Theatre composer to sell Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto, which is predicted to fetch between £30m-£40m at auction

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s charitable foundation is to make a second attempt to sell one of its most valuable possessions: a Picasso blue period portrait which Christie’s today said would have the largest pre-sale estimate of any work ever auctioned in Europe.

The work, Portrait of Angel Fernandez de Soto and the party-loving sitter’s languid expression may be explained by the painting’s other title, The Absinthe Drinker. It has been estimated at between £30m and £40m and all proceeds will benefit Lloyd Webber’s charitable foundation.

An attempt by Lloyd Webber to sell it in 2006 was aborted after lawyers for a German academic, Julius Schoeps, claimed the painting had been sold under duress to the Nazis in the 1930s. The claim that Schoeps, an heir of Paul Mendelssohn Bartholdy, was the rightful owner was dismissed by a court in New York two years ago. In January it was revealed that a confidential new agreement had been reached between the heirs and Lloyd Webber’s foundation, in which the former relinquished all their claims.

The settlement means that an extremely rich person or institution now has the chance to buy an enormously important masterpiece. Christie’s president Jussi Pylkkänen called it “one of the most important works of art to be offered at auction in decades”.

Lloyd Webber bought it in 1995 for £18m and his foundation has been encouraged to sell by recent high amounts raised at auction, not least the record £65m paid for a Giacometti sculpture in February.

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Dealer and collector with a passion for art nouveau and art deco

Victor Arwas, who has died of a heart attack aged 72, was a larger-than-life personality, even for the London art world. As a dealer and collector, his interests centred on the graphic and applied arts of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. As the 1960s reawakened an interest in art nouveau, he found a growing market for original artefacts.

No mere salesman, Victor had a true passion for his subjects. He identified with his chosen period to the extent that he was a modern incarnation of the aesthete. He followed in the footsteps of Oscar Wilde or Jean Des Esseintes, the anti-hero of French novelist Joris-Karl Huysmans’s 1884 bible of decadence, À Rebours (Against the Grain). Invariably wearing black, Victor was always ready with an aphorism. He reversed night and day. A midnight telephone call would be answered by Victor with a polite “good morning” as he began a session of writing and research.

Victor could trace his ancestry to a Sephardic Jewish family who had been chased out of Spain at the time of the Spanish Inquisition. Victor was born in Cairo and educated at the British school there and later at New York University. At the time of the Suez crisis, in 1956, he moved to London with his parents, and remained there for the rest of his life.

His father was a successful businessman, but from a young age Victor’s interests lay in the world of art. In 1969, he opened his gallery, Editions Graphiques, in Clifford Street, off Bond Street in central London, where it has remained for more than 40 years. Victor had a conviction that London needed a gallery in the French style, which meant exhibiting together different sorts of art works from a particular period: sculpture, jewellery, interior design and graphic works.

In Victor’s gallery, exquisite objects caught the light of glowing lamps by Tiffany and Émile Gallé. Bronze and ivory sculptures by Ferdinand Preiss and Demetre Chiparus (whose elegance and eroticisim he loved) crouched beside art nouveau sphinxes. On the walls hung mysterious and darkly erotic graphics by Félicien Rops, Aubrey Beardsley, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Alphonse Mucha and James Tissot.

Visitors to the gallery were unlikely to encounter Victor without an appointment. He was likely to be curating an exhibition in Japan or busy contributing to a catalogue, as he did for more than 30 exhibitions in eight countries, often lending works of art as well (the most recent being the Royal Academy’s Wild Thing exhibition, featuring Jacob Epstein, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska and Eric Gill).

Victor was the author of major works including Art Deco Sculpture – Chrys- elephantine Statuettes of the 20s and 30s (1975), The Art of Glass: Art Nouveau to Art Deco (revised edition 1999), Art Deco (revised edition 2000) and Art Nouveau, the French Aesthetic (2002). He published catalogues on costume design and 1920s sculpture, and pioneered the appreciation of fin-de-siècle illustrators such as Rops, Paul César Helleu, Marcel Vertes, Théophile Steinlen and Louis Legrand.

