Mark Lawrence Art Collection

The Mark Lawrence Art Collection is considered to be one of the finest private collections in the Royal County of Berkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Mark Antony Lawrence is a Art & Antiques collector who was born on the 17th of october 1986 at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading, Berkshire. He now lives in Tilehurst a suburb outside of Reading. He is believed to be one of the youngest Art collector's in the United Kingdom and is also a keen art critic , although uneducated he is self taught in art history. In 2008 he is set to inheirit over 200 works of art from his late grandfathers estate. The impressive collection first started in 1996, when Mark was just ten year's old. The collection is said to contain 150 works of art from all over Europe including: a Rare Banksy print 2/2, a early Piccaso Sketch and a 18th century silk embroidery picture in excellent condition. Oil paintings, watercolours, sculpture and engraving's all make up the 150 works collected so far.
The collection also contains rare items of porcelain including a rare 1820s Ludwigsburg figure and a early Chelsea Porcelain urn. A Mantle clock made by Rowell's of Oxford in 1870 is said to be one of only nine of its model's in existence. A number of item's were left to Mr Lawrence by his grandfather,a keen art collector,who amassed over 500 artpiece's , 200 of which Mr Lawrence is set to inheirit next year. A well known work , which is considered a masterpiece is a religious painting known as Readings Annunciation which was painted in 1730 and is kept under protective glass.The Painting was part of a exhibition at the Museum of Reading in 2003. The Painting was shown,along with others in The John Madejski Art Gallery which is a recreation of the museum's original Victorian era art gallery and houses changing exhibitions of art works. It is named after John Madejski, the chairman of Reading F.C..Although The collection is not open to viewing by the public, Lawrence has stated that he will be donating a number of works to the Museum of Reading and is planning to remove a large number of artworks from storage to loan to various galleries throughout 2008. Mr Lawrence lives a quite and restrained life, he rarely speaks publicly of his art collection and often buys by telephone at auctions , but he does attend the yearly art auction at Reading University. In early 2007 a number of items were stolen from lawrences tilehurst home, so far none of the items have been found or returned, a number of which have been featured in the Art Loss register magazine and various local news papers as well as the Antiques-Talk website.

Mr Lawrence is also the great great nepthew of the famous writer and poet D.H.Lawrence.

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