Last painting of poet Dylan goes under the hammer for £15,000
ONE of the last paintings of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas has sold for £15,000 at auction.
The buyer’s identity and location of where the prized painting will ultimately end up is being kept firmly under wraps for now.
The oil painting was part of the Welsh Sale by auctioneers Rogers Jones Auctioneers and Valuers, who have auction rooms in Cardiff, Colwyn Bay and recently opened an office in Carmarthen.
The portrait of Thomas is by Gordon Thomas Stuart, who was Canadian but based in Uplands, Swansea, for many years after attending Ontario College of Art and Design. It is the final portrait painted of Thomas as part of a series done over a summer afternoon at his home, The Boathouse, in Laugharne in 1953.
Thomas died a few months later, aged 39, after downing 18 whiskies at the White Horse Tavern in Greenwich Village, New York.
Stuart painted more than 200 writers, poets, and celebrities, including Sir Kyffin Williams, US President Jimmy Carter and renowned record producer Sir George Martin. However, it is his series of portraits of Dylan Thomas that are considered his most famous legacy. Charles Hampshire at Rogers Jones Auctioneers and Valuers said the painting fetched what he expected it to, adding: “It went for a hammer sale of £15,000 and there was a lot of interest in it.
“The buyer isn’t going public yet, but it was great to see the painting sell and at the upper end of what we estimated it would go for.”
He added: “This portrait from the Laugharne sessions was kept by Stuart at his home and was exhibited at the National Eisteddfod in 1954, and then again for the first time at Dylan Thomas’s childhood home in Cwmdonkin Drive, Swansea, during the Dylan Thomas centenary celebrations.
“It was a great honour to offer it for sale without reserve within a section of Gordon Stuart works which have come from the beneficiaries of the Stuart estate.”
The Welsh Sale was held online due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“The buyer isn’t going public yet, but it was great to see the painting sell and at the upper end of what we estimated it would go for Charles Hampshire