WORKS by celebrated American pop art artist Roy Lichtenstein and English artist Damien Hurst had a close encounter of a multi-coloured kind before an auction in London.

The New Yorker’s print Two Paintings with Dado from 1983, foreground, could fetch up to £3 million, while the British artist’s 1-Heptene is estimated to reach up to £700,000 at Sotheby’s Lichtenstein often aped his idol, Picasso, claiming shortly before his death in 1997: “I don’t think that I’m over his influence.”

A self-portrait by his contemporary, Andy Warhol, is also to be auctioned off, and could fetch up to £4m.

Other works to be sold include those by Jean-Michel Basquiat, US artist Tom Wesselmann - whose striking Great American Nude could fetch £2m – and two works by Dresden-born Gerhard Ritcher. Another Hurst could reach £900,000 at Wednesday’s sale.