Lyon & Turnbull have one of the most experienced teams of Modern British specialists amongst UK auction houses. Our senior specialists Simon Hucker, Alice Strang and Philip Smith have over 50 years’ combined experience in the field, both in the commercial and museum sectors – and as such, their network of contacts is in many ways unrivalled.
Our twice-yearly MODERN MADE sales cover all the main movements in British Art in the 20th Century, from Bloomsbury and the Camden Town School and the very beginnings of modernism, through Vorticism, Surrealism and abstraction in the inter-war years, on to post-war and Neo-Romanticism, St Ives, Pop, New Generation painters and sculptors, post-Modernism and performance, up to the arrival of the YBAs.
Our auctions have a particular emphasis on sculpture in the 1950s and 60s, when it can be said that British sculpture was truly world-class, with the global acclaim achieved by Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore being matched by the international interest in the likes of Armitage, Chadwick, Adams, Paolozzi and Turnbull.
Specialist Focus
Modern British is one of the cornerstones of the UK art market, with a dedicated and knowledgeable base of home-grown collectors being increasingly supplemented by interest from abroad, often beyond the traditional Anglophone ‘hot spots’ of the USA, Canada and Australia.
Lyon & Turnbull offers a level of expertise, bespoke marketing and museum-quality displays that many of our competitors do not. Significantly, we remain committed to producing elegant, well-curated catalogues of our auctions and exhibit the MODERN MADE sales in the Mall Galleries on Pall Mall, at the heart of the London art world.
All sale results shown are inclusive of buyer’s premium.
ILLUSTRATED ABOVE: § MICHAEL AYRTON (BRITISH, 1921-1975) | TALOS, 1963 | SOLD FOR £22,125