About This Auction

Christie’s London hosts its 20th/21st Century Evening Sale on 5 March 2026, featuring major works by some of the most significant artists of the period. A leading highlight of the sale is Henry Moore’s King and Queen from 1952-53. Presenting Moore at the height of his practice, this majestic sculpture projects power, peace, intimacy, and human presence. It is the only example of the sculpture to remain in private hands, having been purchased directly from the artist in the 1950s and remaining in the same private collection for the last 70 years. Several works in the sale trace the evolution of abstraction through the twentieth-century, including Wassily Kandinsky’s Le rond rouge (1939), created while the artist was living in Paris before the Second World War, and Sonia Delaunay’s Rythme couleur (1946). Bridget Riley’s Arrest 4 (1965) captures her first steps towards colour, while Gerhard Richter’s masterful Abstraktes Bild (1991) offers a vivid hymn to red. Richter’s abstract enquiries operated in tandem with his figurative practice. At the heart of the sale is Schober (Haybarn) (1984) – formerly in the collection of Emily and Jerry Spiegel – which stands among the largest and most beautiful of his 1980s landscapes. This luminous vision of the German countryside takes its place alongside works by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet: both exquisite examples of plein air painting, capturing the fleeting play of light across the landscapes of Paris and L’Estaque. Elsewhere, the sale celebrates portraiture. An outstanding selection of works by Lucian Freud includes tender depictions of his daughters Bella and Ib, as well as a poignant farewell to his beloved whippet Pluto. John Singer Sargent’s luminous portrait of a young girl in Study for ‘Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose’ (1885-1886) is an important study for the artist’s famous painting now at the Tate, while Pablo Picasso offers a bold, gestural depiction of the artist and his model in Le peintre et son modèle (1964). Featuring works by Edgar Degas, Emil Nolde and Marc Chagall, to paintings by Andy Warhol, Peter Doig and Cecily Brown, the sale offers a rich opportunity to explore Impressionist, Modern and Contemporary art in dialogue.