Mark Gertler’s portrait of Dora Carrington will be a feature at Christie’s Modern British and Irish Art evening sale in London on June 25. It is from the collection of the late Edgar Astaire which comprises work by 20th century artists including Gertler, Augustus John, David Bomberg, William Roberts and C.R.W. Nevinson, who all attended the Slade School of Art. The collection will be offered across four sales at Christie’s in June and July. The collection also includes works by Alfred Munnings, David Hockney, Noël Coward, John Piper, Graham Sutherland and Edward Lear. The four sales will provide opportunities for collectors to acquire works at a wide range of price levels, with estimates starting from £3,000 up to £400,000.
Carrington (1893-1932) was the object of a decade long unrequited love by Gertler. Her love for the homosexual writer Lytton Strachey and her affair with Gertler was explored in the 1995 film Carrington starring Emma Thompson and Rufus Sewell. The portrait is estimated at £400,000-600,000.
UPDATE: Gertler’s The Violinist sold for £542,500 at this auction.