Iraqi modernism continues to dominate auctions in the Middle East, with Christie’s and Bonhams featuring works from family collections assembled in Baghdad in the 1960s.

The works of Jewad Selim, Faeq Hassan, Kadhim Hayder and Dia Azzawi dominate the fall offerings of both auction houses.

Sotheby’s Middle East sale is based on Lebanese and Iranian works, with remarkable paintings by Huguette Caland and Etel Adnan.

Bonhams Baghdadiyat Sale

Bonhams is putting together the second installment of her three-part Baghdadiyat sale, which she began in June of last year with works from the Madhloom and Makiya collections.

Their current sale, Wednesday November 17 in London, features works from the collection of architects Nizar and Ellen Jawdat, who had been friends with the Madhlooms and evolved in the same art and architecture circles.

Nizar Jawdat, born in Syria, grew up in Iraq, where his father was one of the country’s prime ministers.

He met his American wife at the Harvard School of Architecture and they returned to Baghdad, where they contributed to the development of modernism in the city.

They were exiled twice and in 1968 they left Iraq for good, settling in Italy, London and finally Washington, DC.

The couple’s four sons are selling the collection after the recent death of their parents.

It was handed over to Bonhams in three stages, says Nima Sagharchi, director of Middle Eastern, Islamic and South Asian arts at the home.

Most of the high value pieces will be in this sale, then an online only auction in February of works on paper, and the second part of the main collection in the Baghdadiyat final sale next June.

The Jawdat offerings here, of 18 works, include two stunning paintings by Jewad Selim. Good and Evil, an abstraction dates back to 1951, the year Selim and Shakir Hassan Al Said founded the Baghdad Group of Modern Art.

It was a study for a tiled mural planned for the Iraqi Red Crescent headquarters in Baghdad, designed by Ellen Jawdat.

The mural was never done, but the study for public works foreshadows Selim’s most important project, Freedom monument, that he started in Tahrir Square seven years later.

Bonhams gives the study estimate at £ 120,000 to £ 250,000 ($ 165,000 to $ 345,000).

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