A work by Agnes Miller Parker, The Horse Fair, considered to be a masterpiece of British modernism is to be sold by Lyon & Turnbull in December in their Scottish Paintings & Sculpture auction.
The painting was acquired from the artist by Scottish author Naomi Mitchison and it has remained in her family since 1999. It is estimated that the painting could fetch between £80,000 to £120,000 in the auction live from Edinburgh and online.
Agnes Miller Parker was born in Irvine in Ayrshire in 1895, and trained in painting and drawing at The Glasgow School of Art. There she met fellow student, William McCance. They married in 1918 and moved to London two years later, where they were part of a lively creative, progressive and intellectual scene.
Naomi Mitchison, and her husband British Labour politician Gilbert Richard “Dick” Mitchison, made friends with the artist who was married to William McCance. They had all met in Hammersmith in London.
Hammersmith set
Ms Mitchison wrote about this period: “Hammersmith was presumably thought in other circles to be very avant-garde and we had a good share of love and hate affairs, rushing in and out of one another’s lives…
“There was always argument, admiration, dressing up and parties… Here was Robert Graves, who might be delightful or might bite… Here was Dylan Thomas holding forth, never sober. Here sometimes was Augustus John…who…had a glass of beer in each hand.”
But the author was quite disparaging of McCance and Miller Parker’s relationship. She said: “Mac himself was something of a phoney, demanding to be taken as a D. H. Lawrence-type genius; his wife, who in fact provided the family income and was a far better artist, was forced into practising mousemanship.”
In 1925, the McCances were described by poet and polemicist, Hugh MacDiarmid, as “that clever couple from Scotland who believe in cubist methods”. MacDiarmid declared that ‘Mr and Mrs McCance’ were “unquestionably the most promising phenomena of contemporary Scotland in regard to art.”
Divorce
Miller Parker and her husband separated in 1955 and she returned to Glasgow. After their divorce in 1963 she moved to Lamlash on Arran and died in Greenock in 1980.
Alice Strang, Lyon & Turnbull’s Senior Specialist in Modern and Contemporary Art said: “Agnes Miller Parker was one of only a few Scottish artists who engaged with modernism in London between the wars.
“Her paintings were original, complex and ambitious. The Horse Fair, at just over a metre in width, is perhaps Miller Parker’s most ambitious. It’s keenly observed, skilfully orchestrated and packed full of human and animal interaction at the height of the rural calendar.
“Given that the artist is best known for her engraving and illustration work, I think many people will be astonished to learn that she was a painter of such significance.
“The Horse Fair’s importance was recognised by her friend, the writer Naomi Mitchison, who cherished it for all of her life.
“This is an incredibly rare opportunity to not only acquire a painting by one of Scotland’s leading 20th-century artists, but also one which is important within modern British art history.”
