This commentary by Marion Maneker is available to AMMpro subscribers. (The first month of AMMpro is free and subscribers are welcome to sign up for the first month and cancel before they are billed.)

Katharine Arnold made clear today that Christie’s will hold a Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening sale in London this June. The decision to revive the London Evening sale in June reflects the interest of the auction house’s consignors, as Arnold explains in the brief podcast above.

Arnold also revealed some of the works that will be featured in the March 6th Evening sale along side the David Hockney double portrait of Henry Geldzahler and Christopher Scott from the Barney Ebsworth Collection.

• Leading the Day sale the next morning will be a drawing made from the portrait that Hockney gave to Geldzahler. Henry and Christopher from 1973 (£180-250k).

• In addition to that work, there is another Hockney painting in the sale from the collection of artist Frank Stella, A Less Realistic Still Life, 1965 (£1.5-2m).

The sale also features a work by Bridget Riley coinciding with her mural opening at the National Gallery and the upcoming retrospective of her work at the Hayward Gallery in London. It’s been 16 years since the last major London retrospective of her work.

• Christie’s will be selling a work made during the same year as the Tate retrospective, Buff (£950k-1.2m).

Among European painters there is a trio of works by Nicolas de Staël all from the important final years of his life from 1950-55:

• Bouteilles (Bottles) (£1.8-2.5m) is among the largest and most vibrant of a number of still-lifes depicting bottles he made during 1952
• Painted in 1955, Barques dans le port (Boats in the Harbour) (£1.4-1.9m)
• Les Footballeurs (Parc des Princes) (1952)(£2.5-3.5m) which has been held in the same private collection for over 40 years.

Following Christie’s success in establishing a new world record price for Pierre Soulages in New York last November, the London sale will have:

• Peinture 162 x 130cm, 16 octobre 1966 (1966) (£1.5-2m)

In addition, the appetite for Gerhard Richter abstract paintings continues with collectors keenly pursuing smaller scale versions of the series:

• A.B. Tower (1987) (£3-5m)