LONDON.- Stephen Ongpin has consistently championed the unique immediacy and enduring appeal of drawings and works on paper. Lines of Vision: Celebrating 20 Years of Stephen Ongpin Fine Art on 2 July, will be a highlight within Christie’s Classic Week in London this summer. Since its inception in 2006, the gallery has become established as a foremost specialist in master drawings and works on paper, with an international reputation for scholarship, expertise and a dynamic exhibition schedule. Comprising approximately 100 lots spanning 500 years from Old Masters to Contemporary, with estimates starting from £700 up to £600,000, the auction reflects the breadth and depth of categories, periods and price points central to the gallery’s identity. Marking a special moment for the gallery and the wider international community of collectors and enthusiasts in the drawings market, this auction builds on Stephen Ongpin Fine Art’s many carefully curated exhibitions and catalogues of exceptional academic rigour. The sale is led by Turner’s evocative Swiss landscape The Lauerzersee with the Ruins of Schwanau and the Mythen (estimate: £400,000-600,000), with further highlights ranging from works by Tiepolo, Guercino and Boucher, through to examples by Picasso, Klee, Matisse, and Frankenthaler among many others. The pre-sale exhibition will be on view from 26 June to 2 July.

Stephen Ongpin: “A question I am often asked is why, when I started working as an art dealer, I decided to focus on drawings. I think it is because I have always been drawn (forgive the pun!) to the very intimacy of works on paper, and to the connection they engender with the creative process at its most direct and unfiltered. This is what I find so endlessly fascinating about this field. I have sometimes likened the study of drawings to the act of standing next to the artist, looking over their shoulder, as they work out ideas on paper. Like a diary entry from another time and place, these drawings are often the beginning of a story. I am delighted to work closely with Christie’s this summer to share some of that passion for drawings, and to introduce the work of the gallery to a wider audience and to a new generation of collectors.”

Keith Gill, Head of Sale commented: “Christie’s is proud to work with Stephen to mark this 20-year milestone for Stephen Ongpin Fine Art. This auction is a celebration of the gallery and Stephen’s longstanding and continued contribution to the field of drawings and works on paper. The works in the sale reflect Stephen’s erudite connoisseurship and passion which underpins the gallery and all the brilliance of the artists and the diversity of exceptional artworks he champions. We look forward to welcoming collectors, institutions and enthusiasts to the pre-sale exhibition.”

Stephen Ongpin Fine Art

What distinguishes Stephen Ongpin Fine Art is not only the quality of the works the gallery handles, but also the breadth of Stephen’s vision, honed over nearly 40 years. The Mayfair gallery’s programme embraces a broad view of the history of art, bringing together Old Master drawings, nineteenth-century watercolours, and modern works on paper with equal care and sensitivity, and allows these different schools to sit alongside and communicate with one another. The present auction reflects that remarkable range. From the luminous landscapes of Turner and the poetic inventions of Cozens to the assured draftsmanship of Guercino, Mola, Boucher, and Tiepolo, and onward to the modernism of Cézanne, Picasso, Boldini, Balla, and Klee, this collection offers a vivid journey through centuries of artistic imagination and technical mastery.

Joseph Mallord William Turner’s The Lauerzersee with the Ruins of Schwanau and the Mythen, Switzerland

In the years after Turner’s death, the watercolours resulting from his final tours of Switzerland quickly became established among his most celebrated and highly prized works on paper. While the slightly larger and more resolved views that he painted on commission for a small group of admirers are now nearly all in museum collections, some of the watercolour sketches he made while travelling still remain in private hands. This exceptionally well preserved, luminous watercolour is one of the finest, and has a well-documented provenance going back directly to Turner himself. It depicts the landscape below the eastern slopes of the Rigi, the famous peak popular with 19th century tourists, and the subject of many watercolours by Turner, including The Blue Rigi which Christie’s sold for £5.8 million in 2006, setting a world auction record for a work on paper by Turner that still stands. The precise location depicted in this watercolour initially eluded collectors and scholars alike. The contrasting warmth of the fading golden sunset light with the coolness of the rising moon which draws the viewer in to this beguiling view was one of Turner’s favourite combinations in his later works, inspired by Lord Byron’s words ‘The moon is up, and yet it is not yet night / Sunset divides the day with her’ (Childe Harold, Canto 4).