We are selling the pictures on behalf of a relative of the artist.

When Charles died the current owners went to see Auntie Eve who was Charles wife. Eve gave the owner’s mum the pictures we are selling.

These pictures have prior to this auction never been seen on the commercial market.

Charles Messent was born in Felixstowe, Suffolk. He studied at the Regional College of Art in Manchester and privately in Alexandria, Egypt under Mohammed Seif al-Din Wanly (1906-1979).

The Museum of Modern Art in Cairo holds his work.

Charles exhibited widely, especially in the north of England with his pictures being exhibited at Manchester City Art Gallery which holds his work.

Other exhibitions were at Whitechapel Art Gallery; NEAC; and Paris Salon.

Charles was a founder-member of the Manchester Group.

He lived in Hassocks, Sussex and then in Dorset where he died in the 1970s.