More on Lowry's Rowing Paintings

About Chris Dodd’s writing from 9 October on L. S. Lowry’s rowing paintings, and Tim Koch’s take in an earlier entry posted today, Greg Denieffe writes:

I have been interested in the Lowry rowing drawings/paintings for some time now. I have prints of bits and pieces that I found over the years and unbelievable as it seems, I was able to find them the day before  yesterday – well all bar one (which from memory, I thought varied a bit from the two pencil drawings below).

I think the Bonhams’ catalogue for the May 2013 sale clarifies some dates and titles:

The present lot is almost certainly the most fully realised pencil drawing by L.S. Lowry of the Agecroft Regatta; at least one other example is known to exist, along with a later and very impressive, large oil painting, The Regatta (1949).

I think this is the one sold by Bonhams in May 2013 which is Agecroft Regatta signed and dated ‘L S Lowry 1942’ (lower right).

This could be the other pencil drawing also called Agecroft Regatta signed and dated ‘L S Lowry 1948’ (lower right).

This is the large oil painting referred to in the Bonhams’ catalogue as a later and very impressive, large oil painting, The Regatta (1949). (This is a scan of the print I have, as I cannot find a copy online).

Another Lowry, Crime Lake, showing pleasure boats on Crime Lake, Oldham, Greater Manchester. The name ‘crime’ is a local word for meadow rather than anything untoward.

I love Lowry’s work and I am a sucker for Brian and Michael’s matchstalk song.

19th-Century ‘Champion of the World’ Joins Steve Redgrave’s Boat at RRM

On 9 January, HTBS's Greg Denieffe wrote about an interesting painting of Edward Hawks that was up for auction at Bonhams in London. At the auction it was not revealed who the buyer was, but in a press release the River & Rowing Museum writes that it was the lucky 'winner'. The HTBS team is delighted the RRM was the museum that managed to buy it as it means that it will be on display for everyone to see. Here follows the press release which offers the story about this iconic painting, which will soon be on permanent display at the award-winning River & Rowing Museum, Henley-on-Thames.

The portrait joins other rowing memorabilia of national importance, including the Coxless Four rowed to victory by Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent at the 2000 Sydney Games, and the boat from the first Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race in 1829, which took place in Henley-on-Thames.


The River & Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames acquired an iconic 19th-century portrait of the oarsman Edward Hawks in The Gentleman’s Library sale at Bonhams, Knightsbridge. The lot, which sold for £8,000, gained widespread media attention and a great deal of interest under the hammer because of its subject’s association with Henry ('Harry') Clasper, known for revolutionising the sport of rowing.

Hawks, who is illustrated in the painting in front of Durham Cathedral, was a member of the 1845 Newcastle rowing crew, captained by Henry Clasper, Hawks’s relative, that gained notoriety by winning the ‘Champion of the World’ against prize the top Thames crew at the Thames Regatta. Henry Clasper was responsible for revolutionising the art of rowing when it was one of the most popular sports in Britain through his pioneering boat and oar designs. Among other developments he created the ‘Newcastle Oar’, which had a curved blade to create a winning advantage. From initiating his rowing career as a keel man (rowing coal barges), Clasper’s inventive designs eventually led his crew to dominate the waters of Newcastle as champions.

The painting, bought from museum funding in an exciting auction, will be on public display as part of the Museum’s permanent collection in The Schwarzenbach International Rowing Gallery from the end of February. The piece adds more depth to the museum’s extensive collection of items that relate to the history of professional rowing. The acquisition of the work was funded in equal measure by a legacy from Mr David Lunn-Rockliffe, one of the Museum’s founders and a past Chairman of Trustees, and matched by a grant from the V&A Purchase Fund.

Paul Mainds, Trustee and Chief Executive of the River & Rowing Museum Foundation says:

We are delighted to have been able to acquire such a significant painting which has already generated such interest in both the rowing world and the national press. It will be the centrepiece of display about professional rowing which was so rooted in the North East of England but which had a truly international dimension. It is a great story that deserves to be told! We are hugely grateful to the V&A Purchase Fund for their support. We also feel that this acquisition is a fitting tribute to David Lunn-Rockliffe whose legacy contributed to the purchase. His ambition for the Museum was always that it should be an international focus for rowing history and a significant centre for the visual arts.

