Lenkiewicz work damaged in fall

The auctioneers say the damaged painting was fully insured

A painting by the late artist Robert Lenkiewicz has been damaged after a display wall fell over during an exhibition of his work in Devon.

The collapse happened at the Westpoint Arena near Exeter during a two-day public viewing ahead of a sale by Bearne's Art Auction.

The 15m display wall had about 20 paintings on it when it collapsed.

Bearne's said Silver Lake, a 183cm by 282cm (6ft by 9ft) landscape worth £6,000 to £8,000, was slightly damaged.

"The damage is very slight - there's a small hole in the canvas about the size of a little fingernail," spokesman Dan Goddard told BBC News.

"The most important thing is that no-one was hurt when the screen collapsed.

"One chap was quite shocked and had to sit down for a while, but nobody was physically hurt."

Mr Goddard said it was not known why the display wall collapsed, but it was very unlikely to have been caused by the weight of the paintings and sketches.

Contractors were immediately brought in to put the screen back in place and members of the public were allowed to continue viewing the pictures.

The controversial artist suffered from a serious heart condition

The sale on Saturday will go ahead as planned, Mr Goddard said.

About 500 lots from the artist's estate are going under the hammer.

Five years ago an initial sale of 600 works made more than £1m.

Lenkiewicz, who died in 2002, was the son of Jewish refugees from Germany and Poland.

The 60-year-old painter courted controversy, with portraits looking at themes such as vagrancy, sexual behaviour and suicide.

In the 1980s, he embalmed the dead body of Edwin MacKenzie - known as Diogenes the tramp - as part of his studies.

Skulls for sale

After Lenkiewicz died, Diogenes embalmed body was found hidden in a chest of drawers in one of the painter's studios in Plymouth.

The sale includes work spanning the painter's life, with drawings and sketches from the 1950s when Lenkiewicz lived in Hampstead, to work completed in the year of his death.

Some of the artist's artefacts to be sold include furniture, beds, skulls, dresses, books, studio artefacts and materials, all of which were in use at the time he died.

Alongside brushes and paints, there are dozens of palettes as they were left in situ covered with paint, and examples from the Lenkiewicz Library including a group of leather-bound bibles and books on erotica, witchcraft, vampirism and sexual fantasy.

The lots are expected to sell for between £20 to £150,000.