BLAST #30
March 2026
In the Mood for Mod Brits
Buyers were in the mood for Modern British art this March. Commencing with London’s international sales of Modern and Contemporary art, (4-6 March) School of London paintings by Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud from the collection of billionaire investor Joe Lewis were the top 8 digit sellers at Sotheby’s, but it was Lewis’s swimming pool painting by Leon Kossoff, Children’s Swimming Pool, 11 O’clock Saturday Morning, August 1969, which Lewis bought in 1992 for £209,000, that stole the show. Estimated at £800,000 it romped home with a record £5.2 million after ten bidders, including one from Asia and London dealer Pilar Ordovas, went for it. David Juda, Kossoff’s long-term dealer, who now co-represents his estate, left the saleroom shortly afterwards looking positively radiant.
(Auction prices in this report include the buyer’s premium. Estimates do not)
Leon Kossoff (1926 - 2019), Children's Swimming Pool, 11 o'clock Saturday Morning, August, signed, titled, dated Aug 1969, oil on board, 152.4 x 205.7 cm, 1969. Sold for £5.2 million
Ivon Hitchens (1893 - 1979), The South Downs, near Midhurst, watercolour and gouache on paper, 22 × 32 cm, c.1920. Sold for £74,240
In an effort to attract international bidding for lower value British art Sotheby’s inserted a Modern British section into its day sale of Impressionist & Modern art with sixty-three Mod Brit lots carrying a combined estimate of £1.6 – 2.4 million, and all but ten sold. One exceptional result was a triple estimate £74,240 paid for a rare c.1920 watercolour landscape of The South Downs near Midhurst by Ivon Hitchens that had been acquired at Sotheby’s David Bowie sale in 2016 when it was estimated at £2,000 - 3,000 and sold for £27,500 to art consultant Diddi Malek, providing her buyer with an 11% annualised return. The sale also produced a triple estimate record £15,560 for the sculptor, Jonathan Clarke, the son of Geoffrey Clarke who recently enjoyed some positive sales at a solo exhibition at Pangolin London.
At Christie’s international Modern Art sale the next evening, the showstopper was Henry Moore’s magisterial 64-inch seated couple, King and Queen, 1952-53, the only one of eight editions still in private hands having belonged to the Keswick family in Scotland since 1954. Estimated at £10 to £15 million, numerous telephone bidders made a play for it unperturbed by its history of decapitation (long since repaired) before it was claimed by an as yet unknown European institution for a record £26.3 million.
Henry Moore, O.M., C.H. (1898-1986), King and Queen, conceived and cast in 1952-53 in an edition of four plus one artist’s cast. Bronze with a dark green and brown patina. Height: 64½ in (164 cm). Sold for £26,345,000
Coincidentally, Christie’s specialised Modern British sales which followed two weeks later (18-19 March) was led by another large bronze of a seated couple - this one by Lyn Chadwick. Chadwick had experienced a rough ride at Sotheby’s last Modern British sale in November but his market seemed to find its feet again at Christie’s when a 9-foot-wide bronze of a seated couple, Back to Venice1988 from the collection of the late Dr Robert A. Holton, an American chemist, attracted two bidders above its £1milion estimate, selling to one for £1.6 million – pretty much the same price as another cast from the edition of nine sold for in 2016. It’s hard to tell whether the forthcoming Chadwick exhibition at Houghton Hall to be curated by Pangolin London has improved his market, but two other Chadwicks at Christie’s sold well – an unusual looking beast like iron composition from 1958 (Untitled to Marie-Rose) was bought by Osborne Samuel within estimate for £133,350, while a more conventional Maquette V, Two Watchers V, 1967 sold online for a mid-estimate £57,150.
Lynn Chadwick, R.A, (1914-2003), Back to Venice, signed and numbered ‘CHADWICK C74 2⁄9’ (at the back of the bench), bronze with a green grey patina, 193 x 276 x 152 cm, Conceived in 1988 and cast in December 1988 by Morris Singer Foundry, Basingstoke. Sold for £1.6 million
Osborne Samuel were the most active dealers at Christie’s also underbidding the first lot, a small Henry Moore Stringed Figure from 1939, to a mid-estimate £215,900. Ten lots later they under bid on a 1953 Ben Nicholson abstract painting, Sept 29-53 (Fiesole), which sold close to the top estimate at £596,500. They also bid, but unsuccessfully, on a 1940 Ben Nicholson coloured abstract relief which was claimed by a phone bidder within estimate for £292,100 but were able to add a Henry Moore drawing, Mother preparing Child for Bath, 1946, to their list of acquisitions by buying it just below estimate for £127,000 – slightly less than the £160,000 the drawing previously sold for in New York in 2000.
A report from Maastricht informs us that Osborne Samuel were having a positive TEFAF selling Barbara Hepworth’s small bronze Horizontal Form 1968 along with two sales of sculptures by Lynn Chadwick to collectors in the UK, Belgium and Dubai for prices in the region of €200,000 - €400,000. As the fair concluded two further works by Henry Moore and Naum Gabo, were under consideration by a museum.
