THE ASTROLOGER, A WATERCOLOUR BY AVRIL PATON

* AVRIL PATON (SCOTTISH b. 1941),
THE ASTROLOGER (LAMURA VON BOELLING)
watercolour on paper, signed, titled and dated 1994 label verso
image size 46cm x 34cm, overall size 77cm x 68cm
Mounted, framed and under glass.
Label verso: The Gatehouse Gallery, Glasgow.
Comment: The painting was kindly authenticated for us by Arvil herself. Paton was able to provide additional context for the picture, saying that although the label verso dates the picture as 1994, it was painted in 1993, and purchased from the gallery in 1994. The portrait is of Lamura Von Boelling, a Canadian astrologer who came to Glasgow in the 1980s and taught astrology to many in the city.
Note: a rare early work by Avril Paton, the artist who painted "Windows in the West", one of Scotland's best known and most popular contemporary paintings which was acquired for the nation by The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art and is currently on display at Kelvingrove Gallery, Glasgow. There has been much written about Paton's work from the 1980/90s explaining the meticulous detail and the many months it took to complete a single picture. Paton eventually moved on to a more spontaneous abstract style of work and consequently her earlier paintings are a distinct isolated body of work and the examples from this time are few and rarely, if ever, appear at auction. However, in The Scottish Contemporary Art Auction on 16th August 2020 lot 591 Topping Out Day by Avril Paton was sold for a new auction record price of £8000 (hammer). Paton's early work from this period has been studied as part of the curriculum for many of the nation's youth and there are several talks and discussions on YouTube.