Eight paintings by Wareham artist sell for more than £1,000 at recent auction

Wareham’s Cottees auction house handled the sale, which was also filmed for BBC TV’s ‘Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is’ show.

All but one of the nine paintings on offer was sold, for prices ranging between £80 and £260.

The eight made £1,140 in total.

Alastair Michie, who moved to Wareham shortly after World War II, died in 2008.

He was a talented painter and sculptor, who pursued a successful career as a freelance designer and illustrator before embarking on his artistic life in the early 1960s.

Creativity was strong in Michie’s genes – his mother Anne Redpath is widely acknowledged as one of the finest Scottish painters of the 20th century.

John Condie, of Cottees Auctions Limited, expla- ined: “Cottees of Wareham had been instructed on behalf of a Poole vendor to sell a collection of nine paintings by the renowned local painter Alastair Michie.

“He (Michie) moved to Wareham after the war when he took up residence in the imposing Queen Anne House in South Street, from where he sold the majority of his works.

“Michie’s abstract style earned him a solid reputation in the 1960s and 1970s as an artist and sculptor having been influenced by Mark Rothko and others and he became a Royal West of England academician.”

The BBC ‘Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is’ show sees consumer experts put to the test as they’re pitted against one another and challenged to make a profit.