The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University of Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction art sales results from 1990 to the time of the study. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work. This publication of the Nobile Index Series, written by Sophie Hatchwell, academic at Bristol University, focuses on the sales history of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, two titans of modern art. Both controversial, revered, and celebrated in their lifetime, this publication will explore how their work has fared at auctions since 1990. Comparing the fortunes of both, Sophie Hatchwell examines how genres, media, significant sales and exhibitions, and their deaths have impacted upon the value of their work individually. The publication comes in two sections - an introduction, results and analysis, and a booklet insert of appendices. This edition on Bacon and Freud marks the fifth and final publication of the Nobile Index series. To celebrate its release, a commemorative edition comprising all five publications, on Sickert, Bomberg, Lowry, Spencer, and Bacon and Freud will be produced.

The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University of Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction art sales results from 1990 to the time of the study. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work.This publication of the Nobile Index Series, written by Sophie Hatchwell, academic at Bristol University, focuses on the sales history of Sir Stanley Spencer from 1990-2015. Stanley Spencer, arguably one of the greatest British artists of the twentieth-century, is also renowned for his chequered sales history and money struggles. This rigorous study into the prices his work now commands at auctions demonstrates the significance of major sales over the past twenty-five years and the increasing value the market place supon Spencer's paintings. Evaluating general market trends, genres and media amongst other factors, Sophie Hatchwell's investigation provides an invaluable source of information on Stanley Spencer as an artist and the legacy and future of his work within the art market. The publication comes in two sections - an introduction by renowned Spencer specialist Professor Paul Gough, results and analysis, and a booklet insert of appendices.

First published to accompany major retrospective exhibitions at West Cork Arts Centre and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), this full-colour illustrated monograph explores William Crozier’s whole career, taking in the second half of the twentieth century – a key period in the development of British and Irish art. The catalogue is furnished with essays presenting brand new research by renown art historians and curators, Illuminated by unpublished sources and personal memoirs. What emerges is a picture of the continuum that runs through all of Crozier’s work, revealing a fascinating narrative that, far from a story of transformation from darker, earlier imagery into the apparent hedonism of later landscapes, is one of continuity of purpose in Crozier’s mind-set that connects 1950s Britain and Ireland with the concerns of the new millennium. Profoundly affected by post-war existential philosophy, Crozier consciously allied himself and his work with contemporary European art throughout the 1950s and 1960s, towards painters such as Jean Dubuffet, Pierre Soulages, Hans Hartung and Nicolas de Staël. The landscape became the source of visceral paintings: For Crozier, ravaged landscapes symbolised the torment and fear of the post-war condition at the heart of existentialism. Only ten years separate these images of traumatized humanity from the luxuriantly colourful works inspired by the landscape of West Cork. His early skill as a colourist reaches its zenith in paintings that capture the essence and appearance of the West Cork landscape in ways immediately recognisable to the viewer, but they are also concerned to capture a landscape during a period of great physical and social change. Crozier believed that when painting the Irish landscape he must, “Tell the truth. Say it simply.”

First published to accompany the exhibition, John Golding: Pure Colour Sensation at Piano Nobile gallery, this fully colour illustrated catalogue showcases fifteen years of exceptional paintings by John Golding. Although an acclaimed art historian, Golding considered himself, first and foremost, a painter. His work features in prominent institutions such as the Tate, MoMA, the Scottish National Gallery, the British Council, and the Yale Center for British Art. Golding had numerous one-man shows in the UK and abroad, and also participated in many group exhibitions, including international shows with his close friend Bridget Riley. He was appointed a CBE in 1992 and elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1994.The publication presents a survey of works from the 1970s and 1980s, ranging from large scale canvases to both small and large pastels. Golding's work, although abstract, repeatedly returns to the human body. The monumental canvases and the tactile handling of paint through expressive layering of pigment demand a visceral physical reaction from the viewer. Speaking in an interview for Artists' Lives, Golding recollected that his turn to abstraction was in "recognition of what was happening in America in the 1950s…the most important thing going on in painting [of the day]". In his abstract paintings, both intimate and large in scale, Golding sought unadulterated formal brilliance, letting colour and composition take prominence, "so that there is nothing getting between you and the pure colour sensation."Dr David Anfam's introductory essay explores the roots of Golding's abstract work in the early figurative painting he produced whilst living in Mexico. Analysing the influence of the great Mexican muralists during Golding's formative years, Anfam charts the progression of Golding's vision that culminated in the exceptionally accomplished and joyful body of the work produced in the 1970s and 1980s and reproduced in this publication.

