Major bequeaths to galleries are normally made by grand sorts, but Tim Sayer, a former BBC Radio 4 news writer, appears refreshingly normal. Sayer’s north London home is packed with a collection of more than 400 pieces accumulated over 50 years on a pedestrian salary, hanging cheek by jowl up the staircase, on both sides of doors, even in the bathroom. According to Tate Director, Nicholas Serota, it “reflects the discriminating eye of a person of modest means, whose passion for art 'took precedence over holidays’”. Last year, Sayer and his wife Annemarie decided to leave the lot to The Hepworth Wakefield in West Yorkshire. It includes ceramics, sculptures, paintings and works on paper by artists such as Alexander Calder, Anthony Caro, Sonia Delaunay, Paul Nash, Gerhard Richter and Bridget Riley. Around 100 works from the collection will be on public display for the first time in Wakefield in an exhibition titled The Tim Sayer Bequest: A Private Collection Revealed (30 April-9 October).
