Bahman Mohas, Untitled (Fifi) (1964)
Modern and Contemporary Middle East, Sotheby’s, London, April 25
Estimate: £150,000-£200,000
Bahman Mohasses, called the “Persian Picasso”, painted this work during a prosperous period of his career. It focuses on a faceless female fictional character, Fifi, who appears in a number of his works over the decades, including the same Sotheby’s sale (also estimated at £150,000-£200,000). This character also inspired the title of a documentary about Mohasses, Fifi Howl of Happiness, released in 2013, three years after his death. The film documents Mohasses’ last years, living alone in a hotel room in Rome, and also captures the moment when he dies of lung cancer. This current lot is one of 13 in this sale owned by Iranian collectors Shireen and Reza Khazeni, along with works by Mansour Ghandriz and Sohrab Sepehri.
Gustav Klimt, Portrait of Fräulein Lieser (1917)
The Gustav Klimt Sale, Im Kinsky, Vienna, April 24
Estimate: 30 million euros-50 million euros
Hidden away on private property and thought to have been lost for decades, this late portrait of Gustav Klimt is set to go up for auction after the current owner reached an agreement with the heirs of the family that commissioned the painting. Although the image is documented in the Klimt Catalogue, it was known to art historians only as a black-and-white photograph. Very little is known about the origins of the portrait before 1960
the name of its curator was documented only as “Lieser”, a family of prominent Jewish industrialists in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was long believed that the painting was commissioned by Adolf Lieser and that it portrayed his daughter.
However, there are indications that Henriette Lieser-Landau may have been commissioned by Justus Lieser’s ex-wife—Adolf’s brother—according to Ernst Ploil, one of the managing directors of the Im Kinsky auction house in Vienna. Henriette, who was also a friend of the composer and author Alma Mahler, had two daughters who could have been the subjects of the painting. He was deported in 1942 and murdered by the Nazis in 1943, Ploil said in a press conference in Vienna. “What is certain is that the painting was still in Klimt’s studio when he died” in 1918, Ploil said, and it is not completely finished.
After Klimt’s death, this painting is believed to have been given to the executor of his will. According to Ploil, during the negotiations with the Lieser heirs, the auction house “assumed a worst-case scenario” – that the painting had been illegally expropriated during the Nazi era – but there was no proof of this. He said the heirs will receive a portion of the proceeds of the auction.
Hughie Lee Smith, ball player (1970)
African American Art, Swann Auctions, New York, April 4
Estimate: $150,000-$200,000
“A handball player throws himself with violent intent into a game he is playing alone against a low, cracked wall that suggests a world that is not as solid as it ever seems,” he says in 1988. New York Times Text for this mid-career oil painting by 20th century US painter Hughie Lee-Smith. That year the work was exhibited at the Kenkeleba Gallery in New York, alongside the works of Eldzier Cortor and Archibald John Motley Jr. It was previously in Lee-Smith’s personal collection before being purchased by the current owners. The artist’s record price at auction was achieved in 2022 by Swann in New York for another painting of a stark urban scene. Conclusion (1960) made $365,000 (with fees) against an estimate of $120,000 to $180,000. Given the current guide price for this lot, it looks like the house is hoping for another major score.
Thomas Hart Benton, The White Horse (1955)
Modern American Art, Christie’s, New York, April 18
Estimate: $1.5 million – $2 million
This equestrian scene set in Utah is an excellent example of Thomas Hart Benton’s works depicting the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains of America. Since 1965 it has been in the collection of Lois and Philip Macht, a Boston-based couple who also acquired African masks, pre-Columbian figures and works by Fairfield Porter, Gabriele Münter and Yves Tanguy. Works from their collection will also be offered at Christie’s sales in late 2024 and early 2025. This current lot headlines Christie’s Modern American Art sale. This will be the fourth year the auction house has divided its American Art sales into 19th Century (January sale) and Modern (April sale). “This format reflects the market, which was once dominated by collectors buying over the centuries, and is now divided between more traditional collectors and modernist collectors,” says a Christie’s spokesman.
