ADAM'S HAS reported annual turnover in 2011 of €10 million - a 10 per cent increase on the previous year.
Ireland's largest fine art auctioneer said "despite difficult economic conditions in Ireland good quality items are continuing to achieve strong prices with the vast majority of purchasers coming from this country" and that "many buyers saw, in good artworks, a safe haven for their savings at a time when the euro has been under considerable pressure".
This year Adam's is celebrating 125 years in the fine art business and will hold its first art auction of 2012 in March.
Meanwhile, Adam's is showing a selling exhibition of artwork associated with a 1940s Irish art group known as "The White Stag" - led by British painters Basil Rákóczi and Kenneth Hall. Rather unpatriotically, they moved here from London in 1939 and stayed for the duration of the second World War - living and painting mainly on the west coast and exhibiting in Dublin. They are credited with - or blamed for - encouraging "modernism" in Irish art.
David Britton of Adam's said "the achievements of the group are significant within the context of Irish art, where their bohemian approach to art and the quirky artwork they exhibited helped liberalise Irish artists from the grip of an ultra-conservative Irish culture".
The exhibition and sale continues at Adam's on St Stephen's Green until February 3rd.
- MP
