A painting that appears to be just a block of brown colour is set to go under the hammer for up to £6,000.
The minimalist work is part of a long-hidden studio collection by late British abstract artist John Plumb.
The entire hoard of 260 works is expected to fetch £180,000 at auction.
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The collection will be offered by Ewbank’s on 30 January, 18 years after Plumb’s death.
The most expensive lot is called ‘Burnt Brown.’
The acrylic piece is on a canvas, and is signed and dated but unframed.
But it just a huge rectangular block of brown.
A similar one of slightly lighter shade of the same colour is set to go for £5,000.
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That one is called ‘Brown’.
For the same price there is one called ‘Yellow 4’ – and is just a canvas of that hue.
Pre-sale bidding is already underway online, as reported by What’s the Jam.
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Plumb died in 2008 aged 81.
He trained at Luton School of Art and Byam Shaw School of Art in the 1940s before studying at the Central School of Art and Design in the early 1950s, where he was heavily influenced by modernist painter Victor Pasmore.
He later taught at Luton School of Art in the late 1950s, then at Maidstone School of Art in the early 1960s, before spending time teaching in the United States.
He eventually returned to Central as a senior lecturer, a role he held throughout the 1970s and early 1980s.
The studio contents had remained under wraps after being left to Plumb’s friend Mark Harvey.
A Ewbank’s spokesperson said: “This is a unique opportunity to see the arc of an artist’s thematic and stylistic development in a single catalogue.
“The unveiling of an artist’s studio is always a major event, but this is even more so, partly because it has not been available for view for almost two decades.
“But also because here we have the chance to reassess the contribution of a perhaps lesser known figure who played an important part in a key artistic movement of the later 20th century.”
The sale takes place in Woking, Surrey.
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