A unique collection of the work of an extraordinary marine artist is going under the hammer in a North Yorkshire online auction that ends on Sunday.
The 54 paintings, drawings and prints are the personal collection of the Yorkshire-born artist Jack Rigg, who died at the age of 96 last year.
These are pictures that he hung on the walls of his home and studio and most of them have never been seen in public before.
Jack Rigg's sons Michael and Ian at the exhibition with Duggleby's Dominic Cox (Image: DAVID DUGGLEBY AUCTIONEERS)
The auction comes at the end of a month long retrospective exhibition that has been staged at the Scarborough saleroom of auctioneers David Duggleby.
Duggleby fine art specialist Dominic Cox said: “Following Jack’s death last August members of the family decided that they would like to commemorate his life with a retrospective and asked if we would consider staging it in the Vine Street Salerooms that played a notable part in exposing his work to the world.
“We were honoured to be asked and privileged to be involved in the project.”
Jack Rigg's London River, sailing barges on the River Thames. (2008), one of the paintings in the auction (Image: DAVID DUGGLEBY AUCTIONEERS)
Jack Rigg was one of the most remarkable marine artists of the 20th century. He was born in Farsley, Leeds, and first saw then the sea aged five when he was taken to visit his grandfather in Whitby.
He left school at 14 to get a job in a local textile mill and worked in that industry until he was 50.
It was only at that point that this entirely self-taught painter finally took the plunge and became a full time artist, spending the next four decades portraying shipping and harbours around Britain.
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Dominic added: “There are legendary tales of Jack’s obsession with detail and accuracy. He was known to walk into the water of harbours to get the correct perspective, standing there in his wellington boots sketching. He would on occasion work on paintings for months.”
Today his work is to be found in Buckingham Palace, the White House, public collections around the world and the homes of countless fishermen and seafarers who were great admirers of his work.
The timed online auction is scheduled to close at 5pm on Sunday(July 28th). More details www.davidduggleby.com/
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