One of the things I absolutely love about the Art UK collection is the sheer number of works listed by 'unknown' artists. They vary from the downright quirky, through the clumsily appealing, via the proficient and all the way up to utterly breathtaking. I barely scratched the surface of all the anonymous artworks available to see but here are just a selection that I was really taken with.
This portrait is quite lovely. No idea who the subject or artist is. The whole mystery kind of adds to the appeal of the work as it does with all of these pieces.
This abstract work is fabulous. The 'white' of the title is anything but. I love the shifting translucence.
There's a lovely simplicity to this scene of a group of bathers. Nice economical brushwork.
Always been a fain of paintings of people doing paintings. Meta. I didn't know St. Luke was a dauber.
Greek School
Tempera & gilt on oak panel
H 19.5 x W 11.5 cm
Paintings Collection
Coming from Essex as I do, I like this simple landscape of The Smack at Canvey. There's a real sense of the low bleak minimalism of the Thames vista communicated by the artist.
unknown artist
Oil on panel
H 11 x W 14 cm
Dutch Cottage Museum
A wonderfully minimal abstract here, but charming with it. I like the textures in that middle section.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 109.5 x W 110 cm
Kingston University: Art on Campus
This mixed media installation with all of its right angles and metallic hues and negative space has a real urban industrial feel. But the interplay of light and depth gives it a kind of warmth.
unknown artist
Oil on wood, cloth, metal & wire
H 250 x W 150 cm
Djanogly City Academy Nottingham
This illustrative work showing a (then) contemporary nurse working 'in the shadow' of another figure (who, having a lamp, we assume is Florence Nightingale) has a nice feel. bearing in mind the current global crisis, it's screaming for an update.
I've actually chosen this piece less for the original painting, but more for how it looks covered in strips of masking tape.
There's something about the greys and the eyes in this portrait that draws one in. A real weight and depth. Love to know who this dude was.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 61 x W 45.5 cm
Nottingham Central Library
This painting of a boxer is (I think) from an old fairground booth. There's a real charm to it.
unknown artist
Oil on board
H 288 x W 89.3 cm
The Fairground Heritage Trust
This picture of a woman in a nightclub has a real sense of joy about it, but that may be the lockdown talking.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 98 x W 64 cm
Dacorum Heritage Trust Ltd
This painting of Harold Wilson looks more like it's a portrait of Mike Yarwood doing Harold Wilson. That is a reference which will miss a fair few of you. Google him.
unknown artist
Oil on board
H 16.3 x W 13 cm
Bodleian Libraries
I have no idea what is going on here but I love it. Skinny mad eyed horse busking.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 28 x W 35.4 cm
Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum
The Duke versus pointillism. I think on balance, The Duke wins.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 199.5 x W 199.5 cm
Djanogly City Academy Nottingham
This abstract landscape has a Turner-esque feel. I love the tonal shifts.
This choppy, energetic figure painting is marvellous. Look at the brush strokes in the lighter areas. That dark block of colour at the top is really imposing.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 76 x W 64 cm
Examination Schools, University of Oxford
Brushwork here. Nice. You can really see the guy. Get a sense of him.
unknown artist
Oil on board
H 25.5 x W 20.5 cm
King's College London
I lived in London for six years. This painting reminds me of that time living in a city. The alluring glow of an all night petrol station.
unknown artist
Oil on paper
H 78.5 x W 128 cm
Glasgow Life Museums
This is an almost cliched image of Manhattan from under the Brooklyn Bridge. And it's kinda clunky. But this is a painting I'd really like to know the story of.
unknown artist
Oil on wood
H 109 x W 228 cm
Harrington Aviation Museum
Biddy Stonham was a legendary Hastings character, and well known as 'The Tub Man'.
I love this painting, the blue of the pan and background, and the likelihood that the artist used their bare fingertips to apply the pigment. Wonder what's cooking.
I remain drawn to work which looks incomplete, but as an artist am unsure when a piece is finished. You stop when you stop, and I think this artist stopped at a perfect moment.
I like tanks.
unknown artist
Acrylic on board
H 42 x W 86 cm
The REME Museum
Hard to look at, but the ghostly visceral quality of this piece is really compelling. reminds me of Louise Bourgeois.
When I drive to Dundee to University, I go through St Andrews, I see this view daily. It's beautifully evocative.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 44.7 x W 67.5 cm
University of St Andrews
A quirky, graphic print work here. Diagramatic elements, screened photographs and solid tones give it a brisk appeal.
The space, light and colour here are marvellous. The casual figures just lounging in the distance are endearing.
Coffee John looks like quite the chap. Smoking his pipe and hanging in front of his emporium.
unknown artist
Poster paint on cardboard
H 47.5 x W 58.1 cm
Glasgow Life Museums
This portrait of Fukuzawa Yukichi in formal Japanese dress is absolutely stunning. The detail and background tones are fantastic.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 89 x W 59 cm
Paintings and Sculptures owned by Colleges in the University of Cambridge
So. Many. Questions. Lovely painting, mind.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 46 x W 28 cm
Paisley Museum and Art Galleries, Renfrewshire Council Collections
A wonderful representation of evening light in this work.
