# Frank Dobson artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/frank-dobson/
Profile generated: 2026-08-24T14:52:36.783Z
Quality: medium confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1886-11-18
- Death date: 1963-07-22
- Nationality: British
- Common media: Sculpture

## Portrait

![Frank Dobson](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/55/Frank_Dobson_in_1953.jpg)
Elliott & Fry · Public domain
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_Dobson_in_1953.jpg

## About Frank Dobson

Frank Dobson (1886–1963) was a British artist and sculptor whose authority records place him firmly within twentieth-century British art. IdRef identifies him as an English sculptor, while Wikidata and VIAF identify him as a British artist; museum profile pages are also present at MoMA, Tate, and the British Museum. The collected evidence is strongest for identity and dates, but it does not securely document a named movement, favored materials, recurring subjects, or formal series. His work is therefore best introduced through the broad context of twentieth-century British sculpture rather than a narrower stylistic label. Collectors may encounter Dobson through sculpture cataloguing and public auction records, but an object’s attribution should be matched against his authority identifiers and object-specific evidence. Tate’s page title gives a conflicting birth year of 1888, while multiple authority records support 1886.

## Common works and media

The evidence securely supports sculpture as a common work type associated with Frank Dobson. It does not provide enough detail to name particular sculptural materials, subjects, casts, editions, paintings, drawings, prints, or series as routinely encountered. Auction and appraisal records should therefore classify each object from its own catalogue description and physical evidence rather than infer a medium or subject from the artist’s name alone.

## Market and appraisal context

Frank Dobson’s market context should be approached through object-level comparison rather than broad price claims. The available Appraisily signal indicates a substantial auction-record presence, but this source pack does not expose individual sale results, materials, dimensions, dates, editions, casts, subjects, condition reports, or provenance histories. A defensible appraisal should first confirm that the catalogued artist is the British sculptor identified by the linked authority records. It should then compare the object with public Frank Dobson lots of the same work type and medium and review sale dates and realized prices where records are available. Because no major auction-house biography or detailed lot record was captured here, trend, scarcity, and premium claims are not supported.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine researched artist identities with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. This profile distinguishes verified identity data from market fields not established by the collected sources.

## Sources

- IdRef: https://www.idref.fr/034458581
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/59890450/
- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2289164
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500004945
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/1566
- Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/frank-dobson-1014
- Appraisily: https://appraisily.com/artist/frank-dobson/
- Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_Dobson_in_1953.jpg