Known knowns and Known Unknowns

With just over a week to go now until the show opens a quick recap on what we know and what we don't know in advance of the sale:

Known Knowns

Contributors - so far we  know that the following have definitely contributed, either from the college's website, press articles or from artist's twitter and facebook feeds or blog posts.  I've tried to make this as definitive as possible but if you know of other contributors, or have contributed yourself, then do please post a comment.

Paula Rego

Julian Opie

David Bailey

Christo

John Baldessari

Nick Park

Mike Leigh

Sir Paul Smith

Orla Kiely

Manolo Blahnik

Wayne Chisnall

Angela Lamb  

Broughton and Birnie

Annabel Tilley

Rosalind Davis

Andrew Tyzack

Dallas Collins

Emma Russell

Fiona Shaw

Tomi Vallauschek

Nadege Meriau

Niamh Clancy

Louisa Chambers

S Kurdika Davenport

Masayo Matsuda

Lee Borthwick

Barrie J Davies

James R Ford

Llorraine K Snape

Richard Colson

Karoly Sandor Aron 

Arina Orlova 

We also know that there are 2700 cards this year.  This is slightly down on 2010 and 2011 which were absolutely bumper years but is more than the college habitually get - the shows between 2000 and 2009 had around 2300 to 2600 donations as a rule.  Great to see that despite the change of venues and timing the show has still been very well supported by the contributing artists.  I am sure it will remain equally well supported by the art buying public!

Known Unknowns

Contributors - The college tend to drip feed contributor news as and when donations are received and to keep the press interest in the sale going.  We reported on this blog that another blog was saying that David Hockney, Tracey Emin and Yoko Ono had agreed to contribute to the sale.  We've had no confirmation of that from the college and therefore it must be treated as speculation.  It's worth observing that there are a number of regular or semi regular contributors who have yet to feature in any press release.  These include the three mentioned above but we would add to that list, in no particular order,  Sir Peter Blake, Quentin Blake, Grayson Perry, Olafur Eliasson, Lawrence Weiner, Maggi Hambling, Anish Kapoor and Franz West all of whom have contributed in the recent past on more than one occasion.  Readers can probably think of many others.   Hopefully a few more of these names will be added.  Who knows we may get a complete surprise contributor like in 2009 when Gerhard Richter contributed.  There's likely to be press articles on the sale this weekend so keep an eye out for them and check this blog regularly.

How is it going to work - we guess this is the biggest unknown.  With the change of venue will there be any changes to the way in which the sale is conducted?  Where and how will the postcards be displayed?  Where will we queue?  All these questions will only be answered once the sale opens.  Bring it on!