Modern art leads the way in London’s Islamic art sales; a ringside report

It may have been half-term last week, but there was no break for London’s auction rooms as they embarked on their regular Islamic arts sales. Sotheby’s added flavour to the usual mix of works of art, manuscripts, miniatures and rugs, with the collection of the late Howard Hodgkin, the much admired British painter whose passion for decorative antique Indian and Middle Eastern art artefacts determined the timing of his sale. But it was his modern British and Indian paintings that stole the thunder.

A 1972 painting by Bhupen Khakhar, whom Hodgkin looked after when he first came to Britain and was honoured with a major retrospective at Tate Modern last year, quadrupled estimates to sell for a record ￡1.1 million, more than double the artist’s previous record. The anonymous telephone buyer, said dealers, was Mrs Kiran Nadar who has a private museum in Delhi. This was followed by the second highest price ever paid for a painting by another close friend, Patrick Caulfield, when Islamic arts dealer, Simon Ray, bought his deep shades-of-blue still life, Sweet Bowl, for ￡524,750.

Ray, who was thought to be buying for Turkish art collector Omer Koc, was also active buying Indian miniatures and Hodgkin prints which were in high demand. For Hodgkin’s ‘Frost’, which resembled a half-wiped, snow-sparkled blue windscreen, he had to pay a six times estimate ￡32,500. But it was a mixed sale for Hodgkin’s own paintings of which there were just two early examples, neither of which attracted any bidding. However, after Sotheby’s had tracked down a buyer, one was reoffered at the end of the auction and finally did sell. His paint brushes fared better; standing in a tin can on a plinth in front of the auctioneer like Jasper Johns’ well-known ‘Painted Bronze’ sculpture of his paint brushes, they trounced the ￡500 estimate selling for over ￡4,000.

The regular Islamic works of art sales seemed sluggish in comparison with half the lots going unsold at Sotheby’s, Bonhams and Christie’s - a reflection perhaps of the political and economic turmoil in the region, and the uncertainty that has permeated the market since ISIS began its process of cultural destruction.

The modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art with its younger, more internationalised collectors seemed more stable with lower unsold rates, but was not without its problems. Two of Sotheby’s top lots were unsold, one perhaps because it was listed as a fake until last year.

On the plus side, the sale was boosted by Dubai’s Meem gallery that spent over half a million pounds, or 25% of the sale’s value, on three paintings by the Iranian artists, Sohrab Sepehri and Bahman Mohasses on behalf of a London-based collector of Middle Eastern art, and a Middle Eastern Institute that paid a record ￡62,500 for a painting by the Egyptian based artist, Antoine Mayo, who is to be one of the stars of Tate Liverpool’s forthcoming exhibition on Egyptian surrealism.

Christie’s had the stronger sale and benefitted from the presence of London based, Palestinian born collector Ramzi Dalloul. A colourful character who, in the past has been associated with dealing arms for Saddam Hussein, Dalloul engaged in some banter with the auctioneer as he bought five of the first 17 lots and then forced the bidding to record levels on the top three lots before bowing out. Now in his eighties, Dalloul is building a cultural legacy to be remembered by.

In the last six years he has bought some 4,000 modern and contemporary Arab works of art for which he plans to open a museum in Beirut in 2020. In an open discussion with Gulf collector, Sultan Sooud al-Qassemi at the Whitechapel Art Gallery last year, he described how he had a vision to promote pan Arab culture as a tool for peace and unity.

At Christie’s, Dalloul paid a double estimate ￡175,000 for a seductive looking ‘Girl with Green Eyes’ by Egyptian Mahmoud Said, and a record ￡248,750 for a dark nude, ‘Le Passion Sauvage’, by the Egyptian surrealist, Ramses Younan. When a telephone bidder outgunned him to pay a record ￡668,500 for a classic modernist 1950s painting, ‘The Watermelon Seller’ by Iraqi artist, Jewad Selim, he demanded to know who was outbidding him, but the auctioneer declined, offering to introduce him to the young lady taking the telephone bids instead.

For the next lot, a 1960 painting of a grieving family by Iraqi artist, Mahmoud Sabri, he tried to shake off the same challenger by bidding in extra-large increments, but to no avail as it sold to his adversary for ￡668,750 - another record by a long way.  After the sale it emerged that Dalloul had been up against the deep pocketed Qatar Museums Authority.

The market for modern Middle Eastern art has come a long way in the last ten years, but the ￡7.3 million raised by these two sales underlines that it has not expanded significantly recently. To do that, it has to reach a more international audience, a process that is already underway.

In the UK we have had the very instructive series of exhibitions at the Whitechapel gallery of work from the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah. Currently there is the Turkish artist, Fahrelnissa Zeid’s retrospective exhibition at Tate Modern, and at Tate Liverpool, following a show for Iraqi artist, Dia Azzawi, Egyptian surrealism is on the horizon. Christie’s decision to move its October sale from Dubai to London for the first time last week is also indicative how a key player is hoping to broaden participation in this market, attracting bids from 23 different countries.