Auction Opens For Celebrity Deckchairs

The exciting Suffolk Coastal Deckchairs fundraising project reaches its climax with the auction of the unique artworks.

Over 50 deckchair canvases designed by celebrities, high-profile writers, artists and illustrators will be sold off to raise money for St Elizabeth Hospice.

Some of the works will be auctioned online while others will be bid on at a public ticket-only event at Trinity Park, Ipswich, on October 1.

Visit www.stelizabethhospice.org.uk/deckchairsauction to find out more and choose your favourite. The online auction closes on Tuesday 12th October.

The deckchairs, designed by actor Sean Bean, actress Maureen Lipman, Esther Freud, writer Anthony Horowitz, thespian Bernard Hill, talented local artists, Holby City Star Robert Powell to name but a few, spent the summer touring East Suffolk before going under the hammer to raise funds for the Hospice, which provides specialist services for people throughout East Suffolk who have an illness from which they will not recover.

Suffolk Costal Deckchairs was the creation of a 14-strong team, including Ann McBride, who lives near Stowmarket, whose sister Sheila was cared for at home before dying of breast cancer aged 30 – a year before St Elizabeth Hospice started its ‘Hospice at Home’ service.

If you want to see the deckchairs in all their glory they will be exhibited at Buckenham Gallery, Southwold, until September 17 and then from September 23 – 26 at Aldeburgh Gallery, Aldeburgh. Carl Brooks, of St Elizabeth Hospice said; “The collection of deckchairs were launched in April and have been touring exhibition venues in East Suffolk since then so the public can view them and see which one is their favourite.

The exhibitions continue until the end of September, however bidding will open on most of the deckchairs at the end of August with an online auction which lasts until October 12. The remaining deckchairs by the most high-profile celebs and artists will be auctioned off instead at a ticket only event at Trinity Park, Ipswich, on October 1 and we hope to attract international interest.

The project has captured the imagination of the public and attracted considerable media coverage and we hope the auction of all the 51 chairs will raise thousands of pounds for St Elizabeth Hospice. We hope it will be Suffolk’s answer to Norfolk’s Go Elephant and the London Elephant auction”.

If you would like more detail call 01473 723600 or email enquiries@stelizabethhospice.org.uk