Art Market#21: Steady demand for British Art from the London Sales 2026
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The traditional London auction week came to a close on Saturday, March 7.
During this week, the British capital hosted thirteen events, which included evening and day sales as well as specialized auctions. Among these events were Sotheby’s David Hockney Sale, Christie’s The Art of the Surreal Evening Sale, and Christie’s Modern Visionaries: The Vanthournout Sale.
The series of auctions began on Wednesday, 4 March, with the Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Evening Sale, and continued the following day with the evening sales held by its competitors, Christie’s and Phillips.
Strong bidding, high sell-through rates, and several record prices reaffirmed London’s position as one of the global centers for the art market, despite concerns that the recent opening of a new conflict front in the Middle East might dampen buyer confidence.
What emerged most clearly - and what we find particularly interesting - is the strong performance achieved by Modern and Contemporary British artists not only during the evening sales but also in the day sessions, where collectors encountered a selection of high-quality works with excellent provenance.
The Modern & Contemporary Evening Sale at Sotheby’s London achieved a total of £130.6 million across 54 lots and concluded as a white-glove sale, attracting collectors from approximately 40 countries. The auction was significantly strengthened by the presence of a museum-quality group of works from the Lewis Collection, held privately for decades, including two paintings by Lucian Freud, one by Francis Bacon, and a rare work by Leon Kossoff.
A 1972 self-portrait by Francis Bacon sold for £16 million, emphasizing the significance of the artist's self-portraits, which are now considered as some of the best works from Bacon's production in the 1970s.
Two paintings by Lucian Freud also attracted competitive bidding, reflecting the strength of The School of London market for exceptional works with long-held private provenance.
Particularly notable was the result for Leon Kossoff: his Children’s Swimming Pool, Autumn Afternoon, executed in 1969, sold for £5.2 million (estimate £600,000 - 800,000), setting a new auction record for the artist.
An essential read for grasping the cultural context and global significance of the so-called School of London is the essay by Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic and former Washington Post journalist Sebastian Smee, published on Sotheby’s website:
On March 5, Sotheby's held The David Hockney Sale: The Arrival of Spring, featuring a selection of 16 prints from a single-owner collection. The auction concluded with a 100% sell-through rate, and all lots were sold above their high estimate.
This strong result reflects the continued popularity of David Hockney’s prints on the secondary market, where demand for his graphic works and iPad-based series has grown steadily in recent years. Institutional attention has also played a role: recent and upcoming museum exhibitions dedicated to Hockney (such as the one set to be inaugurated this week at the Serpentine Galleries) have further reinforced his visibility and enduring relevance.
Christie’s 20th/21st Century Art Evening Sale proved robust and highly competitive, with strong global participation, year-on-year growth in total sales, and high sell-through rates across all major categories. In the realm of British art, headlines were dominated by the new world auction record set by Henry Moore’s King and Queen (1952-53), which hammered at £26,345,000, well above its pre-sale estimate of £10–15 million.
Other notable results included Howard Hodgkin’s In the Green Room (1984-86), which sold for £1,270,000, reflecting sustained institutional and collector interest in the artist’s expressive abstract work.
Rose Wylie’s Tube Girl (2016) exceeded expectations, achieving £152,400 - more than three times typical estimates for mid-career British artists - buoyed by recent museum visibility. Tracey Emin’s A Certain Degree of Anger (2016) sold for £1,206,500, more than double its low estimate of £600,000, marking a strong performance coinciding with the opening of her major retrospective at Tate Modern.
The only negative note for Christie’s was the withdrawal of the beautiful 1965 work by Bridget Riley, Arrest 4 (carrying an estimate of £3.5–5.5 million), a striking example of her style, painted at the height of her exploration of visual perception.
Bonhams also offered British art with a monumental work by contemporary artist Sarah Lucas. Her sculpture Gold Cup Maradona, previously exhibited at the 56th Venice Biennale, carried a pre-sale estimate of £300,000–£400,000 and ultimately sold at the lower end of that range.
Equally notable was a second sculpture by Lucas, Maradona, executed in aluminium wire, tape, cotton, Lycra stockings, and adobe stone bricks, which Bonhams offered the following day. This work had previously been shown in the artist’s solo exhibition at the Anahuacalli Diego Rivera Museum in Mexico, in 2012. It sold for £114,700 inc. premium, a good price for the lucky bidder.
Indeed, while evening sales often attract the headlines, close attention to day sales can offer mid-market collectors far more actionable opportunities.
The day sales typically feature a broader range of works with more accessible estimates.
This segment can reveal high-quality pieces by established and emerging artists that sell at compelling prices simply because they fall outside the spotlight.
By systematically monitoring day sale results, collectors in the mid-market segment can identify opportunities and strategically acquire strong works with long-term potential at more advantageous entry points.
Below are some of the main highlights and results reported from the 2026 London day auction sales:
At Sotheby’s Modern Day Auction on 5 March, Eileen Agar’s 1939 gouache and watercolour on paper, Dark Wood, achieved £53,760, far surpassing its initial estimate of £4,000–6,000.
In the same sale, a mixed-media work on paper by British constructivist artist Marlow Moss sold for £40,960, well above its original estimate of £15,000–20,000, highlighting strong collector interest in early 20th-century British modernism.
At Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on 7 March, several strong results stood out. Cecily Brown’s Mean Eyed Cat (2012), a painting from a private collection that had been exhibited at the Essl Museum in Austria, exceeded its lower estimate to realise £1,016,000.
A drawing by Elizabeth Peyton, a 2004 portrait of Jonathan Horowitz from the Italian collection of lawyer Giuseppe Iannaccone, doubled its high estimate to sell for £60,960.
Additionally, an intimate fragmentary portrait by Lucian Freud, Susanna (Fragment) (1978) - a gift from the artist to the consignor - achieved £330,200, surpassing its pre-sale estimate of £150,000–£200,000.
Freud’s fragmentary paintings are regarded as some of the finest examples of his work, celebrated for their blend of expressive power and intimate focus. They often achieve strong auction results due to their rarity and compelling presence.
Finally, on March 6, Bonhams offered a specialised British Studio ceramics sale, “Graphic Ceramics: The Michael Peters Collection”, which saw important results for works by Lucie Rie, Elisabeth Fritsch, Magdalene Odundo, and Jennifer Lee.
