Collectors snap up pop art prints

The most expensive item was Hamilton's Hers is a Lush Situation which exceeded its estimated and fetched £10,810.

The total value of the whole sale was £140,000, with the audience full of a mixture of collectors and art fans.

Other highlights included Hamilton's Adonis in Y-fronts going for £6,110, a number of hotly-contested Rileys and Sir Peter's 26 print Alphabet series for £4,465.

Pop art is currently in vogue with a number of retrospectives drawing in a new generation of fans.

Sir Peter's recent knighthood in the Golden Jubilee honours and his controversial time curating the Royal Academy's prestigious summer exhibition thrust him back into the public eye.

His pioneering collages - with the cover of The Beatles Sgt Pepper's album one of his most recognisable works - are currently popular.

Riley is to be the subject of a major retrospective at Tate Britain next year and Hamilton renewed his fame recently with the release of his illustrations for James Joyce's Ulysses, more than half a century after they were begun.

It was a collage by Hamilton that first prompted the use of the term "pop art" in Britain.

Entitled Just What is it That Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing?, the work included a figure holding a lollipop on which the "pop" was written.

Huge revival

Blake is credited with using recognisable brands in his work before Andy Warhol's infamous Campbell's chicken soup cans.

Christie's head of 20th Century prints Murray Macaulay said it was a good time to buy pop art prints.

"In the last five years there has been a huge revival in British pop prints," he said.

"Prints have a very broad appeal. Most ordinary people can't afford to spend huge amounts on original works.

"A lot of young people buy prints because they look good and they are affordable."