GERHARD RICHTER FROM THE COLLECTION OF MARCEL BRIENT, AND BANKSY TO LEAD PHILLIPS’ FRIEZE WEEK SALES
Alongside Standout Works by David Hockney from Prestigious Private Collections
From the Collection of Marcel Brient, Paris
Gerhard Richter
Mathis, 1983
Estimate: £6,000,000 - 8,000,000
LONDON – 1 OCTOBER 2026 – Phillips unveils highlights from its Modern & Contemporary Art auctions in London on 15 and 17 October. The Evening Sale is led by Gerhard Richter’s Mathis, offered from the Collection of Marcel Brient. Further highlights include the auction debut of Banksy’s Keep Ou T, alongside works by Salvador Dalí and Maurizio Cattelan. Four works by David Hockney star in the Evening Sale including Red Leather Chair, from a Prestigious British Collection, and Red and Black Fruit, from an Exceptional Private Art Collection. Joseph Yaeger, Megan Rooney and Eva Helene Pade are among the rising contemporary voices championed in the sale. The catalogues for each sale will be available online from 30 September and the preview exhibition will be on view at Phillips’ Berkeley Square galleries from 8 to 17 October, spanning both the Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 15 October at 5pm and the Modern & Contemporary Art Sale on 17 October at 1pm.
Olivia Thornton, Deputy Chairwoman and Head of Modern & Contemporary Art, Europe, said “We are delighted to present highlights from our Modern & Contemporary Art Frieze Week auctions this October. Following a Spring season that saw a 60% increase in sales year on year, we are carrying that momentum into the autumn with an exciting selection of works coming to the rostrum. From blue-chip names, including Banksy’s Keep Ou T, which is appearing at auction for the first time, and Maurizio Cattelan’s Turisti, to contemporary voices such as Joseph Yaeger and Megan Rooney, the season brings together an exciting breadth of perspectives and collecting opportunities. We are pleased to present significant private collections, offering collectors rare opportunities to acquire works with distinguished provenance, including Gerhard Richter’s Mathis from the Collection of Marcel Brient, works by David Hockney from a Prestigious British Collection, and works from Dartington Hall, the collection of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst. Together, these works reflect the depth and diversity of the market, bringing back established and emerging artists into dialogue across our October auctions. We look forward to welcoming visitors to our galleries when the preview opens on 8 October.”
Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale | 15 October
Leading the Evening Sale is Gerhard Richter’s Mathis, from the esteemed Collection of Marcel Brient. A centrepiece of the collection since its acquisition around 25 years ago, Mathis is the first and most structurally complex of a subset of four abstract canvases (Abstrakte Bilder) from 1983, all titled after people: Mathis, Martha, Marian and Maria. The early 1980s marked a significant shift in Richter’s practice, as he moved away from the monochromatic photorealism that had defined his work in the 1960s, embracing improvisation, luminous colour and the interplay of more complex surface textures. Mathis exemplifies the complex dialogue between abstraction and representation that emerged during this pivotal period.
Making its auction debut, Banksy’s Keep Ou T (estimate: £1,200,000 - 1,800,000) was executed in 2019. Exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition that same year, the occasion marked the second and final time to date the artist has ever exhibited at the institution. Keep Ou T belongs to a cycle of works created in response to the United Kingdom’s vote to leave the European Union in 2016. Using an arch purportedly salvaged from Heathrow Airport, across its shutters a stencilled rat brandishes the letter ‘T’ from the phrase ‘KEEP OU’ to break open the padlock. Alluding to the discourse surrounding immigration and freedom of movement that dominated the Brexit campaign, Keep Ou T exemplifies Banksy’s sharp and satirical social critique.
Maurizio Cattelan
Turisti, 1997
Estimate: £200,000 - 300,000
The first in Maurizio Cattelan’s pigeon cycle, the original display of the Turisti series debuted at the 47th Venice Biennale in 1997. With his characteristic tongue-in-cheek humour, Cattelan for the Biennale emulated the Italian Pavilion as he saw it during a reconnaissance visit to the site: disused and full of pigeons. Filling its exposed rafters with taxidermied pigeons, the title Turisti also alludes to the mass tourism that descends upon Venice and continues to pose challenges to the city.
