Paisley Art Institute: Works raise £1.5m as club sells treasures

A 19th century painting of Paisley has sold at auction for more than £500,000.

Sir John Lavery’s Paisley Lawn Tennis Club was one of more than 90 paintings sold by Paisley Art Institute.

It decided to sell a quarter of its historic collection after a row over space allocated in the town’s new museum.

It said the £1.5m raised by the auction would support the rest of the collection and its work in its new home in Glasgow Art Club.

Campaigners had called on the Scottish government to intervene but ministers decided it was a matter for the institute.

Paisley Art Institute is an collective run by artists and art lovers which holds an annual large-scale exhibition for contemporary artists.

The institute was formed in 1876 and has been collecting work since 1914.

Until recently it enjoyed a close relationship with Paisley Museum, which was established in the same year.

Its annual exhibitions were staged at the museum and its collection was held in storage.

The relationship became strained when the museum closed for refurbishment in 2018.

PAI was not happy with the offer of display space in the museum, which is due to reopen in 2025, or the selection of artworks for public display.

Since April, the institute has been gradually moving the works to the Glasgow Art Club in Bath Street, where the group has been staging their annual shows.

But they said the decision came at a price.

It needed to raise money to continue the charity’s work and took the radical decision to sell a quarter of its paintings at Lyon and Turnbull in Edinburgh.

At the auction, Sir John Lavery’s painting depicting Paisley socialites at a tennis party in 1889 sold for £537,700 including buyer’s premium.

Meanwhile F.C.B Cadell’s Pink and Gold sold for £250,200 and George Henry’s Banks of Allan Water triptych, a ‘forgotten’ masterpiece created in 1888, sold privately to a Scottish collector for £237,650.

The buyer, who is based in Scotland, has expressed the hope it will be displayed at some point in a public institution.

Joe Hargan, president of PAI, said he was delighted the three works in the triptych were being kept together as the artist originally envisaged.

The total raised from the sale of works was £1.63m.

Nick Curnow, head of fine art at Lyon & Turnbull, said: “It was a delight to be on the rostrum and see so much interest in a wonderful range of Scottish artists.”