Later on this month, on 19th and 20th March, Christie’s is presenting Modern British and Irish Art sales in London, as part of Christie’s flagship 20th/21st Century Art auction series. The sale on 19 March is an Evening Sale and 20 March is a Day Sale, the auctions will showcase the very best of British and Irish art from 1900 to the present day, and include artists such as Frank Auerbach, Sean Scully, Lynn Chadwick, Bridget Riley, L. S. Lowry, Sir Winston Churchill, William Scott and Dame Barbara Hepworth, among others.
Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale – 19 March 2025
Leading the Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale is Lynn Chadwick’s Sitting Couple on Bench, conceived in 1990 (estimate: £1,200,000 – 1,800,000). A monumental testament to one of the artist’s most celebrated motifs, this work embodies Chadwick’s life-long exploration of human relationships, formal dynamism and material innovation.
Two paintings by Frank Auerbach are also offered in the sale: Nude on Bed III, 1961 (estimate: £700,000 – 1,000,000), and Portrait of J.Y.M Seated, 1976 (estimate: £400,000 – 600,000). Nude on Bed III, a seminal early work, is coming to auction for the first time, having remained in the collection of the late Hon. Moyra Campbell for over 60 years.
May Day, 1935 (estimate: £750,000 – 950,000), Old Church and Steps, 1960 (estimate: £350,000 – 550,000) and Old Houses, Wick, 1936 (estimate: £300,000 – 500,000), all by L.S. Lowry are also highlights of the sale.
May Day was previously in the collection of Jane Archer neé Sissmore – the first ever female officer in Britain’s Security Service, MI5 – and comes from an important series of paintings dating back to the 1930s in which the artist presents a scene from everyday urban industrial life. Old Houses, Wick is one in a small number of highly regarded works painted by the artist in the North of Scotland. A well-known anecdote surrounds Old Church and Steps: in this iconic painting, Lowry famously depicted a five-legged dog at the centre of the composition. When the unusual detail was pointed out to him, he simply replied that the dog must have had five legs -after all, he only painted what he saw.
In addition to Chadwick’s monumental Sitting Couple on Bench, the sale presents a grouping of other notable sculptures: Barry Flanagan’s Six Foot Leaping Hare on Steel Pyramid, cast in 1990 (estimate: £500,000 – 800,000), Dame Barbara Hepworth’s Maquette (Variation on a Theme), conceived in 1958 (estimate: £120,000 – 180,000) and Dame Elisabeth Frink’s Protomartyr, conceived in 1976 (estimate: £150,000 – 250,000) and in the same collection for over forty years.
Sir Winston Churchill’s The Bay of Èze, circa 1950 (estimate: £500,000 – 800,000) captures the splendour of the Côte d’Azur, more specifically a spot close to the former residence of his friends Consuelo and Jacques Balsan, as well as highlighting Churchill’s love for the Mediterranean coast and admiration for the artists that painted it before him.
Sir John Lavery’s The Hall, Argyll House – A Summer Day, 1925 (estimate: £100,000 – 150,000) is part of a series of twenty-three “portrait interiors” depicting rooms occupied by prominent figures in the world of politics, literature and the arts.
The sale highlights are completed with works by two female artists: Bridget Riley’s Turquoise, red, blue, yellow with black and white, a gouache on paper from 1981 (estimate: £80,000 – 120,000), and Franciszka Themerson’s Eleven Persons and One Donkey Moving Forwards, 1947 (estimate: £40,000 – 60,000), from the collection of the artist’s family, which is the most important work by the Polish-born artist to come to auction, having been the centrepiece of the critically acclaimed exhibition Postwar Modern: New Art in Britain 1945-65, held at the Barbican, London, in 2022.
Other artists offered in the sale include: Sir Frank Bowling, Antony Gormley, Peter Lanyon, Ben Nicholson, Roderic O’Conor, William Scott, Sean Scully and Sir William Nicholson.
Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale – 20 March 2025
The Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale brings together a dynamic selection of paintings, works on paper and sculpture by British and Irish artists from the 20th and 21st centuries, with estimates ranging from £700 to £120,000.
The key highlight is Ben Nicholson’s 1955-56 (umber + light red), 1955-56 (estimate: £120,000 – 180,000). Created during his final years in Cornwall before relocating to Switzerland, this work encapsulates the maturity of the artist’s abstract artistic style, and the rigorous engagement with form, texture and colour that defined his output throughout his career.
Roses and Fruit by Samuel John Peploe (estimate: £100,000 – 150,000), in the same private collection since 1928, is a classic example of the artist’s investigation into the still life. In the painting, the dynamic interplay between compositional elements reflect the influence of French Post-Impressionism, particularly the structured brushwork and tones of Paul Cézanne.
An Arc from the Eye, 1998 by Euan Uglow (estimate: £70,000 – 100,000), offered at auction for the first time, is a rare example within the artist’s oeuvre of a living, growing still life subject, while Graham Sutherland’s The Lamp, 1944 (estimate: £80,000 – 120,000) is an evident departure from the industrial subjects of the artist’s wartime works.
Painted in 1907, The German Tankard by Scottish colourist Cadell (estimate: £80,000 – 120,000) pays homage to his year studying at the Akademie der Bildenden in Munich, which provided him with a broad history of European painting.
Other key highlights include works by Bridget Riley, William Scott, Edward Burra, Lynn Chadwick, Dame Barbara Hepworth, Walter Richard Sickert, Dame Lucie Rie, Hans Coper, Sir Anthony Caro, Ivon Hitchens, Eileen Agar and David Hockney, among others.
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