Sam Travers, a specialist in the 19th Century Paintings department at Bonham’s commented:

There was an electric atmosphere in the saleroom and a good deal of interest in this painting. The portrait transports the viewer to a time when rowing was the major sport of the North East and figures like Edward Hawks made the Tyne famous for its innovative boat design and strong crews. With the fame and success of the crew that Edward Hawks was part of and the rarity of portraits of this type, it is no surprise that there was so much interest from private collectors and museums. I’m sure this will make a superb addition to the collection at the River & Rowing Museum.

About the portrait
The full-length portrait of Hawks in distinctive rowing strip holding a scull in his right hand is inscribed ‘Edward Hawks aged 46 years’. The picture, attributed to the English School, 19th century, depicts Durham Cathedral in the background. The rarity of this painting is to have a portrait of a professional oarsman – most pictures of pro rowing from this era are regatta scenes.

‘Ned’ Hawks was a member of the Newcastle coxed four otherwise made up of four Clasper brothers who defeated the Thames watermen at the Thames regatta in Putney in 1845 to become champions of the world. Hawks, whose niece Susannah was married to Harry Clasper, was a late replacement in the crew for another Clasper brother who was drowned in an accident.

Clasper began his working life as a pitman in Jarrow, but became a publican who designed and built racing boats. The Lord Ravenscroft used by the Tyne crew in the Thames regatta was a sleek Clasper boat, and Clasper became a dominant name among several Tyneside builders who experimented with hull shapes, outriggers and oars to move boats faster. Harry’s son, John Hawks Clasper, eventually moved the Clasper boat building business to Putney.

Hawks had a distinguished rowing career… but his life ended in tragedy when he hanged himself after running into financial problems.

For more information about the River & Rowing Museum, go here and for Bonhams, go here.

Painting of Oarsman Edward Hawks will be Auctioned by Bonhams

This 19th-century portrait of the oarsman Edward Hawks will be auctioned at Bonhams on 29 January. Image from Bonhams.

The good fellow Greg Denieffe has found a real gem in an auction catalogue from Bonhams, he writes, but first he mentions something about Fred Roffe, who HTBS wrote about on 4 January.

Greg writes,

It was sad to read about death of Fred Roffe. Of course I knew of the “The Fred Roffe Collection of Trophies, Medals and Memorabilia of Harry & John H. Clasper” but did not know anything about the man who donated the collection to the museum in Mystic. As is often the case, something that would have been of great interest to Fred Roffe has now come on the market and will be auctioned by Bonhams in London on 29 January.

What is going to be auctioned is a 19th-century portrait of the oarsman Edward Hawks with Durham Cathedral in the background.

Bonham writes in the description of this oil painting: ‘Edward Hawks is depicted here as a proud member of the Newcastle rowing crew who won the Champion of the World prize at the Thames Regatta in 1845. Known as Ned, he was the uncle of Susannah Hawks, wife of the famous rowing champion Henry (Harry) Clasper. The latter captained the winning boat, leading Edward Hawks along with three more Clasper brothers, Richard, Robert and William, to victory. Edward Hawks was a new recruit to the crew for this race due to the untimely death of another Clasper brother, also named Edward, who tragically drowned at the age of twenty five.’

Read more here.

Bonhams gives the following estimate of the painting: £8,000 – 12,000 (€9,900 – 15,000; US$ 13,000 – 19,000)

Olympic Rowing Memorabilia Up For Auction!

Here is an interesting report from HTBS’s Greg Denieffe in England. Two auctions on Olympic Games memorabilia is coming up this week, Greg writes:

Two important auctions of Olympic Games memorabilia take place in London this week just days before the 2012 event gets underway. Posters, torches, medals, photographs, tickets and programmes from previous Olympiads will go under the hammer.

On Tuesday, 24 July, Graham Budd Auctions, which specialises in sporting memorabilia, will sell more than 600 lots with items from every Olympic Games since Athens, 1896, the first of the modern era. You can check out their catalogue here.

