LONDON.- This autumn Christie’s will offer works from three private collections that trace the development and trajectory of the London art scene from the 1950s to present day. This begins with the collection of Brian Sewell, the Evening Standard’s late art critic, who was a Specialist in the Old Master Department at Christie’s in the 1950s and 60s, having graduated in Art History at the Courtauld Institute, and nurtured a keen appetite for Renaissance works that span the 1500s through to Modern British artists of the mid-20th century. He built up a distinctive collection and 248 lots will be offered on 27 September including paintings by the Flemish artist Matthias Stomer, works on paper by the likes of Daniele da Volterra and Joseph Anton Koch, and the British Modernism of Duncan Grant and Eliot Hodgkin.

One of the most influential collectors that developed London’s tastes was Leslie Waddington, who arrived in the city in 1957 and went on to become one of the most prominent fine art dealers in modern times, introducing the art world to artists from Jean Dubuffet to Patrick Caulfield, bringing the British and European aesthetic to America for the first time, and American Abstract Expressionism to London. He left an indelible mark on the history of British collecting and patronage, which is evidenced by his personal collection. Sir Nicholas Serota, Director of Tate, stated: “At a time when the Tate and other institutions in London were far less ambitious than today, he made his gallery in Cork Street a place where young artists and collectors could receive an education in modern art”. Works by Jean Dubuffet, Agnes Martin and Milton Avery will be included alongside Patrick Caulfield, Sir Michael Craig-Martin and Sir Anthony Caro.

Completing this survey of the development of London taste-making and impact on the international art world, Abso-bloody-lutely!, an auction in three parts: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions (6 and 7 October) and online (4-13 October), will present art that encapsulates the two decades in London that heralded the arrival of Tate Modern, Frieze Art Fair, Artangel and the Fourth Plinth project in Trafalgar Square. The Cranford Collection was established to nurture the capital’s artists and encourage creativity which is represented by the work of Damien Hirst, Glenn Brown, Gillian Wearing, Rachel Whiteread and Francis Alÿs, amongst others. London’s position as a global centre for art has been shaped by these visionary figures whose private collections provide a glimpse into the tastes that spanned and defined five decades in the history of the city.

Brian Sewell: Critic & Collector, Tuesday 27 September 2016, 2pm Exhibition view: 24-27 September 2016
Discoveries made at Christie’s have led to new attributions in the collection of Brian Sewell and an oil on paper study has now been associated with a group of pictures hanging in the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari in Venice. A drawing formerly thought to have been by a follower of Michelangelo, and two other long-unattributed works have now been identified. Brian Sewell (1931-2015), renowned and controversial art critic, award-winning journalist and author, worked at Christie’s as an auction house picture expert for almost nine years, between 1958 and 1967. Providing a wealth of opportunities for new and established collectors across price levels, the works carry estimates ranging from £600 to £600,000.

Highlights of old master paintings in the collection include three paintings by Matthias Stomer (circa 1600 – after 1652?); Saint Jerome, (estimate: £100,000-150,000), The Adoration of the Magi (estimate: £150,000-250,000) and Blowing Hot, Blowing Cold (estimate: £400,000-600,000), which were key elements of the collection. Further centrepieces include a grey wash study of A girl with her dead fawn by George Romney (1734-1802) (estimate: £15,000-20,000) and a great rarity, the earliest drawing in the collection, Design for a bench: the five niches above containing figures of ancient heroes by the distinguished artist and architect Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536) (estimate: £100,000-150,000). Modern British artists such as his friend and loyal supporter Eliot Hodgkin (1905-87), are offered as well as Poplar, (1941, estimate: £7,000-10,000) by John Minton (1917-57); Lucian Freud by John Craxton (1922-2009) (1946, estimate: £50,000-80,000) and a doublesided painting by Duncan Grant (1885-1978), Chrysanthemums in a Jar, Charleston (recto) and Reclining Male Nude (verso) (1935, estimate: £20,000-30,000).

The Leslie Waddington Collection, Tuesday 4 October, 7pm Exhibition view: 24 September – 4 October 2016
The Collection of Leslie Waddington will be offered for sale as a single-owner auction at Christie’s. A celebration of some of the artists he most admired, the sale will feature works from his personal collection including 20th-century icons Josef Albers, Alexander Calder, Milton Avery, Agnes Martin, Francis Picabia, and Jean Dubuffet, as well as works by many of the contemporary artists he represented, and with whom he developed enduring friendships. Assembled over several decades, Waddington’s personal collection is testament to his pioneering spirit as an art dealer who presented a ground-breaking exhibition programme and fostered creative relationships with artists: he brought a range of Modern, Post-War, and Contemporary names to the attention of international audiences and defined the London art landscape long before the rise in popularity of the contemporary art world today. For Leslie Waddington a “good painting, like good music or good literature, always has to question you.”

At the core of the collection is Jean Dubuffet’s Visiteur au chapeau bleu avril, (1955, estimate: £2,000,000-3,000,000) one of the raw, highly textured canvases that Dubuffet produced during the first few months of his six-year sojourn in the south of France and presents a vision of bucolic joie de vivre. Other highlights include Francis Picabia’s Lampe, (1923, estimate: £800,000-1,500,000); and Agnes Martin’s Praise, (1985, estimate: £2,000,0003,000,000) an example of Martin’s serene visual vocabulary, which she employed to evoke pure, meditative states of mind. Another focal point of the collection is Alexander Calder’s Le serpent rouge (The Red Snake), (1958, estimate: £2,000,000- 3,000,000), spanning two metres in width the mobile presents a hypnotic cascade of red, blue and black biomorphic forms, elegantly emerging from the wall with twisting serpentine movement.

Abso-bloody-lutely!: Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening and Day Auctions, 6 and 7 October and Online, 4-13 October 2016
Abso-bloody-lutely! is an eclectic collection of works encapsulating two of the most exciting decades in British art history. From the YBAs to more conceptual artists, this selection of works from the Cranford Collection spans a wide range of media. Whether incendiary images or apparitions of subtle beauty, the works all share a distinctively London tone of fun and irreverence. Damien Hirst’s Salvation (2003, estimate: £250,000-350,000) and Damnation (2004, estimate: £180,000-220,000) is an enthralling double vision of life and death. Two sharp triangular frames are filled with insects, to dramatically different effect. Salvation forms a beautiful display of butterflies fixed in blue paint; arranged in a kaleidoscopic, radial pattern and their wings gleaming with facets of wildly varied iridescent colour, they resemble a gorgeous stained-glass window. Damnation, in stark contrast, is a void of solid and compelling darkness, formed by the massed bodies of thousands of black flies in resin. Hirst stated that an absence of God meant that “all these big issues, like art and science and cancer, are all clambering about on this barren landscape where God used to exist’. Further highlights include Glenn Brown, Creeping Flesh (1991, estimate: £250,000-350,000), Douglas Gordon, Self-portrait (Kissing with Scopolamine) (1994, estimate: £7,000-10,000) Gillian Wearing, Self Portrait (2000, estimate: £15,000-20,000) and Eva Rothschild, Soldier of Fortune (2006, estimate: £6,000–8,000).

Founded in 1999, at a time when there were few such initiatives by private collectors, the Cranford Collection has remained a leading light in an art world populated by an increasingly vast array of galleries, fairs, movements and ideas. Over the past two decades it has worked closely with artists, galleries and organisations; many collaborations and friendships having bloomed along the way. Cranford’s visionary connoisseurship, characterised by acute curiosity, in-depth research and a diversity of approach, continues to evolve as new artistic players emerge, inspire and thrive in the capital.