable contribution to railwayana auctions and examples of original artwork provide popular catalogue cover illustrations for many such auction events. The paintings of a relatively small group of leading railway artists continue to attract considerably more interest than the majority of the pictures brought to auction, which then tend to sell comparatively cheaply. 

1. The number of lots of original railway paintings sold at railwayana auctions rose from 2011 to 2016 and has dropped since then: 2011 - 32, 2012 - 41, 2013 - 61, 2014 - 88, 2015 - 105, 2016 - 136, 2017 - 81, 2018 - 66, 2019 - 87, 2020 - 70. 

2. The number of railway artists whose work was sold at the same auctions rose from 2011 to 2016 but has also been lower since then: 2011 - 25, 2012 - 20, 2013 - 27, 2014 - 34, 2015 - 42, 2016 - 48, 2017 - 31, 2018 - 25, 2019 - 25, 2020 - 33. 

3. Unsurprisingly, the number of railwayana auction events that sold railway paintings also rose from 2011 until 2016 and has fallen since then: 2011 - 7, 2012 - 10, 2013 - 13, 2014 - 19, 2015 - 18, 2016 - 22, 2017 - 18, 2018 - 14, 2019 - 16, 2020 - 16.  

4. In 2020, seven paintings by four different artists reached or surpassed a £1,000 hammer price at railwayana auctions. Over the last ten-years, work by Don Breckon [17] and Barry G. Price [13] has been the most successful in this category. During the last decade, the number of such paintings sold at these venues each year and the artists concerned were: 

2011 - 3 paintings - by Heiron [2], Broom,

2012 - 3 paintings - by Bottomley, Hawkins, Broom,

2013 - 8 paintings - by Broom [2], Breckon [2], Heiron, Root, Price, Freeman,

2014 - 7 paintings - by Root [3], Elford, Breckon, Freeman, Hawkins,

2015 - 11 paintings - by Breckon [3], Hawkins [2], Root [2], Beech, Ellis, Elford, Price.

2016 - 13 paintings - by Breckon [4], Price [3], Hawkins [2], Freeman, Root, Broom,

                                  Greene,

2017 - 7 paintings - by Freeman [2], Price [2], Broom, Root, Breckon,

2018 - 9 paintings - by Hawkins [4], Breckon [2], Price [2], Root,

2019 - 9 paintings - by Breckon [4], Broom, Cuneo, P. O. Jones, Root,

2020 - 7 paintings - by Price [4], Freeman, P. O. Jones, Shelbourne,