First into Calabria by Camille Souter sold for a hammer price of €18,000 at the James Adam sale of Important Irish Art in Dublin on May 1. The artist died on March 3 aged 93. This mixed media work, signed and dated 1962, had a top estimate of €15,000 and was previously in the collection of Sir Basil Goulding. It was exhibited in a show of 12 Irish Painters in New York in 1963. Another work by Souter in the same sale, Red Achill, made a hammer price of €10,000 over a top estimate of 8,000. Born in the UK and brought up in Ireland, Camille Souter trained as a nurse in London before turning to painting in the 1950s and exhibited extensively from the 1960s onwards. She is credited with having produced an extraordinary body of work over nearly 70 years.
Adams sale brought in €1.25 million and was headed by Orpen’s portrait of Yvonne Aupicq as a nun which made €125,000 over a top estimate of €50,000 after a battle between seven bidders. It went to a UK based agent.