Last weekend’s SpectrumArt charity auction at the Headland Hotel in Newquay, raised more than £31k for people with autism and Asperger’s syndrome.
If organisers from the Cornwall-based charity feared the economic downturn would take its toll on bidders’ generosity – they were soon reassured as works from the likes of Patrick Hughes, Rankin, Damien Hirst and Mark Lascelles Thornton went under the hammer.
Patrick Hughes’ extraordinary 3D image of Venice, “Moonshine 2008”, made almost £4k, while Damien Hirst’s tiny doodle of a shark inside his coffee table book “The Elusive Truth” was bought for almost £2.5k by Truro’s Driftwood Gallery – one of the sponsors of SpectrumArt 2009.
London businessman Udi Amin snapped up for £6k the centrepiece of the auction, a large triptych inspired by a graffitied cell door from Dartmoor Prison and known as “The Divinity of Monsters”.
Spectrum’s CEO, Mary Simpson, said: “So many people put so much effort into making SpectrumArt a success. You just never know how it’s going to turn out – especially in this economic climate. But we had sealed bids on the table and telephone bids coming from across the country, as well as the dinner guests here in Cornwall and we’ve done even better than we did at our last art auction two years ago. We are delighted and overwhelmed and we can’t thank our supporters enough.”