Peter Coker: Mind and Matter is a fully-illustrated catalogue presenting a selection of exceptional works by Peter Coker (1926-2004), bringing together pieces spanning the early 1950s through to the mid-1980s. The first publication focusing on Coker’s works in over a decade, the catalogue will seek to reassess Coker’s contribution to post-war figurative British art. Situating Coker within his contemporary British zeitgeist, Peter Coker: Mind and Matter will also focus on the significance of international artists to Coker’s work, particularly Gustave Courbet and Nicolas de Staël. Undertaking modern day pilgrimages across France, Coker toured the sites favoured by the artists he revered, filtering their influence through the specificity of place. Coker was too talented an artist to mimic, but with acute sensitivity and perception, his vision of the world was constantly altered by the art that touched him. Correspondingly, his mode of depiction was subject to an ever-persistent evolution but with the materiality of paint and the primacy of process always at the heart of his practice. In Coker’s words: “I think when you see exhibitions…you challenge your own thoughts, you refurbish the mind and eye, you are remoulded.”The publication includes an introductory essay, a catalogue of carefully selected works with accompanying descriptions, a chronology, a bibliography, and numerous colour illustrations.

Published to accompany the exhibition Peter Salter: Drawing Walmer Yard at Piano Nobile marking the launch of Peter Salter's first residential building in Britain, this fully illustrated catalogue presents a selection of Salter's extraordinary drawings for the project. With a new essay by Peter Salter on his drawings and an introduction by architectural associate Fenella Collingridge, the catalogue reveals the intrinsic importance of Salter's drawings to the process of his architectural practice. Exploratory, indicative, and instructive, Salter’s drawings oscillate between place and detail, idea and representation, strategy and materiality. Persuasively imaging a lived environment, Salter effortlessly shifts between high level planning and intricate detail – an overarching idea is formulated through the exposition of detail. One sheet of tracing paper might encompass scales of 1:100, 1:20 and 1:1 as a problem is worked through; controlled struggle to enable critical development resides on the surface of the tracing paper. The integrity of the idea manifests through the removal of extraneous information, variation in stress and weighting of pen lines, and the whimsical figures that populate the drawings, sleeping, sitting, and reading. Salter writes “Because of the fragmentary nature of idea and detail, the drawing becomes a compound of notions. Intuition becomes honed by redrawing, the judgement of the eye tuned by retracing the familiar, and sometimes a critical reading achieved through erasure.” Peter Salter AADipl (Hons) was educated at and taught at the AA for 13 years, in Intermediate and Diploma School. In the early years of his career he worked for Alison and Peter Smithson, and his work attempts to carry the convictions of that practice. In 2004 he was jointly awarded the Annie Spinks prize for Excellence in Teaching, reaffirmed by the award of an Honorary Fellow of the RIBA in 2012. Following seven years as Head of School (Architecture) at the University of East London, he was appointed Professor of Architecture at the Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff, where he still teaches. His early built projects were in Japan, including the Inami Woodcarving Museum and Kamiichi Pavilion; Walmer Yard is his first building in the UK.

First published to accompany a group exhibition at Piano Nobile, Aspects of Post-War Abstraction 1952-2002, this fully colour illustrated catalogue showcases seminal works of abstract art produced in Britain over the course of five decades. The publication features the work of internationally renowned artists including Terry Frost, William Scott, William Turnbull, Joe Tilson, William Crozier, Jack Smith, John Golding, William Pye, Anthony Caro, John Hoyland, Bridget Riley, and Anish Kapoor. Lavishly illustrated throughout, the catalogue presents exceptional paintings and sculptures, created by artists in dialogue with contemporaries and predecessors in Britain, and diverse international centres of abstraction. Highlighting pivotal artistic moments of transition and transformation in abstraction over the course of a half century, the catalogue presents an innovative vision of the international contribution of post-war British abstract art.

First published to accompany Piano Nobile's exhibiton at Piano Nobile Kings Place, Thomas Newbolt: Drama Paintings - A Modern Baroque, this fully colour illustrated book presents a substantial publication on contemporary artist Thomas Newbolt. Newbolt's dedication to the figure in art, and the vitality of his work have gained him international recognition.An artist of talent and intellectual integrity, he was Harkness Fellow at the University of Virginia and the University of Wisconsin, and a Fellow-Commoner at Trinity College, Cambridge, as well as a respected teacher at Camberwell, Anglia Ruskin and The Royal Drawing School, London. Recent exhibitions include Ely Cathedral, the Estorick Collection, and a group show, Vital Signs, at Clifford Chance in 2015. His work is held in major international public collections.With essays by Mark Hudson, arts critic at the Telegraph, Professor Maurice Biriotti, and Martin Gayford, critic at the Spectator, this catalogue provides fresh insight into the work of this most enigmati and powerful of artists. Lavishly illustrated and beautifully designed as a work of art in its own right, Thomas Newbolt: Paintings is a reflection on Newbolt's career thus far, and a testament to the significance of his work. The publication includes three essays, a catalogue of works selected by Thomas Newbolt, a chronologyof the artist's career and an index.

