LONDON.- Christie's presents its March 2026 Modern British and Irish Art sales, taking place in London on 18 March (Evening Sale) and 19 March (Day Sale). This landmark auction series will showcase the very best of British and Irish art from 1900 to the present day, and include artists such as Frank Auerbach, Lynn Chadwick, Bridget Riley, L. S. Lowry, Sir Winston Churchill, Glyn Philpot, and Dame Barbara Hepworth, among others. An exhibition of the sale will be open to the public from 12 to 18 March 2026 at King Street, London.

Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale – 18 March 2026

The Modern British and Irish Art Evening Sale will be headlined by Frank Auerbach's Christmas Tree at Mornington Crescent, painted in 2004-05 (estimate: £1,500,000-2,000,000). A monumental, richly worked vision of the North London junction the artist observed for decades from his nearby studio, it is the largest painting Auerbach created of this subject and among the ten largest works in his seven-decade career. Auerbach, who lived and worked near Mornington Crescent from 1954 until his death in 2024 after arriving in Britain as a child refugee in 1939, returned to this motif repeatedly, transforming the familiar streets of Camden into intensely felt abstractions of place and lived experience. Exceptionally impressive in scale and aglow with fondness and familiarity, this is a triumphant celebration of the power of paint as a means to capture a landscape rich in memory. The sister painting is in the collection of Tate, London. This deep-rooted attachment to his surroundings also animates Tower Blocks, Hampstead Road II (2007; estimate: £250,000-350,000), a sunlit vision of north-west London exemplifying the energetic brushwork and accumulated observation that defined Auerbach's final decades painting the city he called home.

Held in the same private collection for almost four decades, Recollection (1986) by Bridget Riley (estimate: £800,000-1,200,000) is a striking example of the artist's groundbreaking shift in the mid-1980s towards dynamic diagonal compositions. Structured through a kaleidoscopic arrangement of interlocking rhomboids—known in the studio as Riley's 'zigs'—the painting unfolds as a vibrant field of tessellating colour, where luminous shades create a shimmering optical rhythm across the canvas. Created at a pivotal moment in 1986, when Riley departed from the vertical and horizontal stripe structures that had defined her work since the 1960s, Recollection is among the earliest paintings from this celebrated series that introduced greater movement and spatial dynamism to her practice. Pieces from this important body of works are held in international museum collections, including Tate, and were featured prominently in her 2019 retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, London.

Another highlight is Balthazar (1929; estimate: £200,000–300,000) by Glyn Philpot. Never before offered at auction, and with a rich exhibition history, the painting combines Philpot's interest in classical and allegorical themes with a richly stylised, atmospheric setting. The radiant figure - set against an opalescent desert sky - is Henry Thomas, the artist's most celebrated sitter and enduring muse. One of Philpot's first, and most accomplished portrayals of Thomas, the work captures the sitter's distinctive presence and psychological depth, elevating him to a figure of quiet authority and grandeur—an approach that distinguished Philpot, the youngest Royal Academician of his generation and a leading portraitist of the Edwardian era, from many of his contemporaries.

Sculpture will play a significant role in the auction: Lynn Chadwick's Back to Venice (conceived and cast in 1988; estimate: £1,000,000-1,500,000) reflects the artist's long and celebrated association with the Venice Biennale, where he first exhibited in 1952 as part of the British Pavilion's influential presentation that prompted critic Herbert Read to coin the phrase “Geometry of Fear.” Chadwick returned in 1956 to represent Britain and was awarded the Biennale's Grand Prix for Sculpture, ahead of Alberto Giacometti, establishing his international reputation. Created for the garden of the British Council at the British Pavilion in 1988, Back to Venice commemorates his historic return to the city, depicting two seated figures whose poised, monumental presence and subtle shifts of posture generate a quiet yet powerful sense of connection.

Riviera Coast Scene (circa 1935; estimate: £300,000-500,000) by Sir Winston Churchill; a rare landscape by L.S. Lowry, Lancashire Farm (1960; estimate: £200,000-300,000); and landmark British pop art work Motorpsycho/Ace by Peter Phillips (1962; estimate: £100,000-150,000) which comes from the collection of renowned art historian and critic Enrico Crispolti, will also be offered in the sale, all coming to auction for the first time.

