2.5m art sale by man who ran out of walls

Eventually, more than 300 works packed the walls of his flat near Charing Cross.

Now Andrew McIntosh Patrick, who is 73 today, is selling up and moving on.

The price tag on his shrewd acquisitions is £2.5 million.

His works include The Morning Paper by Sir James Guthrie, one of the acclaimed school of Glasgow Boys.

Mr McIntosh Patrick bought the picture at auction in 1961 for £32. It is now valued at £135,000.

The collection is being sold from 6pm tonight at The Fine Art Society, where he was managing director for 29 years until his retirement three years ago.

Patrick Bourne, the gallery's current managing director, said: "When Andrew started his collection he was buying well ahead of the market and this gave him an opportunity to buy some major British paintings at very reasonable prices.

"His passions were yet to be shared by the art market as a whole."

Mr McIntosh Patrick insisted he bought only for pleasure, not profit.

"The things were all bought for what they looked like, not because of what they were going to be," he said.

"I never thought of selling them, so I never thought of the value of them."

At the heart of the collection is an important group of paintings by the Glasgow Boys, the young artists who gained recognition by challenging the Scottish art establishment in the 1870s.

The school includes works by Sir John Lavery, Arthur Melville and William Kennedy as well as Guthrie.

There is also a group of paintings of North Africa by Victorian artists and travellers such as Thomas Seddon and Edwin Alexander, sculpture by Frederic, Lord Leighton and furniture and decorative pieces by Christopher Dresser, AWN Pugin and William Morris.

Mr McIntosh Patrick's collecting began soon after he joined The Fine Art Society as gallery assistant in 1954, when he was 20.

At first, he spent much of his modest salary on works by contemporary artists of the day but the purchase of The Morning Paper turned him towards earlier works from his native Scotland.

By the time he sold his flat in Craven Street, there were 120 works in the living room and 40 in the kitchen - and he knew exactly what they were all worth.

"I was an art dealer for 50 years; I made these prices," he said.

"I see this sale as a testimonial to The Fine Art Society.

I bought the vast majority of them at the gallery and the exhibitions at The Fine Art Society both reflected and influenced my own enthusiasms."

He has no regrets: "I looked at them all again this morning. They all looked lovely.

I understood why I bought them, but my mind is changed now."

He now intends to spend most of his time in Morocco, where the climate is unsuitable for such works.