Original railway art sold at railwayana auctions in 2023

This account covers the sale of original paintings of Britain’s railways at the main railwayana auctions up to the end of 2023. Other auction house and fine art sales that may also have included railway paintings are not listed. Of the main railwayana auction houses that attracted most advertised artwork lots in 2023, GWRA, GCRA and GNRA, remained as online sales, continuing the pattern established during the restrictions associated with Covid. Talisman in Nottinghamshire have bucked the trend, successfully returning to live events at the Newark Showground. The operators will have saved on outgoings by not running live events, but the theatre of the live auction is impossible to recreate via a computer monitor.

The number of original railway paintings sold at railwayana auctions rose steadily from 32 in 2011 to 144 in 2021, but has fallen back since then to 71 by 2023. The number of railway artists represented followed a similar pattern, up from 25 in 2011 to 59 in 2021 and then down to 32 in 2023. In 2023, ten paintings by six different artists reached or surpassed a £1,000 hammer price at railwayana auctions. The number of paintings sold in this way since 2011 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,

2021 - 11 paintings, by Breckon [3], Price [3], Hawkins [2], Fearnley, Broom, Freeman,

2022 - 9 paintings by Breckon [5], Root [2], Price [2],

2023 - 10 paintings by Breckon [5], Fearnley, Root, Heiron, Hammonds, Marshall,

The work of a relatively small group of favoured contemporary railway artists continues to sell at well above the rates achieved more generally. Over the last thirteen years, works by Don Breckon [30], Barry G. Price [18], Malcolm Root [13], Philip D. Hawkins [12], Gerald Broom [8] and Barry Freeman [7] have been most prominent in this category. Don Breckon’s painting, The Haymaking [1987], sold for a hammer price of £5,500 at GWRA, in March 2023. The leading railwayana auction houses keep archives of the results of previous sales on their websites, where it’s possible to see images of the paintings themselves and the sums that they reached.

Paintings by Terence Cuneo and David Shepherd - both former fellows of the Guild of Railway Artists - appear infrequently at railwayana auctions. Both artists are recognised nationally as having a wider remit than just for their railway pictures. Hoping that examples of their railway work could therefore appeal to a wider range of prospective buyers, potential vendors might logically prefer the fine art or general auction house sale option, instead. For those artists who are primarily [or solely] known as railway artists, the railwayana auction route may be considered as the more logical route to take, so, perhaps a case of playing it safe by reaching out to the already converted!

 This painting of a 1960s shed scene by Chris Holland was one of those sold at a railwayana auction in 2023.