Mr Hideous first became aware of the Sophie’s Postcard fundraiser through a #callforartists hashtag on Twitter. It is a secret art auction in memory of Sophie Maria Taylor who was a former pupil of St Richard’s Catholic College in Bexhill. Apparently Sophie was a popular beautiful soul and an artistic young girl who tragically lost a battle with cancer at just 12 years old in 2017.
Classmates and teachers decided they would like to do something in remembrance of Sophie which would also be a fundraiser for the cancer charity that had treated and cared for Sophie and her family during her illness. This was the Royal Marsden Cancer Charity.
Secret Artists
A friend and classmate of Sophie, Chiara Wells, had an idea to hold a secret artists’ auction. The idea began to snowball when teacher at the college, and artist, Miranda Pennington, arranged the project in 2018. With the help of the pupils, they wrote to artists, celebrities and friends to invite them to submit a piece of artwork on a postcard. This could be a painting, sketch, slogan, collage or even just a doodle. The artist would remain anonymous by only signing the back of the postcard. The artworks would each be auctioned on Ebay with the buyer not knowing who their “secret” artist was until they received their postcard.
There was an overwhelming response and the college received 570 postcards from professional artists, amateurs, pupils at the college and celebrities all over the world, which included esteemed names such as Sir Quentin Blake, Laura Harris, radio DJ Fearne Cotton and Liz Pichon. Every postcard started with an opening bid of £1 and the auction raised almost £15,000.
All the details of the artworks and artists from the 2018 auction can be found at www.sophiespostcard.com/sophiespostcard2018
2020 Auction
After the phenomenal success of 2018 and also to commemorate what would have been Sophie’s final year at St Richard’s, the college are running another auction this year and have been inundated with over 1000 postcards received from artists, pupils and celebrities including Sir Quentin Blake, Liz Pichon, Thomas Taylor and Harry Hill. Mr Hideous is also honoured to have submitted a postcard for the auction.
Details of the 2020 artists and artworks can be found at www.sophiespostcard.com/sophiespostcards2020
The auction will run for 10 days on eBay and end on Saturday 27th June. The Ebay link is www.ebay.co.uk/usr/sophiessecretpostcardauction
For regular news updates on the auction, you can follow @strichardsart on Twitter and/or sophiessecretpostcard on Instagram. Please use the hashtag #sophiespostcard2020 to help promote the event on social media. My Twitter is @Mrhideous1
If you are interested in purchasing any of the artwork, the only way to do so is during the auction period on Ebay which runs from midday on 17th June until Saturday 27th June. Before the auction, check the website to make a note of the number of the piece you are interested in, then during the auction you can search for the postcard by number. Payment is made by Paypal. Once you receive your postcard, you will discover who your “secret” artist was.
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