THE PETER AND RENATE NAHUM COLLECTION OF ABORIGINAL ART, LONDON LOTS 76 – 129
PETER AND RENATE NAHUM, PAUL MELLON CENTRE, LONDON.jpg
During his seventeen-year tenure at Sotheby’s London, Peter Nahum established the Victorian Painting Department at the newly opened premises in Belgravia (1971) and was head of the British Painting Department (1840 to Contemporary) until his departure. In 1984 he set up his own gallery which later became Peter Nahum At The Leicester Galleries and over twenty-five years as a passionate art dealer and expert followed. Located in St. James, London, the gallery specialised in high quality nineteenth and twentieth century British art.
From the 1970s Peter Nahum produced numerous scholarly publications and exhibition catalogues ranging in subject from Victorian art (particularly Burne-Jones and the Pre-Raphaelites), through to twentieth century British art, with a focus on surrealism. A large collection of books, journals and exhibition catalogues was donated by Peter and Renate Nahum to the Paul Mellon Centre Library, London in 2012, comprising thousands of publications on nineteenth and twentieth century British art and artists.
From 1981 – 2002 Peter Nahum was a regular contributor to the BBC's popular Antiques Roadshow, rediscovering Richard Dadd's lost watercolour Artists Halt in the Desert, c.1845, which he later sold to the British Museum. In 2017 – 18, he built the online website for the Burne-Jones Catalogue Raisonné and continues to act as adviser and coordinator to the project.
Reflecting on his career, Peter Nahum muses: “Dealers are glorified collectors … the only difference between a dealer and a traditional collector is that a dealer’s collection is, in principle, faster moving – their motto must be ‘Sell and Regret’.
In 2006 Christie's London sold The Poetry of Crisis: The Peter Nahum Collection of British Surrealist and Avant-Garde Art, one of the outstanding single-owner collections of modern British art in private hands, assembled over a period of 20 years and representing the collecting passion and discerning eye of Peter Nahum.
Peter and Renate Nahum’s engagement with Australian art began in the late 1980s. Assembled over a period of twenty years, the Nahum Collection of Aboriginal Art is the antithesis of Victorian painting and far removed from British surrealism, but reflects their enquiring minds and keen eyes. The bold simplicity of the art of the Kimberley and the fine bark designs of John Mawurndjul resonated for them as parts of a unique and truly international art movement. Looking at Australian Aboriginal Art with fresh eyes, the collection highlights the importance of eucalyptus bark paintings from Maningrida, Yirrkala and Western Arnhem Land, which stand in stark contrast to the distinctive group of Utopia paintings presented alongside the imagery of urban Aboriginal artists. Within this collection, these extreme points in contemporary Aboriginal art history are observed with passion from a curator’s perspective.
CHRIS DEUTSCHER