Olympia Auctions will hold its largest-ever sale of Modern and Contemporary African and Middle Eastern Art on May 7, 2025, in London. The auction features over 100 lots including works by pioneering Nigerian artists appearing at auction for the first time, Egyptian modernists from the Zulficar collection, classic South African paintings from a major collection, and Botswanan works on paper. Highlights include a portrait of Oum Kalthoum by George Bahgoury (estimate £25,000-30,000) and satirical portraits by Kingsley Obasi. Olympia Auctions expert Janet Rady, who has led the secondary market for Middle Eastern art since 2013, curated the sale.
This sale matters because it reflects the growing global institutional and market interest in African and Middle Eastern art. Rady cites major museum exhibitions—Tate Modern's upcoming show on Nigerian Modernism and Centre Pompidou's 'Paris Noir'—as evidence that African art is becoming mainstream in scholarly and institutional contexts. The auction introduces ten Nigerian artists to the secondary market for the first time, potentially expanding the collector base and establishing new price benchmarks for emerging and modernist artists from the region.