Barbara Hepworth’s Winged Figure has gazed down on Oxford Street shoppers for more than half a century.
Now one collector will be able to take home a smaller version when the sculptor’s prototype of the six-metre-high work goes under the hammer at Sotheby’s.
The model of the Grade II listed sculpture on the east wall of the John Lewis building is expected to fetch £100,000. Robin Cawdron-Stewart, who specialises in postwar British art at the auction house, said the 26.5cm model offered a “unique perspective” on one of the country’s most viewed pieces of public art.
The main sculpture was unveiled in 1963. Hepworth beat five other artists including Ralph Brown and William Mitchell to create the work, with which she was asked to express “the idea of common ownership and common interests”.
The model is up for sale on November 21.
