Antony Gormley’s A Case for an Angel I (1989) is expected to make £5m-8m ($6.6m-10.5m) in an October 7 evening sale of post-war and contemporary art in London.
The piece is an enormous angelic figure constructed from lead, plastic and fibreglass. It measures around 28 feet across.
A Case for an Angel I (1989) was a precursor to the Angel of the North (1998)
The work is an early variant of the Angel of the North (1998), Gormley’s 65-foot memorial to northern Britain’s industrial heritage.
It’s cast from his body and is designed to stand in the centre of a gallery, arresting the progress of people moving through it and forcing them to duck under its wings.
Gormley explains: “The inherent cruciform in the angel exists already within the body, in the relationship between sexuality and consciousness or the brain and the genitals and the ability of the arms to reach out to embrace the wider world.
“The cross was in the body long before any body was nailed to one.”
If it hits its low estimate, it's set to become the most valuable piece of Gormley’s work sold at auction.
His record is £3.4m ($4.4m), set for a miniature version of the Angel of the North in 2011.
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