CHRISTIE’S MODERN BRITISH AND IRISH ART DAY SALE IS NOW ON VIEW
Led by L.S. Lowry’s Street Scene (1952, estimate: £150,000-250,000, illustrated above left), Christie’s Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale on 21 March in London will offer a diverse array of works, showcasing the breadth and diversity of British art in the 20th and 21st centuries. Street Scene is an exquisite, enigmatic study of the human condition. The figure studies from this period have a sense of pre-Raphaelite drama, where the interrelationships between the figures are brought into stark relief by Lowry’s talent for caricature.
Works formerly from The Collection of Ralph Ehrmann will also be on offer. The dedicated section of the sale will feature 38 works by artists including Pablo Picasso, Fernand Léger, Marc Chagall, Alexander Calder, Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore and Lynn Chadwick. The collection is led by Tom Wesselmann’s unique steel drawing Wildflower Bouquet (Tall Vase) (Small) (Variation #1) (1987, estimate: £100,000-150,000) and Barbara Hepworth’s Three Curves with Strings [Gold Mincarlo] (1971, estimate: £80,000-120,000, illustrated above right).
A group of eight works by Eileen Gray and Prunella Clough will be auctioned from The Estate of Peter Adam, the biographer of Eileen Gray. Estimates range from £3,000 to £35,000, with Clough’s 1953 work Printer Checking Proofs leading the group (£25,000-35,000).
Further highlights include Henry Moore’s Mother and Child on Ladderback Rocking Chair (conceived in 1952 and cast in an edition of 9, estimate: £120,000-180,000); Ivon Hitchens’s monumental First Version of Mural for Cecil Sharp House (1950, estimate: £80,000-120,000); Lynn Chadwick, Cloaked Couple V (conceived in 1977 and cast in 1983, estimate: £100,000-150,000); and Charles Sargeant Jagger’s Scandal (1939, estimate: £70,000-100,000).
