Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale

Christie’s flagship 20th/21st Century auction series in London continues on 22 October with our landmark Evening Sale dedicated to Modern British and Irish Art.

The sale is led by a group of sculptures by Barbara Hepworth, each from distinguished private collections and offered at auction for the first time. These pivotal works capture the evolution of her practice across three principal materials that shaped her sculptural language: the monumental and apogeal bronze The Family of Man (Figure 8, The Bride); the elegantly carved Vertical Wood Form; and the luminous alabaster Figure (Chûn). Continuing the modernist narrative, Ben Nicholson’s December 1942 – April 1944 stands as one of the largest works he produced during the war.

A historic highlight of the sale is L.S. Lowry’s Going to the Match (1928), the artist’s earliest known depiction of a sporting subject. It is presented alongside a rare landscape of the Cotswolds by Lowry, Sir Stanley Spencer’s intimate and visionary The Meeting and a rare, rediscovered Surrealist painting by Paul Nash. Celebrated painters such as Sir William Nicholson, Harold Gilman and Sir Winston Churchill further enrich this exceptional sale.

The post-war period is represented by a dynamic group of works, including Bridget Riley’s optically charged Dendera, an intimate Lucian Freud fragment, a rare self-portrait by Allen Jones and additional works by Euan Uglow and David Hockney. Lynn Chadwick’s monumental Beast Alerted I will also be on public view in St James’s Square from 8–22 October.