UP TO £700,000 is expected to be raised when 23 important works of Irish art go up for action in London next month.
Five pieces by Louis le Brocquy headline the group within Sotheby’s British and Irish Art Sale, which includes the Dublin painter’s seminal Sick Tinker Child.
Expected to fetch up to £300,000 on the day, the work was created in 1946, at the start of le Brocquy’s career, among his Tinker series - which announced his arrival on the contemporary art scene in Britain and Ireland and made his name.
Elsewhere within the sale two watercolours from le Brocquy’s celebrated Portrait Head series will also go under the hammer - a 1970s and 80s collection depicting Ireland’s literary and artistic figures.
Painted in 1979, le Brocquy’s Study of Francis Bacon is estimated to fetch between £20,000 and £30,000, while Image of W. B. Yeats, painted in 1981, could fetch up to £60,000.
Works by a range of Ireland’s leading artists - including Paul Henry, William Orpen, Jack Butler Yeats, Gerard Dillon, Mainie Jellett and Basil Blackshaw – will also be on offer at the London sale, which takes place at Sotheby’s New Bond Street auction house on December 10.
Other highlights include The Fishing Fleet, County Galway by Paul Henry, an artist who Sotheby’s claim “almost single-handedly defined a vision of the Irish landscape”, which is expected to fetch between £80,000 and £120,000 in London next month.
Portrait of Vivien St George by William Orpen, painted in 1918, is the only known portrait by Orpen of Vivien, his daughter who resulted from his love affair with Mrs Evelyn St George.
It is estimated to raise between £60,000 and £80,000 at the sale.
A 1951 piece on offer by Jack Butler Yeats, There’s Life in the Fire Yet, was created in the artist’s eightieth year. Sotheby’s expect to fetch up to £60,000 for the artwork.
Composition by Mainie Jellett, Ireland’s first and most accomplished Cubist painter, could reach a price of £20,000 on the day, while Girl at a Door, a depiction of life in the West of Ireland by Gerard Dillon, could be snapped up for anything between £30,000 and £50,000.
An equine depiction which formed a “central image” in Basil Blackshaw’s career is also thought to bring a high sale price, with Race Horse, described as “one of the artist’s most evocative renderings of a horse”, estimated to raise between £60,000 and £80,000 at the sale.
This week the Irish artworks are available for viewing at Sotheby’s Dublin auction house, from November 28-30, before making their way to London for the December 10 sale.
For further information visit www.sothebys.com
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