Making only a brief appearance at Christie’s was Anthony Crichton-Stuart of Agnew’s who put in a bid below a punchy £200,000 estimate to win Glyn Philpot’s magnificent portrait, Balthazar, 1929, for £228,600. The estimate was the highest yet for Philpot, but the price – a disappointing seventh.
Other dealers in the fray: Offer Waterman who was targeting Ben Nicholson buying a classic 1938 pure white relief for a double estimate £660,400 and underbidding the 1953 abstract Sept 29-53 Fiesole which sold for £596,400. And Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert which bought a Frank Auerbach painting, Tower Blocks, Hampstead Road, 2007, just below estimate for £304,800. Holland-Hibbert’s interest in Auerbach has no doubt increased since his gallery has become a location for Frankie Rossi Projects, which represents Auerbach’s estate, to mount exhibitions associated with Auerbach.
Although not the top price, the outstanding result of the sale was a new record for the late pop artist, Peter Phillips whose graphically arresting four-part painting, Motorpsycho/Ace 1962, with its references to playing cards, warning signs and Hitchcock horror films was estimated at £100,000 and sold for £254,000. The price was assisted by the provenance, having belonged to the influential Italian art critic Enrico Crispolti who died in 2018.
Peter Phillips (1939-2025), Motorpsycho/Ace, signed and dated 'PETER PHILLIPS/62' (on the reverse), oil and collage on canvas and lacquered wood, 157 x 101.6 cm, 1962. Sold for £254,000.
Comparative returns included losses on the Henry Moore drawing (above) and a small Barbara Hepworth marble carving, Solitary Form,1971, sold to a Japanese collector for $975,000 at Sotheby’s New York in 2018, and now just below estimate for £539,750 ($720,000).
Long terms gains were realised on Ben Nicholson’s 1938 white relief, bought in 1983 for £75,000 and sold to Waterman for £660,400, realising an annualised gain of 4% each year in the interim, and Barbara Hepworth’s wood carving, Curved Form, 1960, which made a mid-estimate £1 million compared to the £75,000 it made last time it was at auction in 1989.
Christie’s Modern British day sale made £4.84 million including premium against a £3.2 – 4.8 million estimate with a healthy 86% of lots selling, though quite a few went below their estimates. It got off to a cracking start with Graham Sutherland’s soft toned watercolour Landscape with Green Hill 1939 that was scheduled to sell without reserve but was bid up way above the published estimate of £4,000 to sell to art advisors Beaumont Nathan for £17,145. The advisors then went for a more colourful 1947 Sutherland gouache, Figure in Vegetation, that also had no reserve which they bought for £16,500 against a £5,000 estimate. Their client then maintained their focus on Sutherland’s nature related works buying a 1952 oil, Study of a Broken Branch below estimate for £48,260.
The highlight of the neo-romantic section, though, was a 1952 portrait of the body builder, Spencer Churchill (no relation to the Prime Minister) by John Minton which had come from the sitter’s family with a £40,000 estimate but surprisingly achieved the second highest price for a Minton at auction of £203,200.
John Minton (1917-1957), Spencer Churchill, signed and dated, oil on canvas, 91.4 x 71.1 cm, 1952. Sold for £203,200
Turning to abstraction, a standout was the 1937 Painting 1, by John Cecil Stephenson, by whom plenty of later works are available through his estate. But this rarer example of simple purity was pursued doggedly by advisor Conor Mullan who said he had been after this painting for a long time, and had to pay £46,990, far above the £18,000 estimate, for it. The price was a record for Stephenson when translated into dollars – $63,000.
John Cecil Stephenson (1889-1965), Painting I, signed and dated, tempera on canvas stretched over panel, 53.3 x 43.2 cm, 1937. Sold for £46,990
Perhaps the highlight of the pop art on offer was a 1964 painting on wood relief by the late Joe Tilson being sold by his estate with a £30,000 estimate that made the third highest price for the artist selling to a phone bidder for £48,260. The only pop art record in the day sale was for Alfred Hitchcok, 2000 a rare sculpture by the painter Antony Donaldson which sold above its £2,000 estimate for £6,985, to a determined bidder in the room.
Although not setting a record, a five-foot square abstract by Gillian Ayres, High-light Night, 2003-2004, from the estate of Dame Shirley Conran, was the most eagerly contested work amongst bidders in the room. Estimated at £7,000 it was chased by Robert Sandelson, Nick Holmes, and an online bidder, before selling to the Portland Gallery for £35,560.
Gillian Ayres, High-light Night, signed and dated, oil on canvas, 152.5 x 152.5 cm, 2003-2004. Sold for £35,560
After the stunning performance by Leon Kossoff the week before at Sotheby, the School of London market was strong if subdued. A small painting Nude on a Bed,1970, by Kossoff belonged to the artist’s family and was pursued by Osborne Samuel before selling over its £50,000 estimate for £82,550. But an early Lucian Freud drawing of a seated man on a chair from c 1940, which was given to artist Maggi Hambling presumably by one of Freud’s associates at Benton End where the two both learned from Cedric Morris, could not sell with a £30,000 estimate.
Compared to Sotheby’s Modern British evening sale last November where half the lots went unsold, the Christie’s sale, in which only 1 lot in the evening sale, and 20 of the 140 day sale lots went unsold, will have sent a much more positive message to the market.