Turkish Female Artist Fahr El-Nissa Zeid’s Painting Sells for €152,800, Three Times the Estimate

Ouattara Watts (Ivory Coast, born 1957), Pythagor and Thot, acrylic pigment on canvas and on panel, with collage of wooden boat. Sold for €66,440. — Fahr El-Nissa Zeid, Lever De Soleil, 1961

BY ALBERT CHEN

At Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr’s Modern & Contemporary African and Middle Eastern Art sale in Paris on September 26, 2024, a striking abstract work by renowned Turkish artist Fahr El-Nissa Zeid sold for €152,800—more than three times its original estimate. The 1961 piece, Lever De Soleil, Ischia, was expected to fetch between €50,000 and €80,000 but surpassed expectations at an auction that totaled €488,000 across 74 lots.

Zeid, one of the first women to attend the Fine Arts Academy in Istanbul, later continued her studies in Paris under Roger Bissière at the Académie Ranson. Over her long career, she held numerous solo exhibitions in major cities such as London, Paris, New York, and throughout the Middle East. After the death of her husband, Prince Zeid bin Hussein of Iraq’s Hashemite royal family, she settled in Amman, where she continued to create groundbreaking work.

The auction notably spotlighted women artists from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, with Noor Soussi, Head of the Modern & Contemporary Middle Eastern Art department, emphasizing the importance of representation. “Women artists from MENA and Africa have been historically underrepresented in the art market, so we were pleased to feature works by notable figures such as Fahr El-Nissa Zeid, Zeinab Abd El Hamid, and Rabab Nemr,” Soussi said.

Julie Mathon, Junior Specialist in Modern and Contemporary African Art at Bonhams, also praised the collaboration with the Menart international art fair in Paris, which celebrated the contributions of female artists from the region. Mathon noted the strong results for works by artists like Ouattara Watts and Abdoulaye Diarrassouba Aboudia.

Other notable sales at the event included Ouattara Watts’ acrylic pigment and collage work Pythagor and Thot, which sold for €66,440. Louay Kayyali’s oil painting Portrait of a Man fetched €28,160, while Abdoulaye Diarrassouba Aboudia’s untitled mixed media canvas achieved €25,600. Farhad Moshiri’s Control Room, an embroidery on black velvet, was sold for €23,040. Additionally, Rabab Nemr’s 1987 untitled oil on panel garnered €19,200, and Zeinab Abd El Hamid’s 1998 mixed media piece Cityscape reached €12,160.

This sale not only highlighted the strength of the market for works by women artists from the MENA region but also underscored growing interest in both modern and contemporary African and Middle Eastern art.

BY ALBERT CHEN

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