Buying art at auction

[havingadogisfun]

Sounds daft but I would like to buy real art by early 20th century artists, I've been trying to look at seeing them via auction but can only see things that have sold already.
Any advice for a dummy like me please!,,

Assuming you haven’t got loads to spend, I would start by investigating regional/provincial auction houses.

Search for art auctions in the UK. Maybe try something like ‘art auction large city name’. You want to get the right level: in my city, for example, there’s a high-end and a lower end auction house, with better quality stuff dealt with by the former. Their sales are less frequent.

The companies usually then have a calendar so you can clock when the appropriate sales are going to be (e.g. British art, jewellery, etc) and browse the relevant catalogue when it’s available, usually a few weeks before the auction.

There are also websites that can you sign up to that alert you to UK auctions of interest, for a fee.

For bigger spends, there’s always Christie’s, Sotheby’s, Bonham’s, etc.

Depending on your location you might try Roseberry’s and Chiswick auctions, who both have fairly regular sales of 20th century art, and are not usually selling works in the same very high price bracket as the big three.