There will be a unique opportunity to view the work of little-known Cambridge-based artist Joan Krakover Hall on Saturday (8 June).
A sale will be held from 1pm-5pm, at the family home at 49 Owlstone Road, Cambridge. The free event is being organised by her daughters as a benefit for Medical Aid for Palestinians, a charity Joan strongly supported.
Joan, who made her home in Cambridge from 1962 until the end of her long life last summer, was unrecognised as an artist.
People who visited her home and saw her art displayed on the walls would sometimes offer her hundreds of pounds for one of her works, but she always said no – although she gave them freely to friends and family who loved and enjoyed them.
Joan’s daughter, Ruth London (Hall), said: “She was a very remarkable woman, very talented, very aware of what’s happening in the world – very worried about what’s happening in the world.
“And she was a really excellent poet, as well as a fine artist, but she didn’t blow her own horn and she didn’t sell anything.
“She said what she had to say because she thought it was important to be said and she was also a fine writer and a great translator.
“She did a lot of translation work, from Italian mostly. And she made a huge difference to the lives of many people, including many of her students who kept in touch for decades afterwards, because of the difference that she’d made to their lives and their futures.
“The painting was a great joy for her; in her last years she lost a lot of hand control and she died at 94. But she was always appreciative of other people’s art.”
The family are also selling a collection of 20th-century art, mostly by British artists. These original paintings, plus signed limited edition etchings by Norman Ackroyd and others, vary in size and price from Suki Berg’s tiny water scene to Peter Iden’s big South Downs masterpiece.
At least two worked in Cambridge, including Sabine Bahn and Paula Patterson, a good friend of Joan’s.
Ceramics include work by Joan’s mother, Chicago sculptor Evelyn Krakover, and by her good friend, Ruth Duckworth.
Joan Hall studied Russian and Italian at Newnham, and for many decades taught at Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology (now Anglia Ruskin University). She was the wife of Ted (Theodore) Hall, whose story is told in the documentary A Compassionate Spy.
For more information, visit bit.ly/3KitA0p and see the catalogue at bit.ly/3yF9wmb.
