LS Lowry: Painting expected to fetch more than £1.2m at auction

The artwork has never been offered at an auction before

A painting by artist LS Lowry could fetch more than £1.2m at auction.

The artwork, titled The Auction, is among a series of paintings going under the hammer this month at Sotheby's Modern British and Irish Art sale.

It depicts a bustling crowd of people gathered at an auction.

Frances Christie, deputy chairman of Sotheby's UK & Ireland, said the work "captures the buzz of an auction in a manner that only Lowry, with his distinctive iconography, could".

The artwork is estimated to sell for between £1.2m-£1.8m when it goes under the hammer, while a second piece by Lowry, who grew up and lived around Manchester and Salford, depicting a mill house is placed at £300,000-£500,000.

Mill Scene will also be up for auction this month

Ms Christie said the artist, who was an avid collector of clocks and Pre-Raphaelite art, was no stranger to an auction and indulged his passion with bids in salerooms from Manchester to London.

She added: "He often kept track of his own pictures passing through Sotheby's later in life, witnessing an appreciation for his work that formed a total contrast to the outset of his career when he struggled for recognition.

"The pleasing circularity of The Auction's appearance at Sotheby's would no doubt have satisfied Lowry's wry sense of humour - a case of life imitating art."

The auction will take place on 23 November and will feature works by artists including Henry Moore, Bridget Riley, Samuel Peploe and Jack Butler Yeats.

It will also offer a Dame Elisabeth Frink sculpture from the collection of British fashion designer Dame Mary Quant and work from early British Modernists including Ben Nicholson, Christopher Wood and Edward Wadsworth.

It will feature the generation of post-war sculptors like William Turnbull and Kenneth Armitage, and artists working today including Frank Auerbach and Riley.

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