Artwork by Sir Peter Blake's brother surfaces at New York auction

Image / www.bonhams.com

Two yacht race paintings by the artist brother of the late America's Cup legend Sir Peter Blake have surfaced at auction in New York.

Top maritime artist Anthony Blake has two pieces to go under the hammer at Bonhams' 'Fine Maritime Paintings & Decorative Arts' auction next Friday (New Zealand time).

Acrylic artworks 'Crossing Tacks ' and 'Action at the Mark' are expected to fetched at least NZ$4000 each.

Mr Blake is the younger brother of yachting legend Sir Peter who was shot and killed by pirates while monitoring environment change on the Amazon River in 2001.

When contacted by NZME. News Service today at his home studio located at the Auckland suburb of Glendowie, Mr Blake said he was not aware of the auction.

When shown the two pieces, he recollected painting them while working as a civil engineer Calgary, Canada.

"As a very keen yachtsman, I had just started painting marine scenes as a hobby," he said.

"My paintings nowadays are of mainly historical yachting scenes, are all oil on canvas and command prices many times higher than the estimates shown for the two Bonhams ones."

Mr Blake often monitors other top auction houses, Christie's and Sotheby's, and said he would be interested to see what these on-sold paintings would fetch.

Most of his paintings are sold through two dealer galleries in the US where he had first exhibition in 1991.