Maurice Wade Overview
After falling into obscurity after his death in 1991, Maurice Wade has recently been ‘rediscovered’ and has picked up majorly in the art market. He was born in 1917, in Wolstanston, Newcastle-under-Lyme, and trained at the Burslem School of Art in the 1930s. After serving in the army during World War Two, and after a brief stint in London, Wade returned to Staffordshire and made the area the subject of many of his paintings. His work lacks the sentimentality and nostalgia of other Northern Art though, as Wade’s depictions of its industrial landscapes are disengaged from human activity. This distances his paintings from the idea of the ‘everyday’, a common theme among other Northern Artists. His works can therefore be described as ‘still’ and ‘solid’, speaking to the beauty of durableness that Wade saw in his immediate area. This, and the limited colour palette and strong geometric shapes of his work, points his artistic practice in the way of formalism; a focus on visual aspects over that of narrative.
Maurice Wade, "Tower, Kiln and Little Red House, Hanley" (1979)
As mentioned, Wade has recently re-emerged in the art world to a strong reception, reflected in the quality of auction results achieved since. Wilson55 is proud to hold the auction record for Maurice Wade for his work “Tower, Kiln and Little Red House, Hanley”, a striking image which we sold for a hammer price of £7,700. Our in-house expert Stephen Sparrow has years of experience in assessing and valuing Maurice Wade’s paintings, so do get in touch if you’d like to learn more about a piece you own, or discuss a potential sale or valuation.
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