Ceri Richards works to go under hammer in online auction
Seven of the Welsh modernist’s paintings, including a Debussy‑inspired canvas, will be auctioned online with estimates up to £12,000.
Seven works by celebrated Welsh painter Ceri Richards will be offered in an online auction, with the highest‑valued piece estimated at up to £12,000. The timed sale, organised by Olympia Auctions, runs under the banner “From the Studio: Works from Eighteen Artists’ Estates” and closes on Sunday 11 October at 15:00.
Among the seven lots is “La Cathédrale Engloutie, Jeux de Vagues”, a canvas inspired by Claude Debussy’s piano prelude, for which the auction house has set an estimate of £8,000‑£12,000. The catalogue also lists “Pianist”, valued between £3,000 and £5,000, and “The Beekeeper”, with an estimate of £1,000‑£1,500.
Richards, born in Dunvant in 1903, grew up in the Swansea hinterland where music and poetry were household staples. His father, a tinplate worker, also served as a choirmaster and poet, encouraging his children to read and play music, a habit that shaped the younger Richards’ lifelong love of piano.
The artist once described Debussy as a “visual composer”, adding that “he gives me a feeling of the sounds of nature, as Monet does”. Music remained a constant thread in Richards’ oeuvre, alongside the lyrical influence of Welsh poets Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins.
After completing his studies at Swansea School of Art, Richards earned a place at the Royal College of Art in London, where he refined his modernist language. A summer school at Gregynog Hall introduced him to the collections of sisters Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, exposing him to works by Van Gogh, Cézanne and Monet.
During the Second World War Richards was commissioned to depict tinplate workers in South Wales, a subject that echoed his family’s industrial roots. He later returned to London to teach lithography at the Slade School of Art, while also serving as head of painting at Cardiff School of Art from 1940 to 1944.
International recognition arrived in 1962 when Richards represented Britain at the Venice Biennale and secured the Einaudi Painting Prize. The artist died in 1971; a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery later cemented his reputation as one of Wales’s most influential modern painters.
Bidders in the current sale will be able to place offers online before each lot’s individual deadline, with the final lot closing at the appointed time on 11 October. The offering provides collectors a rare chance to acquire works that bridge visual art and musical inspiration, reflecting the synesthetic vision that defined Richards’ career.