Christie’s opened King Street after hours for Marr’s Guitars, built around the ninety-odd instruments Johnny Marr used to write and record across four decades, from the Smiths onward.
Christie’s opened Christie’s King Street in St James’s after hours on Friday 11 September 2026 for Lates. The evening was built around Marr’s Guitars: The Johnny Marr Collection, the Smiths guitarist’s single-owner sale.
Marr, born John Martin Maher in Manchester in 1963, formed the Smiths with Morrissey in 1982. His jangling guitar became as much the group’s signature as the singer’s voice, across four albums before the band split in 1987.
He went on to play in the Pretenders, The The, Electronic and Modest Mouse. Around 90 guitars and amplifiers from that career were offered, several of them heard again on his album The Age of Everything, released on 2 October 2026.
Lates is the house’s own form of private view: the saleroom hung with a sale about to be called, and live programming in place of wall text. The instruments were seen in the rooms where they would be sold.
The evening paired a screening of Marr in conversation with Martin Kelly with a panel on the making of the sale. In another room, visitors could try a Fender Johnny Marr Signature Jaguar, his own model.
The sale was called at King Street on 17 September.