Victor always took immense care over selecting the illustrations for his books and catalogues, and the results were works of art in themselves. He could communicate enthusiasm through his writings while still giving them the vigour of intellectual pursuit. He was also a source of funny and sometimes unprintable stories about the artists he admired.Victor did not restrict his exhibitions to his favourite period. He showed the work of the Brotherhood of Ruralists (including Peter Blake and Graham Ovenden) before they were well known. He was one of the first London dealers to have the courage to show the drawings and photographs of Hans Bellmer at a time when this German surrealist was widely considered to be a pornographer. This exhibition served as a launch for my book on Bellmer in 1985.

I was lucky enough to collaborate twice more with Victor. For my book Portrait of David Hockney (1989), he put on an accompanying exhibition of drawings, engravings and theatre models. For Sphinx, the Life and Art of Leonor Fini (2009), he once again put together a wonderful show of drawings, engravings and book illustrations. The opening of the Fini exhibition at Editions Graphiques in December last year was a typically crowded, spirited event and, sadly, his last public appearance.

Victor is survived by his wife and business partner, Gretha, whom he married in 1989.

• Victor Arwas, art dealer, collector, curator, art historian, born 29 June 1937; died 23 February 2010

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Art is far more accessible to buy and view right now. Even famous works of art are being loaned out to local galleries so a wider audience can see them.
There is less stuffiness regarding art. Artwork can now be ordered more readily in bespoke commissions or particular colours and themes can be stipulated. A few years ago, this was an absolute no go area, the artist ruled and what they said was final. There are a number of artists now offering an easier to reach bespoke service, both by way of approaching the artist but also in terms of cost.

Not everyone has the money to buy modern canvas art produced by famous artists so it has enabled the not so famous but equally as talented new artists to produce work and be successful selling them. Canvas art is quite dramatic as the medium used is either oil or acrylic paint. Both achieve high depth in colour and on a bright white wall, a piece of canvas artwork on a stretched canvas frame has maximum impact.

Art can be bought in many different forms, one very in vogue at the moment is canvas art. The canvas is stretched over a wooden frame and oil or acrylic paint can be used or even mixed media. The canvas stands away from a wall and enables the painting area to go right to the edge. Painting around the edges can also be done for an enveloped look.

Art is the perfect gift for someone very special. Some artists offer the service of recreating a memorable photo into oil or acrylic. This is a highly personal and special gift and something completely unique. Such a service has been enabled to be found through the internet. The internet has been the most influential part in enabling art to be reached to the masses and now being more accessible. Galleries that were once confined to purely the premises can now sell and advertise their work
online and reach the whole country in fact, the world. Artists that may not have been able to afford a gallery premises can now sell their art online, reaching a far wider audience. In the respect of the consumer, a huge variety of artist’s styles, genres, media and themes can be chosen from. Mail order has enabled the artwork to be sent when collection is not obtainable. There are artists in the UK that through the internet, have been able to sell their work to clients abroad. This brings in a whole new market and is extremely exciting.
Guest artists are now selling their canvas artwork through large department stores. As with many of the supermarkets that stock local produce, this is a similar occurrence in department stores with local artists. Even if not local, then an artist can sell their work through a selection of stores.

Interior design has become high in a home owners mind in recent years with shows such as 60 Minute Makeover, Changing Rooms and other home make over shows. Artwork is always a large part of the overall finish of the room that has been decorated. Interior designers are working more and more closely with artists for artwork that complements the interior of a room. A piece of canvas art can make a huge difference to the way a room looks and feels and can transform a drab, boring room into something very special.
So, to conclude, art is one of the oldest forms of enjoyment yet new technology has in fact transformed and lifted art. It has made people feel more comfortable about art and that it is available for anyone, not just the rich or privileged.

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Get Your Pictures on Canvas: Turn Photos in Work of Art

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 The artist says: Thanks for reading my contemporary art blog! If you are involved in the art and culture industry in any way, and would like to syndicate content from or to this blog, or if you simply enjoy art and would like to get in touch, please leave a comment! This article has been kindly provided by: telegraph-art [expanded by feedex.net]