It is simply a wonderful treasure trove of sporting memorabilia. There are a few rowing related lots but for HTBS readers, lots 288 to 291 will be of special interest:

Lot 288. A 1936 Berlin Olympic Games gold medal winner’s diploma awarded to British rower Jack Beresford for victory in the double sculls with Dick Southwood. Estimate: £2,500 - £2,500.

Lot 289. An International Olympic Committee diploma awarded to the British rower Jack Beresford. Estimate: £1,500 - £2,500.

Lot 290. Jack Beresford’s C.B.E. honour diploma. Estimate: £200 - £300.

Lot 291. Jack Beresford’s blazer badges. Estimate: £400 - £600.

There are full details and photographs of all 4 lots and a search facility to identify the other rowing related lots.

At Bonhams on Wednesday, 15 July, many of the 215 lots date from 1948, the last time the Olympic Games was held in London. Britain was recovering from the Second World War and the so-called ‘Austerity Games’ took place at a time when food rationing was still in place. A record 59 countries sent teams, although Germany and Japan were not invited and the Soviet Union declined its invitation.

Of special interest is lot 36 which was covered in detail in the HTBS post on 28 June 2012, The Auction Of Pearce’s Rowing Memorabilia. With an estimate of £30,000 to £50,000 there won’t be many with deep enough pockets to take on the auctioneer.

Also of interest to collectors will be Lot 86 - A winner’s silver medal and official Olympic Games 1928 blazer badge won by British Olympian, Terrence ‘Terry’ O’Brien in the men’s coxless pairs. The circular medal, the obverse depicting a victorious athlete being carried by a crowd, the reverse depicting the Goddess Nike with “IX Olympiade Amsterdam 1928”, 55mm., two short spindles soldered to top and bottom, the blue cloth blazer badge embroidered with “Olympic Games 1928 Rowing” and a flying Union Jack flag; together with a framed and glazed portrait of Terry O’Brien. Estimate: £1,000 - 1,500.

The Auction Of Pearce's Rowing Memorabilia

As HTBS reported on 19 April, famous oarsman Bobby Pearce’s Olympic gold medals in the single sculls from Amsterdam in 1928 and Los Angles in 1932, and other rowing memorabilia which belonged to him, will be auctioned by Bonhams in London this summer, on 24 July. It is one lot, only, with a pre-sale estimate of £30,000-50,000 (€37,000-62,000 or US$47,000-78,000). This might seem to be a high price, but now when the lot has been officially opened to view, the winner of the auction will, indeed, get a lot of rowing ‘goodies’.

In the lot is for example, Pearce’s two Olympic gold medals from 1928 and 1932, and other championship medals; Olympic diplomas; prize certificates from the Australian championships 1927-1929 and the Sculling Championship of New South Wales, 1926/27, 1927/28, and 1928/29; framed photographs of Pearce; the 1931 Pineapple Trophy of the Diamond Sculls at the Henley Royal Regatta; a collection of scrap books and photograph albums from 1927-1939, dealing with the Amateur World Sculling Championships and Professional World Sculling Championships, the Olympic Games, Empire Games, and Henley Royal Regatta, and much, much more.

In the lot is also material related to Bobby Pearce's father, Harry Pearce, who was a professional sculling champion, who, in 1911, raced Richard Arnst for the World Sculling Championships (Arnst won).

View the entire lot here. Personally, I hope the lot goes to a museum or another institution which will put these wonderful medals, trophies, diplomas, etc of Bobby Pearce on display for the public to see.

Cyril Power’s ‘The Eight’

What I did not mention yesterday in my review about Chris Dodd’s entertaining new book, Pieces of Eight, is the ‘book’ itself. What I mean by ‘book’ is not the content – which, again, is brilliant – it is instead how the book looks, its binding, format, cover, and lay-out. As an old book editor/ publisher, I am not only interested in the content of a book, I would like it to look nice, too. The publisher of Pieces of Eight is the River and Rowing Museum in Henley-on-Thames. It is, if I have counted correctly, the museum’s third published rowing book after Tom Weil’s Beauty and the Boats (2005) and Peter Mallory’s The Sport of Rowing (2011), and it is going to be interesting to see if there are any other books on rowing coming from the museum in the near future.

