11/10/2025 General News
With its big skies, picturesque countryside and pure light, it is little surprise that East Anglia acts as a magnet for artists – and it has always held that allure, writes Daniel Smith. The result is a rich heritage of East Anglian art, a heritage which is increasingly recognised around the world.
East Anglia has produced some fantastic artists across the centuries, and its reputation as a hub for painters in particular has always led to others being attracted to live and work here.
Three times a year, the eyes of the art world (and I do mean world, because online bidding means it’s a truly international audience nowadays) turn on Norfolk, when the most important sale of works of art by East Anglian artists takes place in the county.
Keys’ East Anglian Art Sales have become the most important auctions of such works, and are acknowledged amongst both collectors and dealers as the main event for sourcing East Anglian art.
Of course, the star names of the past will always be in demand; bidders will always clamour for works by Constable, Seago and Munnings; Campbell Mellon, Arnesby-Brown and Eloise Stannard; Crome and Cotman.
But perhaps the most striking change in recent years has been the huge increase in interest in more contemporary East Anglian artists. Works by high profile present-day painters such as Colin Burns, Ian Houston, Jack Cox and Maggie Hambling are among the most sought-after lots in today’s East Anglian Art Sales.
The factors which have always attracted artists to East Anglia – the light, the big skies, the peaceful quality of life conducive to creativity – are all just as relevant today as they were back in 1803 when the Norwich Society of Artists was established.
Keys’ final East Anglian Art Sale of the year has 15 works – from two private collections - by a Norfolk artist who sadly died earlier this year. Geoffrey Chatten was very highly regarded as a painter with his own unique impressionistic style, mainly producing landscapes and seascapes from the Norfolk and Suffolk countryside.
Born in Gorleston in 1938, Chatten didn’t start painting with oils until his 20s, and wasn’t able to pursue a life as a professional artist until the 1980s, by which time he was into his 40s. He was entirely self-taught – he had no formal painting instruction at all – which accounts for his very personal style, which perfectly captured the movement of his subjects, as well as the light and the colour. It has been said that his paintings illuminate a room.
Every picture would start with a preliminary series of sketches, and on his death his studio was packed with scores of sketchbooks.
As well as landscapes and seascapes, he also produced still life works, in particular flowers, and he was particular about preparing each composition, amassing a huge collection of vases to complement the blooms he was painting. He was equally insistent that his paintings were well framed, to display his pictures at their best.
He was elected a full member of the British Society of Artists in 1995, exhibited at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and was a member of the British Artists Society. He died in April this year.
When an artist passes away, collectors inevitably move to acquire their work, conscious that no more will be produced. Geoffrey Chatten’s pictures have always been popular in the saleroom; with such a wonderful collection going under the hammer next month, we are expecting huge interest from his many admirers, both in East Anglia and further afield.