• Pioneering American prints, a Hockney iPad work and Bonhams dedicated Banksy Online sale

The circus comes to town on 23 June with the complete portfolio of Marc Chagall's Le Cirque leading Bonhams' Prints and Multiples sale at New Bond Street, London. The work has an estimate of £100,000-150,000.

Chagall's fascination with the circus dated from his childhood in pre-revolutionary Vitebsk, where travelling acrobats and equestrians often came to entertain the crowds at the village fair. He was especially struck by the scene of a travelling troupe of a father and his young children, performing a handful of clumsy acrobatic stunts while the public walked by unimpressed. Chagall watched as the performers walked away unappreciated and empty-handed, and he feared that this could easily be the fate of anyone who wanted to pursue the life of an artist.

The idea for Le Cirque came from Chagall's dealer and publisher, Ambroise Vollard, a circus lover who had his own box at the Cirque d'hiver in Paris, to which he often invited Chagall and his wife Bella. After Vollard's sudden death in a car accident in 1939, Chagall, who had already started working on a suite of gouaches on this theme, abandoned the project. It was not until 1962, that the Greek-born publisher Tèriade convinced him to complete the work, with the book of lithographs and accompanying texts finally published in 1967.

Head of Sale, Laetitia Guillotin, commented: "Chagall's lithographs of Le Cirque are without doubt among his best achievements as a printmaker. The work's vibrant colours and fantasies on the circus theme, where characters are mixed with the Chagallian symbols of a goat, a cock, a pair of lovers ascending in the sky, and donkeys and horses, form the type of dreamlike compositions for which he is famous."

Other highlights of the sale include:

• David Hockney (born 1937), The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 (twenty eleven)- 5 May, iPad drawing in colours, 2011. Estimate: £40,000 - 60,000. Regarded as one of the most important and innovative British artists of the 20th century, David Hockney has often explored different ways to make art and has utilised new technologies, experimenting with his iPhone in 2007 before adopting the iPad and Stylus in 2010. A major exhibition of Hockney's iPad works David Hockney: The Arrival of Spring, Normandy, 2020 is currently on show at The Royal Academy of Arts, London until 26 September 2021.

• The sale will also feature a large selection of much-sought-after American Prints (lots 41-60) including Mick Jagger a 1975 screenprint by Andy Warhol (1928-1987), Estimate: £25,000 - 30,000, Titled, 1996, by Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997), Estimate: £15,000 - 20,000, Untitled, by Keith Haring (1958-1990) from The Fertility Suite series, 1983, Estimate: £25,000 - 35,000 and Bedroom Face #41, 1990, by Tom Wesselmann (1931-2004), Estimate: £7,000 - 10,000.

• Five works (lots 69-74) by William Kentridge (born 1955), including the lithograph, Middle-age Love, 2002. Estimate: £22,000 - 32,000. In March, Bonhams set a new world record for a drawing by Kentridge in the Post-War & Contemporary Art sale in London.

• Die Träumenden Knaben (The Dreaming Youths) by Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1990). The volume, which dates from 1908, comprises ten lithographs. This particular copy was gifted by the artist to the current owner's grandmother and is signed and dedicated – which is rare for this particular book. Estimate: £8,000 - 12,000.

• Nu assis à la chemise de tulle, a 1925 lithograph by Henri Matisse (1869-1954). Estimate: £25,000 - 35,000.

• Head of Bruce Bernard, a 1985 etching by Lucian Freud (1922-2011). Estimate: 12,000 - 18,000.

• Pumpkin 2000 (Yellow), a screenprint in colours, from 2000, by Yayoi Kusama (born 1929). Estimate: £12,000 - 18,000.

• Le Chapeau Épinglé, an extremely rare 1ère Planche drypoint, 1894-95, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841-1919). Estimate: £7,000 - 10,000.

Bonhams will also be hosting a special Banksy Online Sale, running from 21 - 29 June on bonhams.com. Dedicated exclusively to works by the artist, the sale will be led by Love is in the Air (estimate: £300,000 – 500,000).

16 June 2021