T his summer in London, alongside our various-owner auctions, Sotheby’s will stage a landmark exhibition and sale of masterpieces from the renowned Lewis Collection. Estimated in the region of £200 million, this will be the most valuable single-owner collection ever offered at auction in Europe, bringing together defining masterpieces of modern figurative painting.

Assembled over decades by Joe Lewis and his daughter Vivienne, many of the works in the collection have been exhibited in major museums across the globe – a testament to their exceptional art historical significance – and many have not been seen on the open market for decades, if at all.

Born and raised in London’s East End, Joe Lewis felt a natural affinity as a collector with the School of London painters, such as Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, whose work confronted the human condition with an uncompromising intensity. That early passion became the foundation for what is today one of the world’s most important private collections of modern art, shaped by a fascination with the human figure in all its forms. From Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele and Amedeo Modigliani to Gustave Caillebotte, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, the Lewis Collection captures the radical inventiveness of the leading artists of the 20th century, and includes some of the greatest works of modern figurative painting to remain in private hands.

Masterworks from the Lewis Collection will go on view to the public from 10–23 June, in a specially-designed exhibition at Sotheby’s London, providing a rare opportunity to see, together for the first time, an exceptional concentration of some of the greatest examples of figurative art created in the Modern era.