You gotta roll with it… at Sotheby’s in London later this month, when a painting of the Gallagher brothers—Liam and Noel of Oasis—by the artist Elizabeth Peyton goes to the block with an estimate of £1.5m to £2m.
The work, Liam+Noel (Gallagher), 1996, is based on a promotional image by the late Belgian photographer Stefan De Batselier. It features the two doe-eyed brothers with Beatles haircuts, posed in oversized tracksuits. “Liam’s chin rests gently on Noel’s shoulder, a pose of physical proximity and emotional ambiguity that destabilises their hard-edged public personas,” says the Sotheby’s catalogue entry.
Peyton’s pretty work was made when Oasis ruled the world, breaking records and riding the 1990s Cool Britannia wave with a series of concerts at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire. In a neat pop history twist, the work goes up for auction in London ahead of a series of sell-out Oasis reunion shows in the UK and Ireland this summer.
“It feels like this is just the most perfect moment for this painting to come up again. It has come full circle,” Antonia Gardner, a specialist at Sotheby’s, told The Guardian.Sounds like the work is set to be a popular lot—bidders, move fast, or risk looking back in anger.