LONDON.- Christie’s will present a dedicated auction of the collection of Dr. Jeffrey Sherwin on 21 November 2019, with four further works being offered in the Modern British Art Evening Auction in January 2020. Sherwin was a GP in Harehills, an inner-city area of Leeds. In 1971 he began a parallel career, standing in the local council elections to become Councillor for the Talbot ward. One of his official roles was that of Shadow Chairman of Leeds Leisure Services. Jeffrey’s role on the Council saw him champion the arts with his greatest legacy being The Henry Moore Sculpture Gallery, a dedicated space within Leeds Art Gallery. He then persuaded Henry Moore that his Foundation in Hertfordshire should endow the gallery, eventually resulting in a £100,000 grant being awarded.

Upon seeing an exhibition that celebrated the 50th anniversary of British Surrealism at Leeds Art Gallery in 1986, Sherwin and his wife began collecting. At one point their home had over 300 paintings and sculptures on display by artists including Kenneth Armitage, Pauline Boty, Reg Butler, Geoffrey Clarke, Damien Hirst, Gertrude Hermes, Roger Hilton, Roy Lichtenstein, Mary Martin, Bernard Meadows, Eduardo Paolozzi, John Piper, William Roberts, John Cecil Stephenson, seamlessly sharing wall and floor space with works by Joan Miró, André Masson, Roland Penrose, René Magritte, Kurt Schwitters, Henry Moore, Man Ray and Max Ernst. The works included in these sales are just half of Sherwin’s collection, with the other half focusing on British Surrealist art. The estate are currently looking for a long-term loan to a public institution for the Surrealist collection while honouring loans to the British Surrealism: 1783-1952 exhibition at the Dulwich Picture Gallery and Fantastic Women exhibition on female surrealist artists at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, both in 2020.

Highlights of the collection include Patrick Heron’s Nude in Wicker Chair (1951, estimate: £80,000– 120,000), depicting the artist’s wife Delia in a then newly-found style of his own eye and intellect; Roger Hilton’s June - September 1953 (1953, estimate: £30,000–50,000); and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska’s Wrestlers, a herculite relief which was bought directly from the artist’s family (1913, estimate: £40,00060,000.

There is also a focus in the sale of sculpture from the 1950s, led by Bernard Meadows’ Black Crab (circa 1951-52, estimate: £40,000-60,000), as well as Family Going for a Walk by Kenneth Armitage (1951, estimate: £25,000-35,000), Maquette for ‘The Unknown Political Prisoner’ by Geoffrey Clarke (1952, estimate: £3,000-5,000), Study for Sacrificial Figure by Reg Butler (1952, estimate: £20,00030,000) and Bandaged Head by Eduardo Paolozzi (circa 1953-56, estimate: £15,000-25,000). Their work at this time was characterised by twisted and tortured figures, executed in pitted bronze or welded metal, which vividly expressed emotions related to the anxieties and fears of the post-war period. The phrase ‘geometry of fear’ was coined by Herbert Read in response to these artists’ work for the British pavilion at the 1952 Venice Biennale.

Also included in the collection are 1930s Modernist works such as John Cecil Stephenson’s Bright Triangles (1938, estimate: £10,000-15,000), one of the most exciting of his works to come to market in recent years, and Forms on White Ground by John Piper (1935, estimate: £200,000-300,000), recently exhibited as part of the John Piper exhibition at Tate Liverpool.