Carmen Herrera, Untitled, 2018. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Online Auction.
England
Anish Kapoor, Horizon Shadow, 2010. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Evening Sale, London.
Rebecca Tooby-Desmond, Head of Sale, Specialist, First Name on the Teamsheet
Sixty years ago, England’s first (and so far, only) World Cup win was broadcast to the nation from cathode ray television sets. It remains the single most-watched television event in British history, despite one thing missing from the coverage: color.
Burnt orange, oxblood red, indigo, and chartreuse — no, not a vibrant display of away kits — but the mesmeric, hypnotic shimmer of Anish Kapoor’s nine moiré etchings. VAR wouldn’t stand a chance against Kapoor’s intentionally misregistered plates. The evasive edges imply, rather than describe compositions that slip between two and three dimensionality: could it be trees around a lake, or a reel of film — aerial pitch views, or open goals? Like the iconic shutdown of a 1966 CRT television set, the colors vibrate with a static hum before shrinking into a single, horizontal line. They think it’s all over… it is now.
Peter Blake, The London Suite, 2012. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Evening Sale, London.
Robert Kennan, Head of Editions, London's Finest False Nine
Love’s got the world in motion, again.
And it’s a time for collecting: autographs, scarves, shirts, badges, lots of badges, and stickers, masses of stickers, programs, tickets, et al.
Sir Peter Blake will be watching closely; he’s more Capstan cigarette card than Panini, but he’ll be tearing the top off those little packets as eagerly as anyone.
I’m reminded of his selfie in the Tate collection, Self-Portrait with Badges, a true fan, collector, connoisseur of ephemera, and an International Pop protégé!
So, time for you to start, and where better than the three Blake portfolios offered in our live and online sales, all featuring his trademark collage imagery, amassed from a lifetime of collecting.
They think it’s all over, but it’s only just started.
Damien Hirst, The Last Supper, 1999. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Evening Sale, London.
Hebe Reynolds, Associate Researcher, Sunday League Legend
Think British summer time. Gentle breeze, rustling trees, and Damien Hirst is in charge of bringing the picky bits to this garden party. The Last Supper is a veritable feast of British tapas — corned beef, meatballs, beans, and chips — what more could you want on a blistering hot day! The sausages are on the barbie and the bunting is up. Three Lions is blaring from the speaker, but personally, I couldn’t name a single player on the field (is that us in white?) The Cornish pasties are going down a treat, but oh no! Dad’s screaming at the goalie (maybe one too many Stellas), the brothers are whacking each other with croquet mallets, and the cousin’s neighbor’s sister’s dog has lapped up half the Viccy sponge. The Pimm's has gone everywhere and I’ve got a headache. Damien will have an Ibuprofen.
Germany
Andy Warhol, Goethe, 1982. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Evening Sale, London.
Julia Paeslack, Cataloguer & Associate Specialist, Resident Raumdeuter
It’s the beautiful game, and Warhol has picked his captain. Forget tiki-taka, this is pure Pop formation football. Originally immortalized by Tischbein lounging dramatically during his Italian Grand Tour, Goethe now gets the full Factory treatment: sharper, brighter, and ready for prime-time replay. Warhol transforms the German literary giant into a full-blown Pop icon, equal parts Enlightenment thinker and international style striker. With his groundbreaking teachings on color and perception, Goethe wrote the handbook before Warhol remixed it under stadium lights. Together they take Germany straight to the Editions World Cup final. Was that a yellow or a red card? Just don’t ask the color theorist in the picture.
Katharina Grosse, Untitled, from Door Cycle, 2006. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Evening Sale, London.
Anne Schneider-Wilson, International Specialist, Die Achter
While the 2006 FIFA World Cup saw Italy and France battling through tension, drama, and one unforgettable headbutt, Edition Schellmann invited artists to create artworks on prefabricated doors. In Katharina Grosse’s practice, color moves freely across canvases, walls, and in this case, an ordinary door. Calmly leaning against the wall, the work lets colour explode through space without the need for penalty shootouts, red cards, or commentators shouting about "historic moments."
Unlike the World Cup, where emotional chaos unfolds every ninety minutes, and millions of fans pretend they fully understand what is happening, Grosse manages to translate her usually large-scale, site-specific installations into a domestic work of art that I would quite happily have sitting in my living room — although it might still attract more passionate debate from visitors than the Zidane headbutt ever did.
