Charles Bronson artwork to be sold at York Auction Centre

More than 500 drawings and sketches by the 73-year-old prisoner, now known as Charles Salvador, will be auctioned at the York Auction Centre at Murton on Wednesday (March 11).

The pre-sale estimate is between £100,000 and £200,000 with the collection thought to be the most comprehensive group of Bronson’s prison works ever to appear at auction.

Once one of Britain’s most violent offenders, Bronson has spent most of the past five decades behind bars – apart from two brief periods during which he reoffended – for a string of thefts and firearms and violent offences, including 11 hostage-taking incidents in nine different sieges.

Charles Bronson (Image: PA)

Bronson has been dubbed Britain’s most notorious prisoner and was portrayed by actor Tom Hardy in the 2008 film Bronson.

He was first jailed in 1974 at the age of 22 when he was given seven-year sentence for an armed robbery.

Bronson, who changed his surname to Salvador in 2014 after the artist Salvador Dali, was handed a discretionary life sentence with a minimum term of four years in 2000 for taking a prison teacher at HMP Hull hostage for 44 hours. Since then, the Parole Board has repeatedly refused to direct his release. His last parole review in 2023 was his eighth.

Almost 10 years into his incarceration, Bronson started to develop an interest in sketching and drawing, according to Coralie Thomson, from auctioneers Duggleby Stephenson.

Coralie Thomson with Bronson’s ’50 Yrs of Porridge’ (Image: Duggleby Stephenson)

A 2012 self portrait by Charles Bronson (Image: Duggleby Stephenson)

She said Bronson has “expressed his pride that his work sells”, despite not being permitted to benefit personally from the sale of his drawings and sketches. “He revealed that he is particularly pleased that his art raises thousands of pounds for charitable causes,” she added.

Coralie said the drawings that will be on sale in Murton ended up in the hands of a vendor who “picked up a single Bronson picture 20 years ago” and “not only became an avid collector but also began corresponding with Bronson”.

The vendor established a relationship “that has enabled them to discuss art and Bronson’s ideas”, she said.

Bronson’s art has been described as everything from ‘raw genius’ to ‘simplistic cartoons’ (Image: Duggleby Stephenson)

Some of the 500 drawings and sketches by Charles Bronson that will be sold near York (Image: Duggleby Stephenson)

Critics, Coralie said, are divided on Bronson’s art – “everything from ‘a raw genius inviting us to explore the complexities of the human condition’ through to ‘simplistic cartoons’”.

“However,” she continued, “one of the most fascinating aspects of the preparation of this unique auction has been that, through the collector, we have been able to pose questions to Bronson, now held in a specialist close supervision centre at Woodhill Prison in Buckinghamshire, about his art. 

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“He revealed that pursuing his interest has been difficult with jails at times refusing him materials – pens, crayons, card – and denying him posting his drawings and sketches out to family and friends. He said he is still very limited in what materials he can and can’t have and actually dreams of creating oils on canvas.

“When we asked if he views much of his work as satire or humour, he replied, ‘I don’t do humour art. I’m an artist not a clown. My art is brutal, it bleeds, it screams. It’s basically saying free me – let me die a free man.’”

Coralie said a decision was taken to sell Bronson’s art collection as a single lot to keep the collection together.

The full catalogue and details are available at www.davidduggleby.com