Great use of line and tone in this work. The cross hatching in the rock is marvellous contrasted with the areas of painted texture. I like the confluence of geometry and geology.
unknown artist
Oil & mixed media on paper
H 131 x W 102 cm
University of Salford
There's something I like about the damage done to this work. The brutality of the four diagonals. Strangely compelling.
This cut open cadaver, presumably being studied by surgical students is strangely beautiful.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 100.5 x W 67.6 cm
The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh
The collage-like layout of this work is great. The sense that the lower horizontal and vertical central element fit together gets you looking at the work in a different way, it's like the artist is deliberately wrong footing the viewer.
unknown artist
Acrylic on canvas
H 91.4 x W 101.6 cm
University of Wales Trinity Saint David
I like the hand holding the book. Also the formally mannered look that is so common in portraiture of this era.
unknown artist
Oil on panel
H 44 x W 36 cm
Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford
I was in a production at the Theatre Royal in Bath. Never saw this painting sadly. He looks quite the turn.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 73 x W 61.5 cm
Theatre Royal, Bath
Again, the mystery and questions which surround this beautiful portrait are why I chose it initially, but the more you look, the lovelier it gets.
Cristofano Allori (1577–1621) (copy after)
Oil on canvas
H 29 x W 22 cm
St Anne's College, University of Oxford
Sarah Evans Davies looks quite a no nonsense woman. Mayor of Welshpool in the late 1920s. Strong.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 61 x W 50.8 cm
Welshpool Town Council
This equestrian number makes me laugh, because there's little or no sense of movement conveyed. It looks for all the world like two horses and riders relaxing on the top of a hedge.
unknown artist
Oil on wood panel
H 71 x W 92 cm
The National Horseracing Museum
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The colours here. Simple but appealing.
I have always liked nudes which like this, simply look at the topography of the human form. so much going on, and the green swirl in the background, echoed tonally in the skin and in the curves of the torso.
I really dig the stark geometry of the triangular motif contrasted with the organic forms of the (three) flowers.
Doig, Hockney, Sidney Nolan... I'm put in mind of so many artists by this beautiful little garden set piece. A moment in someone's day paused. Great warmth and space and despite the lack of a figure, real presence.
There's a comic strip vibe to this late 1930s portrait of Mayor Lipson. Looks like he could be driving a tank in The Victor.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 45 x W 34.9 cm
The Wilson
Fantastically vibrant industrial landscape work here. The scarab aquamarines of the lower right area tessellated by the ochre rooftops dominated by the russet and grey chimneystacks. it's really beautiful.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 138 x W 112 cm
Kingston University: Art on Campus
This is one of my favourites of this selection. The turquoise and grey Warhol-esque screen print style over looping script. A perfect evocation of urban claustrophobia.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 55 x W 55 cm
Kingston University: Art on Campus
So it says oil on canvas, but is the canvas sewn? I really like the tonal minimalism and texture of what really looks like stitching.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 67.5 x W 51 cm
Kingston University: Art on Campus
I love these dogs wiring into poor old Actaeon.
unknown artist
Distemper on plaster
H 84.5 x W 118.7 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum
The compression of detail around the face, contrasted with the looser, lighter style for her clothing and background make this for me.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 76.4 x W 63.6 cm
Beamish, The North of England Open Air Museum
Seems quite chirpy for a wounded fella. Great character work.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 95 x W 65 cm
The Regimental Museum of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders
The contrast here, and tones in the paper. I like how close he is holding the paper to his face.
Another lovely bit of 'folk art' from this old boxing booth. Check out the formally dressed ringside patrons.
unknown artist
Oil on board
H 263 x W 305 cm
The Fairground Heritage Trust
Lovely carved stone head.
unknown artist
Beer stone
H 34.5 x W 27.5 x D 9.5 cm
Tiverton Museum of Mid Devon Life
Really simple beautiful bit of portraiture. The brushwork and mark making have an alluring looseness.
The Penrose Almshouses in Barnstaple are still a going concern.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 34.5 x W 52 cm
Museum of Barnstaple and North Devon
I kind of dig that there was a lightship with 'Sunk' written on it in big letters. This is a beautifully messy bit of work. Looks like it was painted during a storm.
unknown artist
Oil on wooden panel
H 13.5 x W 13.5 cm
Ramsgate Maritime Museum
Here is, apparently, a painting of Keren Woodward from Bananarama dressed as the Queen in the 1950s.
unknown artist
Oil on board
H 117 x W 86.5 cm
Knowsley Arts and Heritage Service
This marvellous geometric painting of an office window has more than a whiff of Richard Hamilton about it. The dull (interior) is a brilliant focal point, set off by stark surrounding parallels and diagonals.
This piece is absolutely marvellous. Funny, engaging, complex and minimal. I'd really love to see it in real life.
unknown artist
Oil on canvas
H 151 x W 139.5 cm
Kingston University: Art on Campus