Four David Hockney works star in the Evening Sale: Red Leather Chair, Portrait of Peter Langan and Jean-Marc Moussis and Deck Gate, from a Prestigious British Collection, alongside Red and Black Fruit, from an Exceptional Private Art Collection. Created in 2003 in memory of Eduardo Chillida, who had died the previous year, Red Leather Chair was exhibited alongside works by other artists including Cy Twombly, Ellsworth Kelly and Georg Baselitz, celebrating the Basque sculptor’s legacy at the Guggenheim Bilbao in 2006. Red Leather Chair is at once a tender tribute to the departed and a quietly ingenious reinterpretation of portraiture. Following his presentation at the Serpentine Gallery in London this year, Hockney will be the subject of a landmark retrospective at the Tate, opening in October 2027, the year that would have marked his 90th birthday.
David Hockney
Red Leather Chair, 2003
Estimate: £500,000 - 700,000
David Hockney
Red and Black Fruit, 1988
Estimate: £500,000 - 700,000
Coming to auction from the Dartington Hall Estate is a group of works by leading British Modernists, including Ben Nicholson and Christopher Wood, from the collection of Dorothy and Leonard Elmhirst. The works reflect the remarkable cultural life the Elmhirsts fostered at Dartington, where their vision for social and artistic renewal brought together some of the leading figures in 20th century art and culture. Their legacy continues today through the Dartington Hall Trust, which remains based on the estate and supports work across the heritage, arts and environmental sectors. Proceeds from the sale of these works will support the ongoing preservation of the Dartington Hall Estate, helping to safeguard its legacy for future generations.
Ben Nicholson
Cumbrian Cottages, circa 1928
Estimate: £100,000 - 150,000
Joseph Yaeger’s Once, always depicts a woman with parted lips and an alert gaze drawn beyond the edge of the canvas. Exploring imagery from film clippings to his own photographs, Yaeger builds the work through translucent layers of watercolour on gessoed canvas, creating a luminous, cinematic surface. Balancing vivid realism with an elusive narrative, the work reflects the artist’s fascination with the space between the mediated image and the subconscious.
Joseph Yaeger
Once, always, 2023
Estimate: £120,000 - 180,000
Further contemporary perspectives are represented by Megan Rooney and Eva Helene Pade. Rooney’s Blue departure is a vibrant, immersive painting exploring colour, gesture and the physicality of paint. Drawing on her experiences living in South Africa, Brazil, Canada and London, Rooney translates memories of urban and natural environments into paintings without fixed references. Her multidisciplinary practice spans painting, sculpture, installation and performance and has been exhibited internationally, including her recent presentation alongside Joan Mitchell at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Beijing in 2025.
Megan Rooney
Blue departure, 2021
Estimate: £50,000 - 70,000
For Danish-born, Paris-based artist Eva Helene Pade, the human figure is a hallmark of her evocative, spectral compositions. A graduate of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Pade’s protagonists, as seen in Yellow Nights, are fictive and often entangled in ambiguous narratives, emerging from the depths of the artist’s unconscious. Rendered in the warm hues of candlelight and dusk, Yellow Nights is an atmospheric example of Pade’s early figurative practice.
Eva Helene Pade
Yellow Nights, 2020
Estimate: £30,000 - 50,000
Modern & Contemporary Art Sale | 17 October
Leading the Modern & Contemporary Art Sale is Antony Gormley’s 2015 sculpture Small Fall 2 III, alongside works by Tony Cragg, Michelangelo Pistoletto and David Hockney, including a work from the same Prestigious British Collection represented in the Evening Sale. The collection also features Post-War British Modernist works by Patrick Heron and Sir Terry Frost, complementing other key works in the sale by artists including Dame Elisabeth Frink. The sale also features works by internationally acclaimed artists including Andy Warhol, George Condo and Yayoi Kusama, as well as a selection of works from the Dartington Estate.
