An Alvar Aalto birch dining suite made £6,500 and a John Piper £1,300 at Gildings' Smith Collection sale on 27 October. The Great Bowden watercolour went for £18.

Updated 28 October: the sale took place on Tuesday 27 October. These are the “sold for” prices on Gildings’ online catalogue for the lots picked out below; the catalogue does not say whether they include the buyer’s premium.

Lot What it is Estimate Sold for
137 Alvar Aalto birch dining suite for Finmar £4,000 to £6,000 £6,500
102 Geoffrey Clarke, Two Troughs and Flat Bar £2,000 to £3,000 £1,400
1 John Piper, Sunflowers at Marignac £400 to £600 £1,300
65 Bryan Organ, Chronometrical form No.1 £1,000 to £1,500 £1,000
28 After David Hockney, Editions Alecto print £800 to £900 £700
47 Douglas Smith, St Peter & St Paul, Great Bowden Bids from £10 £18

The Piper, the couple’s first purchase, made more than double its top estimate. A set of twelve Arts and Crafts ladderback dining chairs (lot 20) sold for £3,000. The story below was written before the sale.

An art collection built up over a lifetime by a Leicester couple goes under the hammer in Market Harborough on Tuesday. Gildings Auctioneers will sell the Shirley and Douglas Smith Collection in 191 lots from 11am on 27 October, in the saleroom and online.

Some of it is serious money. Much of it is not: more than 40 of Douglas Smith’s own paintings are offered with no estimate and no reserve, and bidding on them starts at £10. One of them is a watercolour of St Peter and St Paul’s Church in Great Bowden, about a mile from the saleroom. (Gildings, sale announcement)

Who the Smiths were

Douglas Smith was an architect and a painter. He died in 2024 aged 94. Gildings says he was elected president of the Leicester Society of Artists in 1987 and held the role for 27 years. He also chaired the City of Leicester Museums Trust.

He and Shirley met at the Leicester School of Architecture, now De Montfort University. Douglas founded the practice Douglas Smith Stimson Partnership, which worked from Regent Street in Leicester from 1960 to 2000. Gildings credits the firm with work including the University of Leicester Arboretum and the De Montfort University Innovation Centre. Shirley trained in interior design and worked in the practice.

In 1987 the couple built a house in Evington to show the collection. The photograph above, released by the auction house, shows them at home with it.

What is in the sale

The auction opens with the first work the Smiths bought as a married couple, in 1957. Gildings director Will Gilding said: “So it feels right to open the sale with the first artwork they acquired, the John Piper Sunflowers.”

Lots picked out by the auction house and its online catalogue include:

Lot What it is Estimate
1 John Piper, Sunflowers at Marignac, 1956 lithograph, numbered 15/75 £400 to £600
28 After David Hockney, An Etching and a Lithograph for Editions Alecto, signed and dated ‘73 within the print £800 to £900
47 Douglas Smith, St Peter & St Paul, Great Bowden, watercolour, 18 x 13cm No estimate, bids from £10
Not stated Bryan Organ, Chronometrical form No.1, bought from Leicester’s Gadsby Gallery £1,000 to £1,500
Not stated Geoffrey Clarke, Two Troughs and Flat Bar, sculpture £2,000 to £3,000
Not stated Alvar Aalto birch dining suite for Finmar £4,000 to £6,000

Estimates for lots 1, 28 and 47 are from the Gildings online catalogue. The rest are from the auction house’s announcement, which does not give their lot numbers.

Leicestershire artists feature heavily. The announcement names Rigby Graham, Reg Cartwright, Barbara Stewart, Bryan Organ, Elizabeth Organ and the sculptor George Pickard. There is also a painting of the White House in Stoneygate, the Ernest Gimson house that the couple later bought as their second home.

Douglas Smith’s own work runs from Leicester scenes, including the Curve theatre, to paintings from trips to Peru, Egypt and Greece. The catalogue also lists his painting of the Welland Viaduct.

What it means for you

  • Viewing: drop in at the saleroom from 9am to 4.30pm on Monday 26 October, or from 9am to 11am on the morning of the sale. There was also a viewing day on Friday 23 October.
  • Where: Gildings, The Mill, Great Bowden Road, Market Harborough, LE16 7DE. Parking near the Commons and the town centre is covered in our parking guide.
  • Bidding: in the room, or online through the catalogue page, where you can register to bid.
  • The real price is higher than the hammer. The catalogue lists a buyer’s premium of 28.8% including VAT, with a minimum charge of £8. A Douglas Smith painting knocked down at £10 therefore costs £18. Artist’s resale rights may add a further charge on some lots, including the Piper and the Hockney print.

“A good many works are offered below £50,” Will Gilding said, “and with bids starting at £10, you don’t have to blow the budget.”

Gildings sold a 1698 dance book signed by a Lutterworth man last month: our report on that sale.