Bonhams, the international fine art auction house established in the UK since 1793, will be holding its second Middle East sale on Modern and Contemporary Arab, Iranian, Indian and Pakistani Art at the One & Only Royal Mirage Hotel, Dubai on Monday,  November 24, 2008.

This is Bonhams' second Middle East auction, and the company is hoping to repeat the winning formula of its inaugural sale held in March 2008 which broke three world records and achieved total sales of over $13 million.

A private VIP preview of the sale being held on Thursday, November 20 is sponsored by Dresdner Bank (DIFC) Limited.

Previews open to the public will be held on Friday, November 21 (2 to 10pm); Saturday, November 22 (2 to 10pm); and Sunday, November 23 (2 to 8pm) at the One & Only Royal Mirage Hotel.
 
Bonhams' November auction will feature works by Farhad Moshiri, Parviz Tanavoli, Charles Hossein Zenderoudi, Mohammad Ehsai, Abdul Qadir Al-Rais, Francis Newton Souza, and Anish Kapoor, Paul Guiragossian, Ali Omar Ermes and Issam El-Said.
 
The sale will include paintings, ink and charcoal drawings, photographs, collages and art installations, demonstrating the variety and richness of modern and contemporary art in the UAE, Iran, India and Pakistan.

'Bonhams' second auction of Modern and Contemporary Arab, Iranian, Indian and Pakistani Art is a clear commitment to this art genre and to the Middle East and an indication that prices remain strong for the best works by leading artists.

'We have a well-established reputation for sales of modern and contemporary art in London, and we are expecting an encouraging and positive response from this second auction in Dubai,' said Mehreen Rizvi-Khursheed, Head of Bonhams' Modern and Contemporary South Asian and Middle Eastern Art Department.

Respected Emirati artist, Abdul Qadir Al-Rais  will be represented in the auction with an oil on canvas entitled 'The Palm Mother' with an estimated value of $100,000 – $150,000.

Co-founder of the Saqqakhaneh movement in the 1960's and one of Iran's leading modernists, Charles Hossein Zenderoudi is internationally renowned having exhibited widely all over the world over the past 50 years.

Five of Zenderoudi's works will be offered in the November auction.

'Zenderoudi's paintings explore religious folk art and calligraphy in his rhythmic and poetic compositions of letters.

'His work had a significant influence on many contemporaries and subsequently on younger generations of artists,' explained Rizvi-Khursheed.

'Still Life with Fish,' with an estimated value of $200,000 – 240,000, by Indian artist Francis Newton Souza will be another auction highlight. Souza was born in 1924 in the Portuguese colony of Goa.

He left India for London in 1949 and at first struggled to make a living there until around 1954, when a piece of writing was published in the literary magazine Encounter, after which his work was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

From then on he was represented by Victor Musgrave’s Gallery One and held a number of solo exhibitions until his departure for New York in 1967. Souza exhibited widely in both the United Kingdom and the USA until his death in 2002.

'We've noticed a worldwide trend in emerging markets with first-time collectors wishing to purchase contemporary art from their own indigenous regions,' said Rizvi-Khursheed.

'The UAE is definitely destined to become one of the world’s leading art markets, which is why we’re here. The past auction witnessed the first Middle East artist to achieve an auction sale of over $1 million with Iranian Farhad Moshiri’s stunning Swarovski crystals and glitter on canvas 'Eshgh' (Love) - a sale which also wrote Moshiri into record books as the highest achieving Iranian artist at auction.

'This phenomenon adds special impetus to the realm of contemporary and modern art,' said Matthew Girling, Bonhams’ European & Middle East Chief Executive.

The opening of Bonhams Dubai is a significant step in the company’s rapid global expansion.

Bonhams is today one of the world’s largest and fastest growing auction houses. With worldwide gross sales of nearly $600 million in 2007, Bonhams is one of the three major players in the global fine art auction market.

Bonhams has three Dubai auctions planned for 2009. A joint venture with the locally-based Al Tajir family, Bonhams Dubai opened its first Middle East office in Jumeirah last year. - TradeArabia News Service