For many years, Sworders Auctioneers have been championing the work of the artists of Great Bardfield and Benton End. Our clients have come to trust us as the place to buy and sell their East Anglian art and as a result we have achieved many world record prices.
Although located within fifty miles of each other, these two groups were comprised of very different artists and practices. We can think of Great Bardfield, a small village in North Essex, as an artist’s community. Whereas Benton End, located on the outskirts of Hadleigh, Suffolk, was more formally established as an art school by Cedric Morris and Arthur Lett-Haines and was known as ‘The East Anglian School of Painting and Drawing’. Works by Eric Ravilious and Edward Bawden have been achieving strong results for a number of years, but their counterpart John Aldridge has recently gained interest with prices accelerating in 2022. Similarly, with Cedric Morris’s auction prices becoming unattainable for many, the spotlight is now also falling on his pupils with prices for Lucy Harwood and Joan Warburton increasing year on year.
Want to know how much your East Anglian & Great Bardfield Art may be worth? Fill out our easy to use form and a member of the team will be in touch with free advice.
Welcome to the Sworders East Anglian and Great Bardfield Artist Directory where you will find information on the very talented group of artists who resided in Great Bardfield and the area of East Anglia.
Our specialists hold regular valuation days. Please contact us for more information, or complete the online form to enquire about the valuation of your items.
Bryn Sayles
Modern & Contemporary Art | Senior Valuer, Business Development
T: 01279 817778
E: brynsayles@sworder.co.uk
Sworders are delighted to be presenting contents from the personal collection of the celebrated art collector Doris Lockhart Saatchi in our autumn auctions.
24 September 2026
Here, close friend, art historian and former Senior Curator of Modern British Art at Tate, Andrew Wilson, offers an insight into James Birch’s remarkable collection and the extraordinary life behind it. Having known James since the late 1980s, Andrew has witnessed first-hand his restless curiosity, his friendships with artists and his instinct for the unusual.
15 September 2026
Art dealer, curator, gallerist and author James Birch has spent more than four decades championing artists and staging groundbreaking exhibitions. This October, approximately 300 works from his private collection come to auction at Sworders, tracing a remarkable career from the King’s Road to Moscow and beyond.
