The Véra Russell Collection sold for a total of £268,000 (£365,000 with fees) at Rare Book Auctions’ recent sale <apr 1>, with the top-seller being a portrait of the actress turned arts patron by her long-standing friend Matthew Smith (1879-1959) which sold to the London trade for a mid-estimate £25,000.
But one of the biggest rostrum surprises was a 13 x 10 x 4.5cm stone carving by the Singaporean-British sculptor Kim Lim (1936-1997) which fetched £11,500 – well beyond its guide price of £300-£500.
Selling to the London trade, it was engraved For V and signed K.
The second bestseller was a pen and ink portrait of Véra Russell, dated 1978, by another long-term friend – the artistic titan David Hockney (b. 1937).
With an estimate of £15,000-£20,000, it fetched £24,000, beating its estimate of £15,000-£20,000 – also going to a trade buyer in the capital.
Arts patron Véra Russell (1911-1992) moved to the UK aged eight with her well-to-do parents fleeing the Russian Revolution in 1917.
Taking the name Lindsay, she trained in ballet before moving into acting making her stage debut in 1932 starring alongside Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud.
After a stint as a war reporter, in 1956 she married the art critic John Russell, later becoming a gallery owner and exhibition organiser in her own right.
In the 1970s she cofounded the Covent Garden Artists’ Market to champion upcoming talents.
Another sale highlight (the third best-selling lot) was a painting by the celebrated Suffolk artist Maggi Hambling (b. 1945) who worked as Russell’s secretary in the 1960s.
Her 1972 portrait of the art historian John Pope-Hennessy (1913-1994) sold for £17,000 beating its estimate of £10,000-£15,000
The sale was curated by Lichfield-based Rare Book Auctions’ director Jim Spencer and held at Hansons Auctioneers’ Etwall saleroom on April 1.
Spencer stumbled on the treasure trove, which had been discounted by other auction houses as “nothing”, after being contacted by one of Russell’s relatives to value a first edition, first issue copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which went on to sell for £5,500).
Spencer said “When she mentioned the letters, I got straight onto a train from Lichfield to visit her. I was astounded to discover boxes of letters and postcards from artistic greats such as Henry Moore, Francis Bacon and Bridget Riley. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was thrilled with the sale result – all the more so because the collection had been overlooked for years.
“I hope we did Véra proud – she was an amazing woman and amazing patron of the arts whose name has all but been written out of history.”
The tone was set by the first lot of the day – the Russell’s address book dating from 1962-1967 – which read like a Who’s Who of 20th-century art.
The book, which sold to a Dorset bookseller for £4,000, included the signatures of FrancisBacon (1909-1992), Mark Rothko (1903-1970), WH Auden (1907-1973), Henry Moore (1898-1986), Princess Margaret (1930-2002) and Peggy Guggenheim (1898-1979).
Handwritten letters from David Hockey (b. 1937) also sold for beyond-estimate sums, with one, dated 1979 headed 2907 Montcalm Avenue, Los Angeles 90046, fetching £4,200 more than eight times its low estimate of £500.
Three letters from Francis Bacon (1909-1992) all dated 1968, with one in green ink,estimated at £400-£600 hammered at £2,200.
A pen and ink drawing of Russell by Hockney dated 1978 sold for ave the picture of the Russian-born actress and patron of the arts Véra Russell (1911-1992)
Another big surprise was a three-page resignation letter to shareholders of the Omega Workshops, the design enterprise of the Bloomsbury Group. Expected to make £300-£400 it sold for £10,000.
The Round Robin letter accused the group’s founder the art critic Roger Fry (1866-1934) of sidelining the workshop, in particular Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) in its commission for the Ideal Home Exhibition in 1913.
It was signed by Lewis Frederick Etchells (1886-1973), Edward Wadsworth (1889-1943), and Cuthbert Hamilton (1885-1959) who wanted a more radical approach.
The split led to the formation of the Rebel Art Centre and the Vorticist movement
But Véra Russell herself was not forgotten in the global bidding, with a collection of typed transcripts, as well as autobiographical notes, selling for £2,000 – almost seven times its low estimate of £300.
An archive of her work during her brief career as a war reporter, estimated at £200-£300 sold for £1,800.
Jim Spencer said: “It was such a pleasure working through everything – completely exhausting, lots of late nights and weekends, sorting mountains of papers into a logical order for collectors, transcribing correspondence, researching everything – but it’s been the loveliest collection I’ve ever handled.”
Auction Details
Auction: An Éminence Grise of the Arts: The Collection of Véra Russell (1911-1992)
Auction date: 1st April 2026 | 10:30am
Location: Hansons’ Derbyshire Saleroom
Auction contact: [email protected]
Catalogue/bidding: www.hansonslive.co.uk | www.the-saleroom.com
