Christie’s will use its October 20/21 Marquee Week in London to raise funds for Artists for Climate Action, a collaboration between Gallery Climate Coalition and environmental law charity ClientEarth. Artists Igshaan Adams and Patricia Leite have donated works that will be sold during Frieze Week, turning two high-profile auction lots into direct fundraising tools.
Adams’ work will appear in the 20th/21st Century London Evening Sale on October 14, while Leite’s will be offered in the Post-War and Contemporary Art Day Sale on October 15. The project follows earlier collaboration between Christie’s and the two climate organisations and places environmental philanthropy inside one of the art market’s busiest weeks.
Igshaan Adams donates a work built from textile and beadwork
Adams has donated The certainty of being a rose (ii), 2026, estimated at £60,000 to £80,000. The work combines beads, thread and textile elements in a form that sits between sculpture, drawing and weaving, continuing an approach shaped by the artist’s South African background and interest in identity.
For this piece, the rose becomes a way to think about natural beauty and fragility. Christie’s notes that the work also speaks to the climate crisis, giving the donation a conceptual connection to the organisations it will support rather than making it simply an unrelated object sold for charity.
Patricia Leite brings a nocturnal landscape to the day sale
Brazilian artist Patricia Leite has donated Brilhante, 2026, estimated at £20,000 to £30,000. Painted on wood, the work presents a deep blue night sky above a dark green mountain range with a single bright white moon.
Leite’s practice moves between figuration and abstraction and draws on memories of light, landscape and lived experience. Her donation gives the climate initiative a second artistic language, one concerned less with material construction than with the emotional memory of natural places.
Proceeds will be split between two different forms of climate work
Half of the relevant hammer proceeds will benefit ClientEarth and half will support Gallery Climate Coalition. ClientEarth uses legal action to challenge governments and major companies on environmental issues, while GCC focuses on accelerating practical environmental change across the visual arts sector.
The combination matters because it works at two scales. One organisation targets systemic legal change outside the art world, while the other concentrates on the sector’s own emissions, logistics, energy use, packing, travel and other operational impacts.
The art market is confronting its own environmental footprint
International art depends on shipping, climate-controlled buildings, fairs, private travel and temporary exhibitions, all of which create environmental costs. Gallery Climate Coalition has helped make those impacts more visible and has pushed galleries, museums and related businesses toward measurable reductions rather than vague sustainability claims.
Christie’s says its own work includes logistics, travel, energy use, waste, packing materials and supplier engagement. An auction fundraiser does not replace operational change, but it can direct meaningful capital toward organisations working on both sector-specific and broader environmental action.
Frieze Week gives the initiative a global collector audience
Both donated works will be displayed in Christie’s free public marquee-week exhibition from October 8. The timing means they will be seen by collectors, curators and art professionals already in London for Frieze and the wider October programme.
That visibility may be as important as the final prices. Artists for Climate Action is designed to use the cultural and economic influence of the art world as leverage, and placing the works inside major sales ensures the climate message reaches an audience already making decisions about collecting, institutions and philanthropy.
