LONDON.- Portrait of Iris Clert, the most significant work by Iranian master, Manoucher Yektai, ever to be offered at auction is the leading work in Bonhams Modern and Contemporary Middle-Eastern Art sale on 7th October at Bonhams New Bond Street.

The work was bought in the late 1990s for less than £200, but is now estimated at between £50,000 - 70,000. It had previously been in the collection of Swedish collector, Theodore Ahrenberg, who displayed it at his villa in Chexbres, Switzerland, along with works by Picasso, Braque and Matisse.

Yektai, a central founding figure of the New York School of Abstract Expressionism, conceived the painting as a response to the ultimate Parisian vanity project. In 1961, Iris Clert – the avant-garde gallery owner renowned for discovering Yves Klein – opened an exhibition in which she invited major artists of the day to submit portraits of her.

While Robert Rauschenberg famously sent a telegram that simply said, “This is a portrait of Iris Clert if I say so”, Manoucher Yektai’s contribution – Portrait of Iris Clert – created a stark contrast to the conceptual work submitted by the abstract artists participating.

The painting was one of the exhibition’s centre pieces, which also featured prominent French Nouveau Realiste artist Arman’s portrait: a wall-mounted box filled with a high-heeled shoe, lipstick, a photograph, and other objects from Clert’s daily life.

“Yektai’s work has been historically undervalued and unrecognized by the art market until now,” said Bonhams Modern and Contemporary Iraqi and Middle Eastern Art specialist, Nima Sagharchi. “The work displays a fascinating example of the subtle tension between naturalism and abstraction manifest in Yektai’s work. His attachment to natural forms would not grant abstraction a total victory; it is in this tension, most overtly manifest in portraiture, that his artistic sincerity is most deeply revealed,” he added.

Other items in the sale include Paul Guiragossian’s enigmatic The Mother (Lot 55, £50,000-80,000). An outstanding example of the artist’s work from the 1970s, the work depicts gestural, expressive, luminous figures defined by well-articulated impasto. The painting strikes at the very heart of Guiragossian’s oeuvre, which celebrates the maternal figure and the protective role she has to play in times of conflict and suffering.

Egyptian artworks, such as Hamed Owais’ The Harvest (Lot 84, £45,000-95,000) and Mahmoud Moussa’s The Worker (Lot 81, £18,000-25,000), will also feature. Each presents contrasting examples of social realism in Egyptian modernism – Owais with his sympathetic treatment of the common Egyptian fellah or rural peasant; Mahmoud Moussa with his heroic, Pharaonic sculpture championing the workers who perished during the construction of the Suez Canal.

The sale will take place at Bonhams headquarters on New Bond Street, London.