LONDON.- Sotheby’s sale of 20th Century Art – A Different Perspective in London on 2 December 2015 spotlights modern art from across Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, Iran and Turkey. This year’s edition features a group of outstanding artists from the Middle East – the innovators and influencers of their respective countries – stretching from the 1950s until the early 1980s. Highlights include Arab, Iranian and Turkish abstract art by artists who were pioneers in their respective field.

Tessa Kostrzewa, Sotheby’s Head of Auction Sales, 20th Century Art, said: “Bringing these artists to the fore gives a fresh perspective on the development of 20th-century art. Today’s collectors are increasingly interested in artists who were previously on the fringes of the international art scene, but are now receiving acclaim. For some, it represents their first time on the international stage.”

Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s Arab and Iranian Art Specialist, said: “We’ve focussed on different areas and eras of modernism within the Middle East, Iran and Turkey, and, in particular, on abstract art. It’s instructive to see how works by these artists relate aesthetically to the wider international art scene. Compared to others, this is a relatively young market, so it’s very vibrant, and there’s a real thirst from collectors to discover more about these artists.”

Fahrelnissa Zeid, Untitled, oil on canvas. Estimate £35,000-45,000
Ensconced in the Paris art world and one of the first women to exhibit at the ICA in London, Fahrelnissa Zeid was inspired by the melting pot of styles that constituted the École de Paris in the first half of the 20th century. Artists from across the world congregated here, bringing with them a wealth of fashions, tastes and techniques that constituted a new movement without a specific identity. Taking influence from the Fauves and the Cubists, Zeid’s paintings exhibit an overwhelming sense of life and movement. Painted in the 1950s, this untitled oil is an outstanding example of the artist's work dating from the period when Zeid was replacing her geometric calligraphic lines and bright colours with more expressive brushstrokes in darker pastel tones. The intensity and the expressiveness of the brushstrokes are simultaneously spontaneous and deliberately enhanced with the scraping and scribbling of the paint by a knife or a spatula, which brings immense depth to the composition. This practice of painting was inherent to Zeid’s strong belief in constantly unlearning and renewing oneself.

Behjat Sadr, Untitled, oil and silver paint on paper laid down on cardboard
Estimate £38,000-45,000
Behjat Sadr is known for her signature style of working with a palette knife on canvas in the manner of Gerhard Richter. Sadr continually searched for new and innovative techniques; mixing oil painting with photographs, figures with abstractions, working in a variety of media from canvas and oil to wood, metals and other materials. Through blurring the lines of the mediums she used and her knowledge of Persian writing and calligraphy, Sadr created fluid, graphic works in which she was 'capturing moments' and using them as a means of couching emotion within gestural snapshots, moving, in her words from 'interior to exterior'. Sadr moved to Paris in 1979 following the Islamic Revolution and was consistently supported by galleries in her adopted France from the 1980s onward. With a career spanning more than 50 years, she is one of only a handful of women artists to have received international accolades for their work. Her powerful, unusually constructed abstract paintings have been selected for the Venice Biennale and for gallery and museum exhibitions in Brazil, Canada, France, Iran, Italy, and the U.S and were most recently part of the ground-breaking show Iran Unedited History; 1960-2014 at the Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris.

Sohrab Sepehri, Untitled, oil on canvas. Estimate £50,000-70,000
Sohrab Sepehri is not only a celebrated poet, but is also undoubtedly a key figure in modern Iranian art who inspired a generation of artists after him. His compositions were greatly influenced by Western painting, Japanese poetry as well as Buddhism, Taoism and Zen philosophy. In 1965 he began his famous Tree-Trunk series, in which the forms of the trunks and branches are painted in washes of flat colour. This untitled example, painted circa 1974, was purchased directly from the artist by the grandmother of the current owner. Sepehri’s distinctive abstract works rarely appear on the market, with the majority housed in public institutions, including the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, The Fine Arts Museum at the Saad Abad Complex and the Niavaran Cultural Center.

Mubin Orhon, Untitled, oil on canvas. Estimate £60,000-80,000
Coming to auction from the collection of the artist’s daughter, Untitled was painted at the height of Mubin’s career in the 1970s. After the vivacious, dynamic and complex compositions of the 1960s, he developed a more tranquil and monochromatic style, infused with the serenity of the East. This untitled work is from this second stage of his life in Paris where he endeavoured to explore individual colours and tones. The depth achieved through intertwined chromatic forms became hallmarks of Orhon’s aesthetic. With so many works from this period produced on paper, and it is rare for such large monochromatic works on canvas to appear on the market.

Paul Guiragossian, Traditional Lebanese Supper, oil on canvas. Estimate £60,000-80,000
Guiragossian was one of the leading pioneering artists of modern Lebanese art. Painted circa 1969-70, Traditional Lebanese Supper is an exquisite work from the artist’s rarest and most sought-after period. From the late 1960s to the early 1970s, the artist began to move from a figurative approach to a more abstract style. Traditional Lebanese Supper is a perfect example of the artist’s early pivotal shift from figurative art to abstraction. This work is painted in the warm colours of the Levant and was produced at a time when Lebanon was experiencing its Golden Era of cultural, social and political growth. The painting remains traditional in its subject matter. Composed, soothing and silent, the vibrant yellow hues transport the viewer into a typical Lebanese countryside market street.

Bahman Mohassess, Untitled, oil on canvas. Estimate £45,000-55,000
Bahman Mohassess was a pioneering Iranian artist, whose work has received global recognition, appearing in exhibitions at the Tate, British Museum, and most recently at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Despite the acclaim he receives today, he was a troubled and misunderstood artist who destroyed large numbers of his own paintings, making his work all the rarer. Mohassess’s inspiration was wide ranging; both an artist and a poet, he admired Picasso, Henry Moore and Alberto Giacometti, interpreting them through the muscularity of forms seen in his works. Untitled is a captivating and enigmatic depiction of a daunting Hitchcockesque bird.

Mahmoud Mokhtar, On the Banks of the Nile (Nahw Ma’a ElNil), bronze. Estimate £30,000-40,000
Mahmoud Mokhtar was singular in visualising the struggle for political independence and the emancipation of women in Egypt during the first decades of the 20th century. The elegance and determined posture of the water carrier, stylised according to the aesthetic of the great sculptures of Ancient Egypt and Parisian Art Deco, are characteristic of his art. Nahw Ma’a ElNil (On the banks of the Nile), appearing at auction for the first time, depicts a Egyptian fellaha (peasant woman) collecting water, a repeated theme in Mokhtar’s oeuvre.