The United States of America
Left: Andy Warhol, Mickey Mouse, from Myths, 1981. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Evening Sale, London. Right: Eat your heart out, Gosling.
Stephanie Wickham-Eade, Cataloguer, Full Faith in Mauricio Pochettino
Singing and dancing my heart out as an American kid in the 90s, it was my childhood dream to become the next big Mouseketeer recruit. I could just picture it: I’d be "discovered" during a scouting tour through Minnesota, the agents would be enamored with my flawless tap routine in the Mall of America’s Rotunda, and that would be my one-way ticket to superstardom. Alas, I was not destined to become the next Britney or Christina, and instead I found a new (perhaps more realistic) dream career in which I have the privilege of working with some of the greatest artworks of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. A shining star of our June Evening Sale, Andy Warhol’s Mickey Mouse, from Myths, is the intersection of it all — finished with glittering diamond dust, this iconic character brings nostalgic magic to both my adult self and the little girl with stars in her eyes.
Italy
Alighiero Boetti, Orologio Annuale (Annual Watch): three works, 1988, 1989, and 1990. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Online Auction.
Christian Rosolino, Sale Manager, Trequartista
As the world kicks off this year’s fierce footy festivities, you may have heard that we Italians have been left on the subs bench once again! It’s not like us to be dramatic (*cries into his Peroni*), but this is the third time in a row now that we’ve not qualified, and it’s starting to get a bit embarrassing…
We may be missing from this year’s World Cup lineup, but Alighiero Boetti is here to represent the Italians this season, helping us to time-travel back to past moments of triumph and glory. In one of Boetti’s Orologi Annuali, the year is always 1990: Italy is the World Cup’s host nation and the whole footballing sphere is basking in our sky-blue radiance.
Boetti’s watches are a reminder that football, much like art, has a tendency of looping back around. So, wrist assured, we’re not calling full-time on Italy yet. Watch out, we will be back.
Spain
Salvador Dalí, L'escargot et l'ange (The Snail and the Angel), 1977/84. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Evening Sale, London.
Poppy Redfern, Administrator, Tiki-Taka Tactician
Wind whipping the water, muscles tense, eyes forward and onwards! The hard and dense bronze and marble weighing down the all too familiar garden pest, Salvador Dalí’s sculpture captures the creature's common trope of idle, lethargic movement in paradox with the levity and agility imbued in the winding forms and delicate markings. Let's remember: Spain won the World Cup not by outrunning the rest; rather, they held the ball the longest and created chances during lulls.
In Dalí’s world, it is no longer the uninvited guest at a garden BBQ, but instead the victorious hero. Enough vigor to charge into battle? Or perhaps across a football pitch, or more likely a garden allotment — the sculpture seems to propel itself forward as if crossing a finish line with the same gusto and energy Delacroix’s Liberty could only dream of. The power, the speed, could it be anything other than the garden snail?
South Africa
William Kentridge, Four Paper Heads, 2007. Modern & Contemporary Editions: Evening Sale, London.
Katharine Pein, Editions Intern, Vuvuzela Enthusiast
Four paper heads sit captivated by a game fraught with tension, bearing witness to South Africa’s past, present, and future. William Kentridge created Four Heads in 2007, thirteen years after liberation from apartheid, wounds still fresh from the fight for freedom.
During apartheid, art was one of the few arenas where Black and White South Africans could legally convene. Kentridge was deeply involved in this underground world of resistance. Post-apartheid, his work remains apprehensive — wary that the referee of history might disallow humanity’s win.
Where art kindled resistance, sport united the Rainbow Nation. South Africans gathered around their braais during the 2010 FIFA World Cup as the deafening chorus of the vuvuzela erupted on the global stage. Following Siphiwe Tshabalala’s opening goal against Mexico, commentator Peter Drury proclaimed: "Goal for South Africa! Goal for all Africa!" Tshabalala became symbolic of a nation still daring to believe. In the turbulent climate of 2026, Kentridge’s heads gaze towards South Africa’s participation this summer, and a world once again engulfed in conflict — anxiously praying for extra time.