Beard and artwork of violent prisoner up for auction
More artwork by Charles Bronson, one of the UK's most violent prisoners, is to go under the hammer.
A sale next week will offer 200 lots including paintings, personal effects, clothing, signed books, a hand-made Christmas present and even part of his beard, said auctioneer Jonathan Humbert.
The 61-year-old inmate, born Michael Peterson and now called Charles Salvador having recently changed his name by deed poll, is serving a life sentence for robbery and kidnap and has earned public notoriety with a history of violence inside and outside jail.
Mr Humbert said it might not be expected that paintings and poetry would sit alongside Salvador’s fearsome reputation, but his work has artistic merit and a sense of humour.
He said: “From an individual who has clearly spent most of his adult life in prison and who, by any stretch of the imagination, has lived a very ’alternative’ life, come pencil and crayon studies that show an intelligent albeit troubled and frustrated mind working together with a capable and detailed hand, combining to depict works of clear artistic merit.
“What is clear from the many stories that these items tell is that even though so many years have been served behind bars, the indomitable human condition still fights through with a clear sense of humour that prison walls cannot quell.”
Salvador is said to have rejected violence, saying: “I have given this a lot of thought and I really have little choice but to kill Bronson off once and for all. I have become a hostage of my own notoriety; Bronson is burying any chance of me ever being freed.”
The sale will include the final piece of “Charles Bronson” artwork, and the first two pictures drawn under the name of Charles Salvador.
Paintings by the artist have realised more than £1,000 each recently. The collection, being offered by his family, is expected to have global interest with a proportion of the proceeds going to the Brain Tumour Charity and Keech Cottage Hospice at Luton.
The sale takes place at JP Humbert Auctioneers of Towcester, Northamptonshire, England from 5pm on Thursday October 9.
