Painting left in wardrobe sold for £9,500 at auction

A painting bought by an Oxford professor in the 1980s for £200 and then left in the back of a wardrobe has sold for £9,500 at auction.

James Campbell bought the picture of a view of rooftops in Lowestoft but later gave it away to his cousin.

She put it in the back of a wardrobe and decided to get it valued after the professor's death earlier this year.

It was discovered to be a rare work by Euan Uglow, whose paintings have fetched up to £600,000.

Andrew Spicer of auctioneers Dee Atkinson & Harrison said the painting was one of a series Uglow did in and around the Suffolk coastal town in the 1950s and 1960s.

He said: "Prof Campbell bought it from a colleague because it was of Lowestoft, rather than it being an Uglow work.

"It seems he never even got around to hanging it. We understand the painting spent years lying around in his study."

Mr Spicer added that interest in Uglow's work had soared in recent years.

London-born Euan Uglow was mainly known for his nude and still life paintings and for working at a glacially slow pace.

His method was meticulous, rarely completing more than a couple of paintings a year.

Uglow himself joked that he starting painting one model when she was engaged, but didn't finish until she was married and divorced.

Mr Spicer said: "He took so many months painting a church that a farmer who wanted to erect a glasshouse on the spot that Uglow was using carried on and built it around him.

"Obligingly [he left] a temporary gap so that the view was not impeded."