LS Lowry's 1960 painting Piccadilly Circus, London has topped the sale of the AJ Thompson collection at Sotheby's London.
It sold within estimate for £5.1m ($8.4m) on March 25,
 Lowry produced Piccadilly Circus, London in 1960 |
The work is one of only two paintings Lowry produced of the capital; the other, which also depicts Piccadilly Circus, made £5.6m ($9.8m) at Christie's in 2011 - a record for the artist
AJ Thompson was a self made millionaire who only collected Lowry works.
Over time he amassed the finest private collection of the artist's work, which he kept at his home in Suffolk - occasionally lending them to the Lowry Museum in Manchester.
Frances Christie, Sotheby's head of modern and post-war British art, commented prior to the sale: "Thompson was a collector who truly understood Lowry's vision and he had a real instinct to hone in on the very best examples of the artist's work.
"As such there is a remarkable consistency of quality throughout the collection, which encompasses the very broad range of themes and subjects that Lowry explored so deftly."
He went on to describe Lowry as "a fantastically accomplished artist who turned his remarkable skills of observation and representation to creating some of the most complex and visually compelling images of modern life painted in the 20th Century."
The entire auction realised £15.2m ($25.1m).
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