Egyptian art hottest in Islamic week
This week is Islamic art sales week in London – always a ravishing display of art and artefacts from the Middle East.
Kicking off early, last
week Bonhams staged a sale of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art, which celebrated the 110th anniversary of the founding of the Cairo Faculty of Fine Arts. Here, students were taught European methods of figure, landscape and still-life painting using oils, pastel and watercolours, and clay for modelling sculpture by European artists.
It was, says Dr Youssef Kamel, “a point of awakening” for Egyptian art. It was the Egyptian art in the sale that most awakened the interest of bidders, claiming nine of the top 10 lots, including three record prices.
Perhaps the most extraordinary of these was a 1943 painting, Surrealist Woman, by Fouad Kamel, an artist associated with the international Art and Liberty movement, which protested against Fascism. Estimated at £20,000, the painting triggered the sale’s longest bidding battle before selling to Dubai’s Meem Gallery for £218,750.
Overall, though, the sale felt flat, with more than half the lots from Iraq, Iran and Syria going unsold. A more complete picture of this market should emerge after Sotheby’s comparable sale today.