Happenings RA: Artists Supporting Artists at Sotheby’s
This March, Sotheby’s London presents Artists Supporting Artists, a dedicated collaboration with the Royal Academy of Arts that places artistic generosity front and centre. Offered directly by Royal Academicians and Honorary Royal Academicians, the works will be sold as part of Sotheby’s flagship Modern and Contemporary day and evening auctions, with proceeds supporting the RA’s internationally recognised exhibitions; historically significant collection, library and archives and its free three-year postgraduate programme at the RA Schools.
Founded in 1768 as an artist-led institution, the Royal Academy remains independent, privately funded and governed by artists themselves. Generations have passed through its Schools from J. M. W. Turner to Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, all benefitting from tuition that has long been free at the point of access. This initiative reaffirms the RA’s founding conviction, that artistic excellence is sustained through education, dialogue and collective endeavour.
This selection reflects the breadth and international reach of the Academy’s community. Highlights include El Anatsui’s monumental G6 (2023), a shimmering expanse of stitched aluminium fragments that oscillates between abstraction and figuration, Sean Scully’s Tappan Deep Brown Blue (2025), a mature work from his celebrated Wall of Light series, and William Kentridge’s You Whom I could not save, listen to me (2023), where drawing, memory and history intersect.
Sculptural innovation comes to the fore in Tony Cragg’s undulating Near Relatives (2022), while expressive figuration is distilled in Georg Baselitz’s visceral red-ink composition. Elsewhere, Grayson Perry’s The American Dream (2020) maps the emotional circuitry of contemporary culture, joined by works from Wolfgang Tillmans, Anish Kapoor, Mimmo Paladino and Jeff Koons.
Together, the presentation spans luminous abstraction, conceptual photography, expressive figuration and groundbreaking sculpture, underscoring the UK’s continued position as a global centre for artistic exchange and the magnitude of the RA’s global artistic community.
Much more than a simple market moment, Artists Supporting Artists is a collective gesture reminding everyone that the Royal Academy is sustained not only by history but by an active, international community committed to ensuring artistic excellence and creativity flourishes for generations to come.
RA: Artists Supporting Artists free to view as part of Sotheby’s The London Sales exhibition until 4 March, ahead of their auction on 4 and 5 March.
The London Sales
Sotheby’s
34–35 New Bond Street
London
W1A 2AA
