A signed and dated bronze sculpture, created by late English artist Dame Barbara Hepworth (1903-1975), is to grace the auction block at Christie's Modern British Art Evening Sale in London on July 10.
The 1961 piece, entitled Curved Form (Bryher II), is estimated to be worth £1m-1.5m ($1.6m-2.3m).
 Casts of Hepworth's dynamic Curved Form (Bryher II) reside in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art |
It hails from one of Hepworth's most prolific periods. Changes to the artist's method, including an increased interest in bronze, as well as several high-profile public commissions, led Hepworth to expand her working space into a disused cinema across the road from her Trewyn Studio in St Ives, Cornwall, and take on several assistants.
Recalling this time, Hepworth remembered: "I at last had space and money to work on a bigger scale. I had felt inhibited for a very long time over the scale on which I could work.
"It's so natural to work large - it fits one's body."
 Chadwick’s paired figures are among the most iconic sculptures of the 20th century – Sitting Couple is estimated at £1m-1.5m ($1.6m-2.3m) |
A similarly substantial Hepworth sculpture, Ultimate Form, sold for $2.6m at Sotheby's in November 2006.
Another eye-catching piece destined for Christie's on July 10 is Lynn Chadwick's Sitting Couple.
Signed and numbered "6/9" by Chadwick (1914-2003), Sitting Couple is also expected to achieve £1m-1.5m ($1.6m-2.3m).
Especially interested in paired figures, Chadwick's circa 1989 bronze sculpture features a man and a woman sitting side by side on a bench, ever so slightly inclined towards one another.
Couple on a Seat, a 1984 Chadwick bronze that Sitting Couple echoes in terms of both subject and composition, sold for $1.9m at Sotheby's in November 2006.
Earlier this month, Francois-Xavier Lalanne's Singe Avise (Grand) - a free-standing patinated bronze ape - sold for $413,000 at Phillips.
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