WORK by Devon artist Robert  Lenkiewicz is set to go under the  hammer at an Exeter auction  house this weekend.

 Bearnes Hampton and Littlewood Auctioneers in Okehampton Street are selling a private  collection of paintings, watercolours and drawings by the  late Plymouth artist, who died  in 2002.

There will be 89 lots, from  large individual paintings to  collections of drawings and watercolours, spanning Lenkiewicz’s career, from the late  1950s until his death.

Art lovers can view the collection from 9am this morning ahead of the auction at 11am on  Saturday.

A display of the collection  held in Cork Street in London  attracted widespread interest.

There is a broad range of  guide prices, with the top estimate between £100,000 to  £150,000 for a painting from the  artist’s  Vagrancy Project.

Bearnes director Daniel Goddard said: “It is a very impressive work — a painting in the  shape of a cross, which features  three vagrants.

“The collection has been on  view in Cork Street, which is  probably the most important  street for contemporary art in  London. It was very well received.

 “A lot of people in London  knew about Lenkiewicz and a  lot of people from the Westcountry came to view it.”

Mr Goddard said thousands  of people came to the last sale of  his work in 2008 and a seven  figure sum was made — just  about everything sold.

 He said: “Based on that, we  expect to be busy. It’s one of the  very few large private collections of Lenkiewicz pictures  that’s going to come on the market, so it’s a rare opportunity.”

The sale follows on from the  nine-hour event at Westpoint  near Exeter in 2008, when paintings by Lenkiewicz sold for  £2.1m.

As reported in the Echo, some  3,000 people passed through the  doors of the venue to bid for the  532 lots and see Lenkiewicz’s  paintings, drawings, art materials, memorabilia and effects.

The piece that fetched the  highest bid was an 11m canvas,  The Temptation of St Anthony,  which went for £170,000 to a  private collector.

Lenkiewicz 2008 was billed as  the final major auction and exhibition of items from the artist,  who died at the age of 60.

Born in London to German  Jews, who fled to England before the Second World War, Lenkiewicz began to paint at an  early age, encouraged by his  mother, Alice.

He moved to Plymouth in the  1960s and his first exhibition,  Vagrancy, was at Jacob’s Ladder in the city in 1973.

 From then on, the idea of  making work for specific ‘projects’ took shape. Others included Observations on Local  Education and The Painter  With Women.

From the 1990s, Lenkiewicz’s  work enjoyed growing commercial success and some recognition by the establishment. He  received a major retrospective  in 1997 at Plymouth City Museum.

 In 2000, he received a doctorate from Plymouth University.

When he died, he left work in  progress at seven different studios in and around the Barbican  in Plymouth— the existence of  some of which he had kept a  secret from all but a few.