Christie's wants $20m from Dubai sales

Auction house Christie’s hopes the success of recent sales in the UAE will help it realise $20.3 million (Dh74.5m) in revenue.

This October’s Dubai sales will see museum-quality works from the Dr Mohammed Farsi Collection, a dazzling collection of 40 parures or jewellery suites, to be sold without reserve, and 42 collectors’ watches.

Christie’s will auction International Modern and Contemporary Art at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel on October 26, while the watches and jewels go under the hammer the next day. Viewing is now open to the public at the hotel.

The auctioneer’s April sales brought in $23.7m, well over projections of $15m, it said in a statement. This was an increase of 113 per cent on the previous series of sales last October. The house saw a similar success in London this month, realising $61m in a sale of Post-War and Contemporary Art, compared to $17m raised for the same category in October 2009. 

The highlight of the April sale was Egyptian artist Mahmoud Said’s Les Chadoufs from1934, which set a record for a modern painting by any Middle Eastern artist, when it sold for $2.4m or Dh8.9m.

The house put its market share at 73 per cent.

Christie’s realised sales of $3.3 billion in 2009 and $2.57bn in the first half of 2010.

'Richest sale yet'

Highlights of the upcoming sale are a selection of works by Iranian, Egyptian and Lebanese artists.

“I believe this is one of Christie’s richest sale yet in terms of its diversity and rarity,” said Michael Jeha, Managing Director of Christie’s Dubai.

Dr Farsi’s private collection is recognized as the most comprehensive group of modern Egyptian art in private hands. The group of 30 works to be offered at Christie’s in Dubai includes paintings representing many of Egypt’s most famous 20th century artists such as Mahmoud Said, Ragheb Ayad, Abul Hadi El-Gazzar, Hamed Nada, Seif and Adham Wanly, and Adam Henein, for which new world auction records have been established earlier this year in Dubai.

Aside from the private collection mentioned above, the highlight of the Iranian lots is a large oil on canvas triptych by the leading Iranian artist Mohammed Ehsai. Entitled Banquet and painted in 2009, the monochrome black and white design reflects his fascination with calligraphy and is estimated at $350,000-500,000.

Farhad Moshiri’s Love, a rare example from early in his Jars series, shows a jar inscribed with Eshgh the Arabic word for Love. By folding and crushing the canvas Moshiri mimicks the cracquelure effect of traditional earthenware pots ($150,000-250,000). Moshiri’s Mobile Talker, from his Candy Store series and painted in 2007 shows a fashionable young woman in a headscarf holding her ‘phone, the outline of her face, features and hands traced in blobs of glitter all superimposed onto a multi-tiered cake. This saccharine, artificial image plays to Moshiri’s interest in the new media-savvy generation of young Iranians, his love of Pop Art and issues of consumerism ($120,000-180,000).

Untitled, one of only ten or twelve abstract works by Sohrab Sepehri, painted in 1970 with primary coloured lines and shapes set against a dark background carries an estimate of $200,000-300,000. It was exhibited last year in a retrospective of the artist’s work at the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. An unnerving oil on canvas by Afshin Pirhashemi, Seduction, painted this year, shows six women dressed in black robes advancing towards the viewer holding swords and pistols while applying bright red lipstick. Exploring the complexities of life in today’s Iran, it is estimated at $80,000-120,000. Kambiz Sabri’s Red Dive from 2008 is a red Toshiba television with a collection of red plastic toys attached, estimate $7,000- 10,000.

Others Iranian artists represented in sale include Reza Aramesh, Farzan Sadjadi, Alireza Fani, and Shahriar Ahmadi.

Of the Lebanese artists, Chafic Abboud is represented by three works from the studio of the artist which include an oil on canvas painted in 1992, Premiers Gestes ($70,000-100,000) and an untitled work ($60,000-80,000). Six works are also offered in the sale the proceeds of which are to benefit the forthcoming Shafic Abboud Retrospective at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris, in 2011. With a combined estimate of $130,000, the six works include three by Abboud and one by fellow Lebanese artist Hussein Madi.

Two works by Paul Guiragossian dominate this section of the sale; La Foule, 1987, exhibited earlier this year in Beirut, is reminiscent of the warm exotic tones used by Fauve artists and shows a feize-like group of women standing in line facing the viewer and reflecting Guiragossian’s preoccupation with women and motherhood, ($100,000-130,000) His Claire Obscure also painted in 1987 but with fewer figures and painted in thick strokes and larger blocks of colour is rare to find among the artist’s work and is a technique reserved for his most monumental compositions. Nothing similar has been sold at auction before and it is estimated at $100,000-130,000.

The highlight of the Turkish Art is Fahrelnissa Zeid’s exuberant Dervishes, painted circa 1950s. As a young aristocratic woman, Zeid, lived in Paris joining the so-called Ecole de Paris group of artists in the 1940s. She later married into the Jordanian Royal Family. The whirling dance depicted here is a Sufi tradition where the goal is to reach Majbhd, a sacred ecstasy. The dervishes wear their traditional white whirling skirts and distinctive tall hats and the work is estimated at $80,000-100,000.

A panoramic view of Istanbul by Devrim Erbil inspired by the jewel-like illustrations of the city by the 16th century Turkish artist Matrakci Nasuh, is estimated at $70,000-90,000.

In the Syrian section, eight works by Fateh Moudarres include an untitled work from circa 1970 ($140,000-180,000). The striped painting is reminiscent of the walls of the Mamluk buildings in Damascus with its alternate strips of black and paler stone merged onto the bodies of the figures in the crowd. It also features Moudarres’ childhood nightmare figure of a ravenous dog which he referred to as ‘The Beast’ and used in his paintings after the war of 1967.

Another highlight is a view of Maaloula by Louay Kayyali, depicting a tiny village to the northeast of Damascus, built into the rugged hillside at high altitude. Maaloula from the Arabic word meaning ‘entrance’ is the only place where the western dialect of Aramaic, the language of Christ, is still spoken.

All students of Fine Art at Damascus University, where Fateh Moudaress and Louay Kayyali both taught, are required to paint in Maaloula and therefore it is unsurprising that both artists used the village as a subject for many of their paintings. The example in the sale is a rare and spectacular version from the 1960s and is estimated at $50,000-70,000. Kayyali’s Ice Cream Seller, painted in 1972, is also included in the sale with an estimate of $90,000-120,000.

There are also eight works by Syrian artists from an Italian private collection.
 

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