The sculpture offering in the sale includes two important later works by Dame Barbara Hepworth in different media. Carved from warm-toned walnut, Curved Form (1960; estimate: £700,000–1,000,000) exemplifies the artist's mature sculptural language and was created during a renewed period of direct carving following her winning the Grand Prix for sculpture at the São Paulo Biennial, reflecting her refined exploration of form, material and spatial harmony. Solitary Form (1971; estimate: £500,000–700,000), carved in marble, demonstrates the geometric clarity and expressive power of her mature stone works, juxtaposing flat and curved planes with subtle indentations and reflecting her lifelong commitment to direct carving.

All by Henry Moore: Working Model for Hill Arches (1972; estimate: £400,000–600,000) is a dynamic preparatory study for one of the artist's most ambitious sculptural projects, in which curving, ribbon-like bronze forms interlock to create an open yet unified structure charged with rhythmic energy and tension; Stringed Figure (1939; estimate: £150,000–250,000) is an intellectually adventurous work inspired by mathematical models Moore encountered at the Science Museum during his student years at the Royal College of Art; and Head of a Girl (1923; estimate: £130,000–180,000) is a small but powerful and rare early sculpture that distils the human head into a quietly introspective form, foreshadowing a subject that would remain central to the artist's work throughout his career. All three are included in the sale.

Other notable sculptures offered include: Dame Elisabeth Frink's Seated Man II (1986; estimate: £300,000-500,000); Barry Flanagan's Virtue (1993; estimate: £120,000-180,000); Emily Young's Purbeck Blue Angel (2001; estimate: £100,000-150,000) and Lynn Chadwick's unique Untitled (to Marie-Rose) (1958; estimate: £100,000-150,000).

Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale – 19 March 2026

The Modern British and Irish Art Day Sale will present 139 lots spanning painting, works on paper and sculpture across the 20th and 21st centuries.

The auction celebrates Irish artists Jack Butler Yeats, Paul Henry, Roderic O'Conor and William Scott, with the lyrical and evocative A Storm / Gaillshíon (1936; estimate: £100,000-150,000) by Yeats headlining the auction.

The composition reflects Yeats's evolving style through the late 1930s, as he embraced a brighter colour palette and increasingly expressive, fluid brushwork. Paul Henry's Digging Potatoes, Achill Island, Co. Mayo (1916-19; estimate: £85,000-120,000) is among the greatest evocations of the West of Ireland landscape.

Also featured is a group of twelve oils and drawings from the Estate of L. S. Lowry, all of which have been on long‑term loan to The Lowry, Salford. This is a unique opportunity to acquire a work directly from the artist's ownership, with highlights including Grey Sea (1970; estimate: £60,000-80,000) and Girl with white socks (1960; estimate: £60,000-80,000).

Other top lots include Euan Uglow's Half an Apple with 50p (1976; estimate: £80,000-120,000), which plays on the conventions of still life with the artist's characteristically dry humour.; Leon Kossoff's Self Portrait (1971; estimate: £80,000-120,000), and Barry Flanagan's Acrobat on Pyramid (2000; estimate: £80,000-120,000), featuring his characteristic hare motif. Another highlight is Spencer Churchill by John Minton (1952; estimate: £40,000-60,000), a portrait of one of Britain's most recognisable bodybuilders and wrestlers of the 1950s and 1960s, in which Minton depicts both Churchill's impressive physicality as well as a quieter, more intimate presence.

The St Ives artists are featured prominently, with Ben Nicholson's Dec 61 (blue rock) (1961; estimate: £70,000-100,000) demonstrating his mastery of harmony and balance within his characteristic form of abstraction and Alfred Wallis's St. Ives Harbour (estimate: £40,000-60,000). Tristram Hillier's Fécamp (1939; estimate: £40,000-60,000) is among a group of works the artist was forced to leave behind when he fled his house and studio in Normandy at the outbreak of WWII – his distinctive use of tempera creates a vivid and enamel-like surface, further reinforcing the sense of suspended time so much associated with his work.