First published to accompany the exhibition at Piano Nobile, John Armstrong: Paintings 1938-1958; An Enchanted Distance is a fully illustrated catalogue re-establishing John Armstrong A.R.A. as a pre-eminent Surrealist. Propelled to the forefront of British Modernism as a member of Unit One, Armstrong later rejected the confinement of artistic groups yet was at the heart of inter-war and post-war British art. Consistently producing prophetic, dreamlike paintings of emotional and political insight, Armstrong’s works speak of the universal through his own individual language. The most significant exhibition of Armstrong's works in over thirty years, the catalogue focuses on two decades of immense productivity, creativity and innovation.

John Golding: Finding the Absolute, focusing on Golding’s abstract paintings from the 1960s, offers a unique opportunity to appreciate Golding at the outset of his lifelong pursuit to realise the ever-elusive promise of the absolute through abstraction. These works, most of which have not been seen for nearly half a century, are dynamic, youthful, brimming with the influences of the great exponents of abstraction – Mondrian, Malevich, Pollock, Newman – and palpably created through the artistic language of the 1960s, the decade of swinging Pop and artistic revolution. First published to accompany Piano Nobile's exhibition, John Golding: Finding the Absolute, which ran in conjunction with the Kings Place music programme focusing on Minimalist music, curator and author Dr Charlotte de Mille addresses the overlaps between music and art in Golding's early works. John Golding’s paintings from the mid 1960s focus on questions of form, scale and materiality – the works grouped in this exhibition can be considered as repetitions on a theme as shapes recur in different colours and contexts. These aesthetic resonances with subtle differentiations orchestrate a rhythmic dynamism in composition, and across the space of the exhibition as a whole. Evident in the corresponding music programme, Minimalist compositions originate from similar concerns with theme and variation, the processes and language of composing through subtle variation in repeated motifs, micro-tonalities, and almost hypnotic evocations of time and space. Golding’s paintings share the excitement of innovation and exploration of the mid 1960s born of a common historical context in which modes of expression were reinvented.

The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University of Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction art sales results from 1990 to the time of the study. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work. This publication of the Nobile Index Series, written by Rhian Addison, who gained a Masters degree from Bristol University in History of Art, focuses on the sales history of L.S. Lowry, one of the most important British artists of the twentieth century, an idiosyncratically home-grown artist with a specifically British vision. Evaluating general market trends, genres, and media amongst other factors, Rhian Addison's investigation provides an invaluable source of information on L.S. Lowry as an artist and the legacy and future of his work within the art market. The publication come in two sections - an introduction, results and analysis and a booklet insert of appendices.

The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University at Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction results over the last 20 years. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work. This publication, written by Dr Louise Hughes during the course of her doctoral studies at the University of Bristol, makes a significant contribution to the scholarship on David Bomberg, the important twentieth-century British Vorticistm, war artist and modernist. Dr Hughes establishes for the first time a relationship between his fortunes in the auction houses and the fluctuations in his critical reception. Auctioning David Bomberg: A Sales History 1990-2010 consists of an introduction, results and analaysis, and a booklet with corresponding appendices.

The Nobile Index is a series of monographic publications of art sales prices achieved at auction, for a selection of leading 20th-century British artists. They involve the collaboration of a commercial art dealership, Piano Nobile Works of Art and the University at Bristol's History of Art Department; bringing together academic and commercial expertise on the artists for the benefit of those with an interest in their work. They are funded by the generosity of a private benefactor. The studies are confined to analyses of auction results over the last 21 years. Although largely from UK sales, data supplied by international salerooms are also included. Graphs and interpretations of these figures are analysed and significant trends and buying patterns revealed. It is envisaged that this data will be of growing value to private and corporate clients, museums and fine art funds. Accurate commercial appraisal has always played an important role in the consideration of new acquisitions throughout the history of art. No more so than today is this seen with the fluctuating, but ever more significant rise in value commanded by the best of many 20th-century artists' work. Written by Dr Louise Hughes as part of her doctoral studies at the University of Bristol, this publication establishes the art market fortunes of one of Britain's foremost modern artists, Walter Sickert. Examining factors such as general and specific market trends, media, genres and biography, Dr Hughes' analysis of sales prices provides an invaluable research tool in assessing the commercial positioning of Sickert's work. The publication consists of two sections - biography, results and analysis and an insert with an appendices of works sold between 1990 and 2011.

This inspired collection of over sixty original paintings, stone carvings and woodcut prints by Greg Tricker portrays the human suffering, exultation, compassion and joy of the life of St Francis; with their visionary quality, they present a fresh contemporary image of St Francis. Greg Tricker travelled to Assisi to research St Francis, drawing inspiration from the small church of San Damiano where the saint prayed and the square of San Rufino where he preached; and by walking through the beautiful olive groves and hills that surround Assisi.The plates, many of which have not been seen before, are complemented by a lively text on the historical background and life of St Francis by artist and teacher Johannes Steuck, and a spirited introduction by writer and philosopher Jeremy Naydler.