Christie's Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art Sale Highlights on View in London

Highlights from Christie’s forthcoming Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art auctions are soon to be on show at the company’s London headquarters from 19 October – 2 November 2022, underscoring the global visibility and platform that Christie’s has been delivering for artists from the Arab world and Iran for the last two decades.

To make the works as accessible as possible to an international audience, Christie’s is holding an online sale of Contemporary Middle Eastern Art from 12 October to 3 November as well as a live auction for Modern Middle Eastern Art on 2 November in London, supported by in-person exhibitions and programming.

Both emerging and established collectors will find a diversity of pieces to appreciate in the online sale, which includes three works by Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, from a chrome plated brass and granite sculpture, Heroes: The Rise and Fall, estimate £8,000-12,000 to Egyptology 2 (in search of the pharaohs), a work executed in plexiglass and acrylic paint on canvas, estimate £5,000-7,000, and Paysages Tremblants-Mekkah, in archival ink stamp on lithograph, estimate £5,000-7,000.  A further nod to Egypt’s rich cultural landscape can be found in Chant Avedissian’s Icons of the Nile 1, estimate £30,000-40,000.

A series of paintings from the 1970s and offered by Christie’s showcase the breadth of work found across the Arab world during that decade, including Iraqi artist Hafidh Al Droubi’s The Couple, estimate £30,000-40,000; Syrian master Marwan’s Untitled (Still Life), estimate £30,000-40,000, and Lebanese painter Helen Khal’s Still Life, estimate £12,000-18,000.

“For almost twenty years, Christie’s has been championing the work of Arab and Iranian artists, consistently curating the best of the region in our annual auctions to find new collectors around the world,” said Meagan Kelly Horsman, Managing Director, Christie’s Middle East.  “Exhibiting these works in our London headquarters while we offer them in a hybrid online and live auction format further demonstrates our commitment to the Middle East region as a key hub for Christie’s.”

Two works by Egyptian master Mahmoud Saïd are highlights of the live sale at Christie’s on 2 November – a 1948  seascape entitled Les falaises - la baie à Marsa Matrouh (esquisse) which the artist gifted to his niece Queen Farida in the late 1940s, estimate £70,000-100,000, and the 1919 work Le Nil à Louxor (Chadouf), estimate £50,000-70,000.

Growing demand for work by African artists is demonstrated by the inclusion of works by three Sudanese painters -- Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq’s Untitled, estimate £100,000-150,000, alongside Omer Khairy’s Khartoum Zoo, estimate £12,000-16,000; and Hussein Shariffe’s Untitled, estimate £8,000-12,000.

“These sales bring together more than a century of cultural development from the Arab and Iranian worlds, with a Mahmoud Saïd painting of Egypt’s landscape 1919 in conversation with a Farhad Moshiri work depicting a first snow of the season, executed in 2018,” continued Christie’s regional MD.  “The region’s progression has never been more exciting to both Christie’s and our growing base of collectors.”

 

Viewing at Christie’s King Street, London

19-21 October, 9.00am-5.00pm

22-23 October, 12.00pm-5.00pm

24-26 October, 9.00am-5.00pm

27 October, 9.00am-8.00pm

28 October, 9.00am-5.00pm

29 -30 October, 12.00pm-5.00pm

31 October - 1 November, 9.00am-5.00pm

2 November, 9.00am-3.00pm

 

Modern And Contemporary Middle Eastern Art, Part I

Wednesday 2 November 2022 at 6.00 pm

8 King Street, St. James’s

 

Modern And Contemporary Middle Eastern Art, Part II

Online, 12 October - 3 November 2022