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Sotheby’s Staff Showcase Artistic Skills in London for the Cure Parkinson’s Trust

Launch Slideshow

The diverse talents of staff from Sotheby’s European offices will be unveiled in a stunning public exhibition to raise money for The Cure Parkinson’s Trust, a charity whose aim is to find a cure for one of the world’s most debilitating diseases. The Out Of Office staff exhibition offers members of the public the opportunity to purchase art works for as little as £50, ranging from magnificent abstract paintings to photographic prints, bronze sculptures and ceramics. A popular annual event, last year it raised just under £9,000 for charity. The exhibition goes on view in our New Bond Street galleries from 18–28 July. Click ahead to discover some of the highlights. #SothebysStaffExhibition

Staff Exhibition
18–28 July | London

Sotheby’s Staff Showcase Artistic Skills in London for the Cure Parkinson’s Trust

  • Monika Schneider
    Picture Postcards - landscapes, villages, scenes, people - once the way to send a message to friends, inspire Monika to create new stories, changing the context into a piece of art. She works with acrylic and other materials like structured paper, old wallpaper, ink and scraper. This fine combination of colours, filigree lines, scratchings or collage materials often opens a hidden view to the original background like a secret story or a glimpse behind the curtain. It's about beauty and the play with the filigree painted and scratched lines that let her concentrate on the small 10x15 cm "canvas".

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  • Robin Cawdron-Stewart
    “Growing up on Stanley Spencer and Beryl Cook (not to mention Tony Hart’s Hartbeat) my terracotta sculptures aim to find the fun in the everyday, whether down on the quayside at Wells-Next-The-Sea, or ‘that song’ that gets everybody up and dancing at a wedding. I think that art should be fun – both to make and to look at – and doesn’t always have to be taken too seriously. Terracotta is a wonderfully versatile material that lends itself beautifully to sculpting and hand-building, and I finish the works with a light burnishing and brush-on earthenware glazes.”

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  • Sam Hug
    “My aim with this stained glass window was to create a piece that, though simple in concept and small in scale, would be completely overwhelming in detail. In general, my main influences are the religious and decorative arts and architecture of Japan and medieval Europe, as well as the works of the Odilon Redon, Edouard Vuillard, Pierre Bonnard and David Hockney. The idea for this design for a stained glass window came after noticing a section of a very small window in Rochester cathedral, but the design also draws heavily from Mughal miniature paintings, the works of William Morris and Louis Comfort Tiffany, and the colours and optical effects of the gemstones I am lucky enough to work with every day.”

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  • Joanna Ling
    As part of her series of ceramic pieces inspired by the random and haphazard beauty of the natural world, Joanna has been experimenting with various building methods, clays and glazes to capture different facets of nature. This particular bowl is stoneware and evokes the colours and textures of waves on a sandy beach.

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  • Isabel Paulus
    Isabel works on second hand canvases to add a sense of history to her pieces and to give a layer of existing texture to work with. The original image shows through in parts, adding another dimension to the abstract piece. Working primarily with pallet knives as opposed to brushes, Isabel assembles a composition from photographs and this work is an example of her work inspired by nature, her favourite subject.

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  • Alexandra Kett
    As a frequent traveller, Alex always has her camera to hand in order to capture notable fleeting moments, as well as specific cultural subjects or appealing compositions.  Alex is interested in both figurative and architectural compositions, and how both subjects respond to their spatial surroundings and cultural context. This photo was taken during a recent trip to Kyoto, in a trendy Kaiseki restaurant. Sitting at the bar watching the busy chefs as they cooked, and meticulously and exquisitely arranging a variety of beautiful ingredients, Alex quickly captured the tranquil and meditative appearance of the female chef amid the hustle and bustle of the orderly kitchen.

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  • Genevieve Hendry
    This is the first time Genevieve has ever publicly displayed one of her own works, though she has been producing works of art from a very early age as a personal hobby. Throughout her time studying art history at university, Genevieve would mimic the styles of great artists through painting as a way to unwind. She particularly enjoyed taking her art historical studies to a deeper level by attempting to understand and recreate various studies in colour and perspective that she would see in famous works of art. Like many people, most recently she was captured by the detail and bursting colours in Klimt's masterpiece Bauerngarten,  seen earlier this year at Sotheby's. This love of Klimt's work led her to adapt several different paintings by Klimt, and her favourite part of his work is the freedom that it allows her to experiment with colour.

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  • Francesca Charlton-Jones
    Underfoot #2 is representative of a series of illustrations based on Francesca’s memories of her wanderings through the English and French countryside. Working with Japanese ink, Francesca uses a very steady hand to create lush, dense ‘snapshots’ of remembered details of woodland hedgerows and forest floors. Framed in simple geometric forms, these complex compositions of tangled briars, branches, grasses and flowers are a study of memory and a celebration of nature in all her detailed chaos.

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  • Eleanor Taylor
    The precision in the line of Renaissance frescoes are an influence on Eleanor’s drawings.  She studied Fine Art in Florence and spent many hours looking up from her sketch book in the Brancacci Chapel. Since childhood she has painted friends and family, driven by a desire to capture something of their personality as well as their likeness. This etching was completed in the oldest Print Room in London, at the City and Guilds Art School.

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  • Agnieszka Zwirka-Griffith
    Photography allows you to freeze a moment in time and space.  Agnieszka’s photographs often show nature with its variety of textures, shapes and colours while travelling offers a perfect opportunity to capture an unusual street scene, ideally mixed with some gentle humour.  This is the case with a colourful drinks vending machine that offers a bottle of Pocari Sweat as a refreshment on a hot day in Tokyo.

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  • Marcus Quintal
    “My art is influenced massively by objects that no longer fulfil their intended purpose and is given a new lease of life. These materials may be modified, fabricated and turned into glamourous art. Much of my art contains found objects and there is often a familiarity though not always immediate. I am also interested in innovation and will use lighting, kinetics and apps technology to inform my audience. Artists like Marcel Duchamp have influenced my art. I enjoy the way he reconstituted ordinary objects into his readymade art.  Duchamp argued, "An ordinary object [can be] elevated to the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of an artist."

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  • Janet Weller
    This design entitled The Cortes Box was created in response to a brief for small workers in this year’s Goldsmiths Crafts and Design Council Competition – ‘Using ‘Orchids’ as a theme, design a precious object to be given as a gift to a friend’. It is a functional object intended as an after dinner game, to contain different varieties of vanilla bean in the three tubular containers and chocolate vanilla flavoured confectionary in the circular box beneath. The game: to try and guess which region the vanilla comes from and then to match it to the chocolate treat. The design achieved a Bronze Award.

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