Modern British Release Nov 2011

8/3/2019 Modern British Release Nov 2011

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For Immediate ReleasePress Release London

London | +44 (0)20 7293 6000 | Matthew Weigman | [email protected]

Leyla Daybelge | [email protected]| Sarah Rustin | [email protected]

Kelly Signorelli-Chaplin | [email protected]

SOTHEBYS LONDON PRESENTS AN EXCEPTIONAL

OFFERING OF IMPORTANT AND

FRESH-TO-MARKET WORKS IN ITS

MODERN AND POST-WAR BRITISH ART

EVENING SALE ON 15TH

NOVEMBER 2011

--- Highlights include exemplary British masterpieces from the

Dartington Hall Trust and key paintings by L.S. Lowry,Stanley Spencer, Frank Auerbach and Leon Kossoff ---

--- Also featured, possibly the earliest representation in British Art of

a film crew at work ---

Laurence Stephen Lowry R.A.,Home from the pub, oil on canvas, 1944, estimate 400,000-600,000*

SOTHEBYS LONDON is delighted to announce its first Evening Auction of

Modern and Post-War British Art on Tuesday 15h

November 2011. The sale

comprises 37 lots and is estimated to reach a combined total of 7.2 - 10.8 million.

The auction features remarkable works by artists including Ben Nicholson and

Christopher Wood, to be sold on behalf of The Dartington Hall Trust. Other

highlights include important works by L.S. Lowry, Sir Stanley Spencer and what may

be the first British depiction of a film crew at work in William Roberts The Boxing

Match circa 1919-1925.

James Rawlin, Sothebys Senior Director of Modern and Post-War British Art said:


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This is a tremendously exciting selection of works, representing a roll call of many of

the major names and movements of British Art from throughout the 20th

Century.

Many of these important works are appearing at auction for the first time and

Sothebys is honoured to be offering for sale 40 works from the Dartington Hall

Trust. Following the enormous success of Sothebys Evill/Frost sale in June, which

set a new record for the work of Stanley Spencer at auction, we are delighted to bebringing two more key paintings by the artist to the market.

A separate press release on works from the Dartington Hall Trust is available

from the press office.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE EVENING SALE

In L.S. Lowrys best paintings, he is able to combine the great and the small; the

expansiveness of a view over a

town, or the milling swell of a

crowd, yet never loses sight ofthe individual, their quirks and

idiosyncrasies. The Railway

Platform of 1953, estimated at

1-1.5 million, amply

demonstrates this genius. Lowry

skilfully weaves a curving line

along the platform and back,

taking the viewer from each

little vignette to the next, very

much the way we might if we found ourselves on the opposite platform. But in a

characteristic way, the artist suggests that unlike the busy figures opposite, engaged in

interaction and activity, we are observing them from a solitary vantage point, kept at a

distance by the drop to the tracks. Indeed, this work may mirror Lowrys own life at

the time. In 1952, at the age of 65, he had retired from the Pall Mall Property

company. This image of commuters on a railway platform, in their repetitive everyday

routines of working life, may suggest a rather wistful yearning to once more be

involved in the world of work.

Appearing at auction for the first time, Lowrys oil on

canvas Home from the pub (pictured on first page) of1944 is estimated at 400,000 600,000. What

distinguishes this work from many in the artists oeuvre is

that the figures depicted are so clearly enjoying a moment

of happiness and freedom. Three women sway uneasily

towards the viewer one swinging her hat, the other

waving a bottle. Their sense of exhilarated release is

almost palpable and made even more poignant by its

contrast with their drab surroundings. The existence of a

slight preparatory drawing of the subject in a private

collection indicates this was almost certainly a scene

Lowry observed from life. The large scale of the womenmakes them very much the hub of the composition and it


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was at this stage in Lowrys career that a preoccupation with exploring larger figures

emerged coinciding with his friendship with David Carr, a young painter who had

begun to collect his work. Carr, who was a student at Cedric Morriss East Anglian

School of Painting, where he was a contemporary of Lucian Freud, offered Lowry a

new perspective and exposure to the work of a younger generation of artists (Carr

right, pictured with Lucian Freud, left on the previous page). The painting wasacquired by David Carr and comes to auction for the first time, by direct descent

through the Carr family.

The sale features two important works by

Stanley Spencer. Coming to auction for the

first time, Beatitude 2: Knowing of 1937

(pictured right, est. 600,000-800,000) is

one of a small series of eight highly charged

paintings executed during a turbulent period

following the artists divorce from his firstwife Hilda Carline. These works represent a

critical turning point in Spencers career, in

which he realised human form and emotional

content had no need to constrain each other

in his work. By distorting his figures

physiques to express his emotional response

to their attitudes and interactions, Spencer

produced some of his most powerful and

extraordinary imagery. The painting depicts

an imposing male figure with some of

Spencers attributes, which may be interpreted as an attempt by the artist to re-assert

himself from the low point he had reached in his emotional and physical state. The

painting was exhibited in both of the Tate Gallerys retrospectives of Spencers work

in 1955 and 2001.

The remarkable 1935 oil on canvas Patricia at Cockmarsh Hill, can be considered to

shed new light on the now familiar version of the Stanley-Hilda-Patricia triangle. The

presence of Patricia Preece in Spencers work is almost

always forceful, but in this work (est. 400,000-

600,000) the artist seeks to depict her in a quite unique

manner as the embodiment of his beloved home townof Cookham. Unusually, he portrays Patricia in a

relaxed pose, sitting in the sun in a field of long grasses

and meadow flowers. Spencer wrote: I wanted this

place to be as unobtrusively inhabited by Patricia

whose hair was to join in the expression of the hot

sultry summer sun as also I wished the necklet of

diamonds and amethysts to mix and look as natural as

purple thistles.*Although still married to Hilda at this

date, Spencer shows Patricia wearing two rings on the

third finger of her left hand a message that he already

sees her as his future wife. Here the artist is showing


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us his vision of a place and person that are entwined in his mind as a symbol of

something special. *The Artist, writings in Tate Gallery Archives 733.2.30.

