![](data:image/svg+xml;utf8,<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1" height="2143px" width="2500px"></svg>)
Specialists Spotlight: Defining Works of Modern British and Irish Art
Discover the standout works that exemplify the brilliance and collectability of Modern British & Irish art coming to auction this season at Sotheby’s London.
S otheby’s London Modern British & Irish Art Week returns this November in partnership with St. Regis Hotels & Resorts, presenting a compelling curation of artworks across stellar two auctions. From leading names to unexpected gems, each lot offers collectors the chance to secure a defining work of 20th-century British and Irish art.
Read on for the auction highlights handpicked by our specialists.
On 25 November, the Modern British & Irish Art Evening Auction will present a tightly curated selection of works by leading names in British art, many of which will be emerging from long held private collections or appearing at auction for the first time.
Ben Nicholson, Sept 53 (Balearic), 1953
Sept. 53 (Balearic) is one of Ben Nicholson’s (1894-1982) most accomplished large-scale tabletop compositions where volume and space synthesise together making a complex and developed picture plane. Nicholson began experimenting with this style in 1949, which interweaves his early cubism and modernist influences from the 1930s, with his longstanding interest in still life.
"The composition feels at once precise and spontaneous by Nicholson – both structured and yet unfolding before our eyes. Its colour palette is earthy and subtle, nearly monochrome, until your gaze lands near the top centre – where flashes of red, yellow, purple and black break through like refracted light from a window, animating the scene with refined energy.”
- Tamsin Golding Yee, Specialist, Modern British Art, Sotheby’s London
Hidden Forms in Ben Nicholson’s Abstract Still Life | Sept. 53 (Balearic) Explained
Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A., An Old Street, 1932
Depicting the view of Mealhouse Brow in Stockport, An Old Street captures the vitality of urban life, evoking the lively, jubilant spirit of a Sunday afternoon. Belonging to a pivotal period in the early 1930s, the present work embodies the full realisation of Laurence Stephen Lowry’s (1887-1976) radical vision of the industrial North, capturing both the humanity and modernity at the heart of his practice.
Glyn Philpot, R.A., Portrait of a Man with Hibiscus Flower (Félix), 1932
Within this intimate and enigmatic portrait is Félix, one of Glyn Philpot’s (1884-1937) lesser-known sitters, who is depicted in profile, with a soft, contemplative gaze and styled with a purple hibiscus tucked over one ear.
Edward Burra, French Scene, 1925-26
Crammed together in the urban tumult, the vast range of intriguing characters on display in French Scene immediately communicates Edward Burra's (1905-1976) ongoing fascination with French Bohemian culture of the mid-1920s. The intensely packed colour and detail of French Scene is a rare manifestation of Burra's early style and reveals his acute attention to the idiosyncrasies of the passing crowds. The scene is an eclectic visual clash of cultures and personalities, an aspect of the urban sphere which Burra considered fascinating, and he spent hours in cafés and bars soaking up the atmosphere.
“The present work was the first work to be seen in the recent Tate Britain ‘Edward Burra’ exhibition for a reason: it is a dynamic and engaging scene which continues to reveal different elements and interactions the more you look it at. It is one of Burra's earliest known works from his career-defining time spent in Paris.”
- Tamsin Golding Yee, Specialist, Modern British Art, Sotheby’s London
William Nicholson, Bunch of Flowers, c. early-to-mid 1930s
Bunch of Flowers, which William Nicholson (1872-1949) gifted to his daughter-in-law Winifred Nicholson, has a significant connection with her life and work. Painted at Boothby, Nicholson’s parent’s house in Cumberland and where Winifred spent her summers at that time, it reflects on a long and fruitful painting conversation between Nicholson and Winifred.
Frank Auerbach, Head of Ruth Bromberg, 2002
Ruth Bromberg who was the Director of Colnaghi’s print department in the early 1980s and had written the catalogue raisonné for Sickert’s prints and Canaletto’s etchings, was a close friend of Frank Auerbach (1931-2024). From the 1990s, she had sat most Thursdays for him as one of his weekly rotation of sitters. Auerbach’s subjects, whether the landscapes or figures that he painted, were seldom unfamiliar to him. Through such extended artistic dialogue with the individual Auerbach was able to paint with a familiarity that consistently shines throughout his body of portraiture.
On 26 November, Modern British and Irish Art Day Auction will feature important works by British artists and those working in the UK across the 20th century, including the St Ives Modernists, Bloomsbury and post-War groups. It will also include a session dedicated to British Studio Ceramics.
Laurence Stephen Lowry, R.A., A Group of Seven, c. 1965
By the mid-1960s, Laurence Stephen Lowry’s (1887-1976) art gradually became more introspective, moving away from the depiction of large industrial and crowded scenes. He distanced himself from the crowded rhythms of urban life to almost abstract studies of individual figures. By removing any extraneous background, he forces the viewer to focus on individuals, distilling humanity to its most essential forms. A Group of Seven belongs to this later period, depicting a small cluster of figures against a white background.
Bridget Riley, R.A., Study using three colours, 1974
An outstanding iteration of Bridget Riley’s (b.1931) iconic visual vernacular, Study using three colours illustrates the artist’s masterful control of line, rhythm and colour. Executed in 1974, a pivotal moment in her oeuvre between the high-contrast black-and-white compositions of the 1960s and chromatic lyricism of her mature practice, the present work elegantly embodies Riley’s position as the undisputed leader of the Op art movement.
William Turnbull, Pegasus, 1954
During William Turnbull’s (1922-2012) years at the Slade School of Fine Art, he made frequent visits to the British Museum, the appeal of which far eclipsed the galleries that also lay on his doorstep. Drawn to the sacred quality of the ancient forms, he was captivated by this dialogue between material form and space. In 1946 whilst still a student at the Slade, he created his second recorded sculpture Horse which revealed the emerging themes that would later be fully realised in Pegasus.
