By Salman Siddiqui/Staff Reporter

Art collectors from Qatar have a very diverse taste that can range from traditional Islamic calligraphic pieces to modern Western contemporary iconic imagery, a leading art expert said yesterday.
Lina Lazaar Jameel, Sotheby’s deputy director and international contemporary art specialist, said that she personally had an interest in trying to find a unique trend among her buyers, but generally, it seemed to be an impossible task.
“Our collectors are interested in things that strike them on a personal level. It’s very difficult to draw a statistical pattern among those personal interests. It all depends on what clicks for them and what triggers an emotion in them,” she said.
Jameel said that although she had a hard time trying to pin it down, she noticed that collectors from the Gulf and Qatar in general have had a great interest in calligraphy and modern calligraphy.
“But at the same time they also have an equally high interest in Western contemporary art such as (works by the late Andy) Warhol. So we can only say that the interest of our buyers from this region has been quite deep and diverse,” she said.
Sotheby’s is staging an exhibition from today (Friday) at Katara Art Centre Building 5, featuring a selection of 15 works of art from the Contemporary Art Evening Auction on November 13 in New York.
Overall the four-day exhibition has a combined estimate of between $60mn and $90mn.
The selection of works on view includes examples by leading American post-war artists such as Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and John Chamberlain.
The highlight of the exhibition at Katara is Warhol’s Liz #1 (Early Coloured Liz) from 1963 that is valued between $20mn and $30mn. It is one of a rare series of 13 paintings of Elizabeth Taylor that Warhol made on coloured backgrounds.
Jameel was excited to showcase this particular artwork.
“That’s something which should get a lot of people talking. It’s incredibly rare. It’s one of only 13 pictures against a yellow background,” she said.
Further Warhol highlights include works from the Death and Disaster series – Five Deaths on Turquoise (Turquoise Disaster) estimated at around $9mn. Also on display is Warhol’s Flowers (Five Foot Flowers).
About the concept of the Doha exhibition just weeks before the New York auction and the reason for choosing the particular artworks, Jameel said: “We wanted to do an exhibition that would be educationally relevant … which could engage with the public on many levels by (displaying art of) important artists from post-war America. We focused on artists from the US from a specific time period, the 60s and 70s, and then within that timeframe we picked the best ones.”
The exhibition from 10am to 10pm closes on Monday.