Iranian art works, which went under the hammer at Christie’s Middle Eastern Modern & Contemporary Art, sold almost £1.4 million. Iran’s sell-through rate was 45 percent (29 out of 39 Iranian artworks were sold), and the sale overall brought in £3.1 million for 114 works, providing a record for the auction. Iran News reports. A […]
Iranian art works, which went under the hammer at Christie’s Middle Eastern Modern & Contemporary Art, sold almost £1.4 million.
Iran’s sell-through rate was 45 percent (29 out of 39 Iranian artworks were sold), and the sale overall brought in £3.1 million for 114 works, providing a record for the auction. Iran News reports.
A beautiful mirrored work mimicking wings (‘Untitled’) by the Iranian artist Monir Farmanfarmaian sold for £299,250, respectably within its estimate. Farmanfarmaian, who died in April, is currently the subject of a retrospective at the Sharjah Art Foundation; this work was the top lot of the auction.
Iranian artist Farhad Moshiri’s ‘Love’ (2003), a painting of a jar inscribed with the Farsi word for love, which carried a low estimate of £200,000, failed to sell.
Two calligraphic works by Iranian artist Mohammad Ehsai also did not move.
In the sale overall, most works hit the middle of their estimates – much as with the Sotheby’s 20th century Middle Eastern sale earlier in the week: On Tuesday night, the Najd Collection of Orientalist works fetched a total of £33.5m at a Sotheby’s auction.
In a show of fervor perhaps stoked by the protests in Lebanon, the excitement of the evening belonged to Ismail Shammout, a Palestinian artist who unflinchingly depicted the miseries of the Nakba in works with clear political and exhortatory tones. Christie’s sold five works by the artist, who in 2018 was the subject of a retrospective at the Sharjah Art Museum, including Iranian artworks.
His 1964 painting, ‘The Way’, a scene of Palestinians clutching rifles painted almost at close-up, tripled its low estimate to go for £150,000, an auction record for the artist. Three watercolors by the artist also surpassed their estimates, plus an oil of a family scene, ‘Encounter in the Prison Cell’ (1965).
Another haunting painting of Palestinians at gunpoint – by Egyptian modernist Samir Rafi, whose work was shown at Green Art Gallery in Dubai this year – also moved past its £30,000–£40,000 estimate to sell for £87,500, an auction record for Rafi.
- source : Iran Daily, Irannews
