Procession with Lilies by Louis le Brocquy from the Independent collection at Adams. (Click on image to enlarge). UPDATE: IT MADE 320,000.
Procession with Lilies by Louis le Brocquy is the most important piece of art in the corporate collection of Independent News and Media to be sold by James Adam in Dublin on September 26. Painted in 1984-5 it drew its inspiration from a 1939 Evening Herald photograph showing schoolchildren with lilies blessed at the Franciscan Church at Merchant’s Quay in Dublin on the Feast of St. Anthony. It has a top estimate of 250,000. The work is particularly well known, and was the subject of a limited edition and popular lithograph.
The 67 pieces from the Independent’s collection were deemed unsuitable for the new largely glass walled corporate headquarters in Dublin’s city centre. The collection was put together by the late Vincent Ferguson, well known collector and patron of artists, and a director of the newspaper company. The focus is on Irish contemporary art of the 1980’s/’90’s and it includes work by Basil Blackshaw, T.P.Flanagan, Brian Ballard, Eithne Carr and many others. Adams have put a low estimate of 350,000 on the 67 works.