Six paintings by Pierre Adolphe Valette, tutor to LS Lowry, will be hitting the auction block at the Art & Design Sale on the 9th May.
Pierre Adolphe Valette was a French Impressionist painter, who is best known for his landscapes of Manchester, many of which are now in the Manchester Art Gallery. Valette was born in 1876 and arrived in England in 1904, where he studied at the Birkbeck Institute. In 1905 he became prolific in designing greeting cards and calendars for a Manchester printing company, whilst attending evening classes at Manchester Municipal School of Art where he became a teacher in 1907. Lowry was a pupil of Valette and called him ‘a real teacher… a dedicated teacher’ and was quoted to have said ‘I cannot over-estimate the effect on me coming to this drab city of Adolphe Valette, full of French impressionists, aware of everything that was going on in Paris.’ The Lowry gallery complex hosted an exhibition of around 100 of Valette’s works, alongside Lowrys in 2011 – 2012.
The highest value picture on offer is a landscape depicting Valdemosa which has an estimate of £2,000 - £3,000, followed by a picture of Viviers which is expected to sell for between £1,500 and £2,000. Other landscapes include pictures of Grasmere, Anglesey, Pravins and Palma. All of the pictures were purchased from The Tib Lane Gallery in Manchester in 1970.
Brett Tryner says: “Valette is predominantly remembered as the tutor of LS Lowry and as a pioneer of impressionism in the North of England. His popularity and reputation as one of the great mid-century painters and followers of the French Impressionist movement has helped to create a strong following of collectors, mainly based in and around Manchester. His original paintings depicting urban Manchester scenes can sell for well into the tens of thousands at auction, for example, a painting of Albert Square in Manchester achieved £19,375 in 2010, and there is a burgeoning market for other works by Valette in the auction room.”