Skymeadow Gallery

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Skymeadow Gallery

Author and art dealer. Purveyor of beautiful paintings, prints and lithographs. East Anglian focus. Insta:

30/08/2026

This Dame Laura Knight painting ‘Waiting to go in the ring’ is coming up at Bonhams on the 23rd September.

In the second slide you can see ‘The Trick Act’ now in the Touchstone Rochdale Museum collection, dated to the early 1930s.

Here the clown is wearing his hat mid performance rather than holding it. Taken together there is a juxtaposition between the tension of performance and a private moment for the troupe away from the crowd. It is not hard to see why Dame Laura Knight was so drawn to capture these ethralling, colourful and deeply human moments in paint.

The horse coincidentally is a Knabstrupper, a Danish breed favoured by circuses because their patterned coat made them stand out in the ring, just as they do in Dame Laura Knight’s paintings.

In the third slide you can see a photograph now in the collection of the National Portriat Gallery taken by an unknown photographer and dated to 1936 that catches Dame Laura Knight in the act of painting a Knabstrupper.

If you are building or managing a collection of British paintings please do get in touch, we would be delighted to discuss your ongoing requirements with you.

Bonhams Mod Brit + Irish Art

27/08/2026

1. Bea and I having dinner on our drive down through France
2. Great japes in a whirlpool bath we found in champagne
3. Essex girls arrive in Paradou
4. Brother Guy with a spoon on his nose
5. Uncle Bimbo, thank you for all your many kindnesses.. not least inviting us on this holiday!
6. 300 year old French plane
7. Florence & Celestia will find horses anywhere. With thanks to Poney Club le Rouget
8. Son and heir with eldest daughter, so proud of you both
9. Isadore, one of my very brilliant nephews and sparing partners, especially when on holiday together
10. James Bond
11. Brother Guy this time with a drink in his hand
12. Pomegrannates
13. More spoon fun
14. Magnificent Saint-Sauveur, built into the side of a rock in the breathtakingly beautiful Grignan, daytime
15. Saint-Sauveur, nighttime, so worth a visit if you ever can
16. The chappel of the Virgin within Saint-Sauveur, installed 1681 and behind a depiction of the vision received during the battle of Lepanto by Pope Pius V, I think.
17. Florence by the castle in Grignan
(Thanks to for our stay, good to be back after fifteen years, we’ll try not to leave it so long next time!)
18. Bye bye lovely France 🇫🇷

13/08/2026

Listen young people if your A-level results were not quite what you wanted relax.
As it happens I got three ‘A’s and went to Cambridge - now I’m a jobbing art dealer and an occasional author and financially speaking I roll with the punches!
Meanwhile there are several people I know who got appaling A-levels and have totally outperformed. One in particular I’m thinking of now; not only is he successful in a worldly financial sense, he’s a fine human being.
In short your A-levels absolutely don’t determine your future.
For my part, I was and remain academically minded, I’ve never lost my interest in academic stuff, I read and listen widely, I think I’m fairly good at what I do, but please don’t think A-levels determine your future, they don’t, you do!

12/08/2026

For anyone who needs to hear this, anyone starting a new garden?
Relax. Gardens grow. Its what they do!
These two pics are ten years apart.
Other than the day I got married and the day each of my children were born (and perhaps the day we picked up our first puppy) no day has provided me with as much sheer excitement as the day when I learnt I would have the opportunity to steward a garden into being on this very spot.

11/08/2026

Back home.
Paintings, paintings everywhere!
The gallery will be open for visits again soon, well worth coming to see the Wilfrid de Glehn (top left second slide) it is a magnificent picture ❤️

10/08/2026

Funny to think the small slither of half land half sea that runs from Salthouse to Scolt Head is all that remains of a once vast prehistoric landscape. Until about 7,000 years ago you could walk from Norfolk to Norway!!
1. Sandcastling
2. Evening light Norfolk tiles
3. Stina Ekblad Bellamy Sybilla Hart
4. Rushing the mast, Blakeney. A heart stopping spectacle
5. Crab
6. Rupert Finch Sybilla Hart
7. Gourmet’s paradise The Moorings, as always a superb menu and lovely people
8. What it’s all about
9. Cheeky monkey
10. A new perch
11. Superbly reconstructed half size 19th century merchant vessel “Juno”
12. The tree that creates the foreground Wiveton Hall, live music & food & just as lovely as it ever was.
12. Wiveton Hall moon.
13. Cheeky monkey
14. Eldest daughter
15. Near Burnham Overy Staithe
16. Blakeney Quay
17. Two churches. What is it to be an East Anglian? It is to have two churches in your line of sight at any one moment 😊

13/07/2026

New to the gallery another superb Lionel Bulmer, this time a coastal scene with a figure looking out to sea.
It is a painting of Benacre on the Suffolk coast. Not only was this his favourite landscape setup but also his favourite palette of colours.
Beautifully framed and ready to hang, this will go up on the website shortly.

Lionel Bulmer
The coast at Benacre
Framed dimensions: 40 x 57 cm
For price enquiries please contact the gallery

09/07/2026

Thanks for putting up with me for 21 years!
❤️❤️❤️

03/07/2026

The joy of being an art dealer is you get to handle a ‘succession’ of pictures. Some recent and well beloved disposals ❤️

01/07/2026

For those browsing instagram my name is Charlie Hart and I am an art dealer.

Here I am with my wife Sybilla, it feels right to include her in this ‘pinned’ introduction because I never buy a painting for our gallery without discussing it with her first.

I started collecting paintings rather haphazardly in my twenties. I didn’t intend to become an art dealer, I fell into it by accident.

I am interested in British painting from the 1870s onwards.

Before I buy a painting I have to be satisfied that it works on the strength of its image alone.

Only if this test is passed do I carefully consider other factors like its history, condition and price.

If you study the total output of an artist (what’s called their oeuvre) you get an ever growing sense of what they were trying to achieve.

No two paintings are the same and we work tirelessly to ensure the paintings we acquire for our collection reflect only the very best work the artist produced.

Because we own our collection and house it here at the gallery we can generally pack and ship paintings to clients within a day or two.

From my perspective, I consider it a huge privilege to be able to spend time with these paintings whilst they’re with us, something I would otherwise not be able to do.

If you would like to browse our full collection it is available on our website.

Address

Colne Engaine
Colchester
CO6

Telephone

+447747600322

Website

http://www.skymeadowgallery.com/

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