What I like with Dodd’s book is its format. It is a paperback, but it still has a book cover with flaps. The font is easy to read with a good lay-out. However, while I demand an index in a book like this, the index in Pieces of Eight is almost impossible to read despite my new reading spectacles.

But what I really love is the cover – ‘The Eight’ from 1930 by the British artist Cyril Power (1872-1951). According to material from the auction house Bonhams in London, which rowing historian Tom Weil has forwarded to me, Bonhams writes that “‘The Eight’ shows a racing crew during trials for the Head of the River on the Thames. Power drew it looking down on the boat from Hammersmith Bridge. With its dramatic sense of energy, ‘The Eight’ is one of Power’s most sought after works and the print was in excellent condition.” The ‘print’ mentioned in the text from Bonhams was sold by them last July for £59,520! Read more here. According to Weil only 50 copies were printed of Power’s ‘The Eight’. So, if you have a copy of this print laying about, dust it off and run immediately over to the nearest Bonhams office.

USA cover?

U.K. cover?

Looking at the website of the publishing company Shire Library, it seems that they are also going to use ‘The Eight’ for one of their books which is coming out this summer. Writer, historian, and rower Julie Summers’s book Rowing in Britain has it on its cover. Read more about Summers’s book here, and read her Newsletter about the book here. A little confusing is that Shire Library’s distributor in the USA, Random House, is showing a completely different cover for the book on their site. That looks nice, too, though…*

*Here is an update regarding the cover of Summers's book: it will not be the same as the one on the cover of Dodd's book, however, at this point of time, there are no certainties that it will be the one that Random House has on their site either. (Updated 9 May, 2012)

Kelly's Pineapple Cup Sold At Bonhams For £3,800

Yesterday, HTBS received interesting information from two rowing historians, Tom Weil of Connecticut and Greg Denieffe of England, who both had been covering an auction by Bonhams in London. Up for auction was a rare rowing prize, the 1905 Pineapple Trophy Goblet, The Diamond Sculls, Henley Royal Regatta awarded to Frederick Septimus Kelly of Leander Club, who HTBS has written about earlier. According to Bonhams, the trophy was made by Walter, Michael & John Barnard & Sons, Hallmarked London 1905. 24oz. 8.75x4.25ins (22x11cm). The auction house also wrote about its history:

“First awarded in 1844, the Diamond Sculls ‘For Amateurs, open to All England’ was seen as the pinnacle of individual rowing. In 1850, the Diamond scarf pin prize was replaced by the Diamond Challenge Sculls, the winner being awarded a silver gilt pineapple goblet to retain. This tradition was continued at every regatta until 1973. This tradition has subsequently be reinstated, with all winners now receiving a cup to record their victory.”



Frederick Kelly (1881-1916) was born in Sydney, Australia, where he attended Sydney Grammar. Kelly later studied at Eton, where he rowed in the crew who took the 1899 Ladies’ Challenge Plate at Henley. He began to scull at Balliol College, Oxford, and won the Diamond Sculls 1902, 1903, and 1905 – the latter year beating Vesta RC’s Harry Blackstaffe in a new record time that stood for more than 30 years (the American Joe Burk beat the record in 1938). Kelly also became the champion of the Thames in 1903 after winning the Wingfield Sculls.

As a member of Leander Club, Kelly also won the Grand in 1903, 1904, and 1905; and the Stewards Challenge Cup in 1906. He then resigned from rowing to concentrate on his music studies, but was called back to compete in Leander’s famous crew, the ‘Old Crocks’, who became Olympic champions in the eight at the 1908 Olympic regatta in Henley. At the outbreak of the war, Kelly joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and was killed in the great Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Kelly’s 1905 Pineapple Trophy Goblet was sold at Bonhams for £3,800 (exclusive of premium and VAT).

Special thanks to Tom Weil and Greg Denieffe for all the information! Photographs of the Pineapple Cup from Bonhams cataloque.