William Roberts oil on canvas Boxing Match, (estimated 200,000-300,000)

executed 1919-1925, presents an image

that still feels strikingly modern more than80 years after it was painted. The subject

matter was a favourite of Roberts, and one

which allowed him to demonstrate his

ability to distil the action and excitement

of a complicated figure group at a moment

of drama. The gestures and expressions of

all the protagonists are observed with a

perfect eye for nuance, the rendition of

tiredness, exhilaration and activity are

masterful. Possibly the only early oil

painting of the subject by Roberts still inprivate hands, it also includes the extremely rare presentation of a film crew at work

something that appears to have little or no parallel in British Art of the period and thus

marks it as a quite remarkable example of his work.

The sale features a strong Post-War section:

Appearing at auction for the first time, a unique

and extremely rare 1950 mobile by Lynn

Chadwick is estimated to reach 150,000-

250,000. Chadwicks first foray into sculpture

involved experiments in motion. In 1950, he

launched his career by exhibiting 14 of these

mobile constructions at his first one-man

exhibition at Gimpel Fils in London and few

pieces displaying the intricacy and quality of this

slate, wire and metal work remain. Mobiles were

the medium through which Chadwick learnt to

understand sculpture and this important example

captures both the architectural and sculptural

aspects which define this formative period, before

he ventured on to more monumental works.

One of the most important works by Sir

Terry Frost to appear at auction,Red, Black

and White, Leeds, 1955, encapsulates the

artists ability to bring together differing

strands of thought on the development of

abstraction, in a manner quite unique from his

contemporaries. Frost responded strongly to

the Yorkshire landscape and the characteristic

colours and forms that began to appear within a short time of his arrival in Leeds, led

to images that are very distinct from his time in Cornwall. His sense of being muchmore involved and dwarfed by a landscape become evident and his compositions take


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on a panoramic feel. Red, Black and White, Leeds, 1955 is perhaps the best-known

example of a group of important paintings that mark this new period of inspiration.

Acquired directly from Frost by the artist T.L. Johnson in

the early 1960s and exhibited in the Royal Academys

retrospective of Frosts career in 2000, the work is

estimated at 150,000-250,000.

In 1960, Peter Lanyon took up gliding and his oil on

canvas, Down Wind of the same year (pictured left,

estimated at 80,000-120,000) reveals his new air-borne

experience of the world and a fascination with the

elemental forces of the weather. Three years earlier

Lanyon had travelled to New York for his first US

exhibition and had been deeply influenced by the work

and personalities of the Abstract Expressionists. It

ushered in a new expansiveness and sense of space in his

work, bringing the gestures that created the work to thefore. Works of this period are characterised by a brighter

and simplified palette with fresher blues, greens and

yellows becoming more dominant. Down Wind

exemplifies Lanyons new bolder manner and his

passionate concern with meteorological phenomena was

one that occupied the artist until his untimely death in

1964. Fresh to the market, the work comes from the family of Thomas Baker Slick Jr.

The sale also features an outstanding group of works from the School of London

group.

Frank Auerbachs 1971 oil on board, Head

of Gerda Boehm is estimated at 180,000-

250,000. Gerda, Auerbachs cousin, sat for

him a number of times between 1961 and

1982. The portraits provide considerable

insight into Auerbachs varied working

methods and styles. In contrast to the largely

monochromatic palettes he used in her other

portraits, this work is striking for its bold flashof red paint. This, coupled with the strong,

angular brushwork results in one of Auerbach's

most powerful, and psychologically

intriguing representations of Gerda. The paint

surface is built up in sculptural layers of

impasto and Auerbach has used thick black

marks to delineate the sitters features, a notable technique of the period.

One of Auerbachs earliest portraits, Portrait of Philip Holmes is also offered for

sale. Estimated at 80,000-120,000, the work was executed in 1953, in the formative

period while Auerbach was attending the Royal College of Art and attending David

Bombergs classes twice a week.


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Following the record set for a work by Leon Kossoff at its Contemporary Evening

sale on October 13th

2011, Sothebys is delighted to offer Kossoffs Bus Stop

Willesden of 1983, which belongs to a series of works Kossoff commenced during the

1980s which depict his native area of

North London.** Executed on a grandscale, the works are a celebration of the

urban environment in which the banal

and commonplace are transformed into

visually exciting subjects. This

monumental oil on board (estimated at

250,000-350,000) is an exemplary

painting from the series, revealing the

best of Kossoffs long term artistic

engagement with the citys urban

landscape. He explained: London, like

the paint I use seems to be on mybloodstream. Its always moving the skies, the streets, the buildings, the people that

walk past me when I draw, have become part of my life. (Kossoff cited in Exhibition

Catalogue, London, Tate Gallery, Leon Kossoff, 1996, p.36.)

The Modern and Post-War British Art Day Sale on 16th

November features the

most exceptional group of Wyndham Lewis watercolours and drawings ever to be

offered for sale at auction. Coming from an important British collector, the works

range in date from 1910 1949 and are estimated to fetch a combined total in excess

of 270,000.

Percy Wyndham Lewis,Beach Scene, pen and ink, pencil, wash watercolour and gouache, 1929, estimated 30,000-50,000

Images available via email

*Estimates do not include buyers premium

** Leon KossoffsA Street in Willesden of 1985 sold for 690,850 on October 13th

2011 at Sothebys Londons Evening Sale of Contemporary Art

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Modern British Release Nov 2011

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