With galleries currently closed and art fairs postponed, buying artwork in the digital realm has never made more sense, especially when you can fundraise in the process. Art for Charity Collective is a new initiative which facilitates both, with emerging and established artists auctioning their works on Instagram to support good causes. Happy bidding…
If you’re looking to add flair and finesse to your home with an original – and affordable – artwork, you need to hop onto the Art for Charity Collective Instagram account, which is auctioning off over 60 pieces by emerging and established artists later this month.
The brainchild of landscape painter Lucy Kent, the Collective was established in June this year, partly to create a mutual support network amongst the artist community during these unsettling times, but also to raise awareness and funds for charities by holding online auctions of their oeuvre.
The Collective’s upcoming Instagram auction – which runs from 23 November until 27 November to raise money for Infant Leukaemia – promises to be as colourful as it is diverse. Expect to see works, across a range of mediums, by acclaimed painter and printmaker Tom Hammick, as well as BP Portrait Award winner Susanne du Toit, photographer Claudia Legge, Venetia Berry, Haidee-Jo Summers and American figurative painter Josh Clare, to name a few.
If you’re lucky enough to place a winning bid (you bid in the comments section under each artwork), not only will you own a unique piece of art, but 35 percent of each sale will go towards the Enzo Saunt Brighter Future Fund at Great Ormond Street Hospital.
The Fund was set up in memory of Enzo, who tragically lost his life at the age of two-and-a-half to leukaemia. During Enzo’s treatment he spent over 250 nights in hospital isolation, had more than 300 doses of chemotherapy, suffered organ damage, had 40 unplanned visits to hospital when at home, received over 60 blood transfusions, had 30 general anaesthetics for spinal chemo injections, a leukaemia relapse, and five emergency crash calls.
Enzo very sadly passed away earlier this year, after contracting a common virus during his bone marrow transplant, as his immune system hadn’t yet regenerated. The Fund hopes to raise money not just for research into a cure for this aggressive and devastating disease, but also into offering young children alternatives to the particularly high-dose chemotherapy used in standard treatment and bone marrow transplants.
If the Art for Charity Collective’s previous auction in September is anything to go by, which raised £20,000 for the Khadija Saye IntoArts Foundation – established after the Ghanian artist lost her life in the Grenfell fire disaster, to promote diversity in the arts – this latest initiative is certain to be a huge success.
“Enzo was the bravest, funniest, dinosaur-obsessed boy,” said Rosie and Any, Enzo’s parents. “We are beyond proud of our son, but would obviously do anything to have him still with us today, and to prevent other families going through this trauma. If the money raised can help researchers get one step closer to saving infants from this awful disease, it will really help make some meaning out of this madness.”
The auction will take place at @artforcharitycollective. Bidding for the artworks will begin on Monday 23rd November at 9am GMT. Closing bids by Friday 27th November 6.30pm GMT.
If you are unable to join the auction, or would rather just donate, please visit Just Giving.
