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Sotheby’s Auction to Showcase More Than 100 Works From Middle East

Mahmoud Mokhtar's On the banks of the Nile - AAWSAT AR
Mahmoud Mokhtar's On the banks of the Nile - AAWSAT AR
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Sotheby’s Auction to Showcase More Than 100 Works From Middle East

Mahmoud Mokhtar's On the banks of the Nile - AAWSAT AR
Mahmoud Mokhtar's On the banks of the Nile - AAWSAT AR

More than 100 works of Middle Eastern art will go on sale as part of Sotheby’s upcoming 20th Century Art / Middle East online auction.

The auction includes a selection of Palestinian artworks, demonstrating the depth and of the Palestinian art scene and collective artistic discourse.

Among the most prominent of these works is Ismail Shammout’s 1972 Crucifixion, which reflects his interpretation and experience of Palestinian history. Another piece is Laila Shawa’s the Souk in Gaza, from her first solo exhibition, held in Gaza in 1965. Known for their bold colors, storytelling and depicting women in Arab society, Shawa’s early works are considered expressions of nostalgia.

For the first time, Ibrahim Noubani and Nabil Anani, among the leading figures of the contemporary art movement, take part in the auction this year.

From the Emirates, the auction includes a conceptual piece by Mohammed Ahmed Ibrahim. The Sharjah Art Foundation hosted a retrospective exhibition for the artist in 2018, and he was chosen to represent the UAE at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022. The auction also includes his piece Bouquet, a 2018 cardboard sculpture.

The Moroccan modernist pioneer Mohamed Melehi’s work blends a vibrant postmodern aesthetic with Moroccan Berber crafts’ cultural richness. An internationally acclaimed painting by the artist set a new record at the auction where it was sold for £399,000 as part of a Sotheby’s online auction in March. Melehi’s work is currently on display at two exhibitions, the Alserkal Avenue in Dubai and the Cromwell Place in London.

Huguette Caland, considered among Lebanon’s most influential female figures, also features her work. Her jejune impressionist works are brimming with her appetite for life and adventure. Believed to the only daughter of Bechara El Khoury, the first president of Lebanon after it gained its independence, her bold character is nonetheless captured in her work, which explores the delicate balance between the suggestive and explicit and traditionalism’s challenges to beauty and desire.

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Varieties

Millions Across the US Brace for Plummeting Temperatures and Winter Storms 

A view of Central Park as snow falls on January 19, 2025 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)
A view of Central Park as snow falls on January 19, 2025 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Millions Across the US Brace for Plummeting Temperatures and Winter Storms 

A view of Central Park as snow falls on January 19, 2025 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)
A view of Central Park as snow falls on January 19, 2025 in New York City. (Getty Images/AFP)

Residents across the country from the Northern Plains to the tip of Maine are bracing for dangerously low temperatures as tens of millions of residents along the East Coast contend with a thick blanket of snow — and more snowfall in the forecast.

Winter storm warnings issued by the National Weather Service were in effect for parts of the Mid-Atlantic through Monday morning, and warnings began in New England on Sunday afternoon. Heavy lake-effect snow was expected in western New York state Monday through Wednesday morning, with 2 to 3 feet (about 60 to 90 centimeters) possible in some areas including Oswego along Lake Ontario.

Marc Chenard, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in College Park, Maryland, projected that as many as 70 million residents will be under some kind of winter storm warning in the coming days.

Return of the Arctic blast

Sunday snowfall was just the start of a chaotic week of weather. Much of the Eastern Seaboard will be enduring some of the coldest temperatures this winter.

An area from the Rockies into the Northern Plains will see colder than normal weather over several days, with temperatures forecast to drop to between minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 34 degrees Celsius) to minus 55 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 48 degrees Celsius) on Monday. Sub-zero wind chills are forecast to reach as far south as Oklahoma and the Tennessee Valley.

Minnesota residents were urged to wear appropriate clothing and carry a survival kit for travel. Kristi Rollwagen, director of homeland security and emergency management at the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, also urged motorists to drive with a full tank of gas and a fully charged cellphone to keep in touch with loved ones.

“It’s not something we haven’t experienced before, it’s just a good reminder that it does get cold in Minnesota,” Rollwagen said.

Meanwhile, temperatures in Washington, DC, are expected to dip into the 20s (about minus 7 C to minus 1 C) with wind gusts upwards of 30 mph (48 kph), Chenard said. The forecast prompted President-elect Donald Trump’s inaugural ceremony to be moved inside the US Capitol Rotunda.

Like earlier this month, this latest cold snap comes from a disruption in the polar vortex, the ring of cold air usually trapped about the North Pole.

The cold air will moderate as it moves southward and eastward, but the Central and Eastern US will still experience temperatures in the teens and 20s Monday into Tuesday, Chenard said. The Mid-Atlantic and Northeast also will have highs in the teens and 20s, lows in the single digits and below zero degrees F (minus 18 C), and wind chills below zero.

Unusual mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain

The colder temperatures will dip into the South early this week, where as many as 30 million people starting Monday could see a wintry mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain. The unusual conditions are expected to stretch from Texas into northern Florida and the Carolinas.

Impacts are expected starting Monday night in Texas and then spreading across the Gulf Coast and Southeast on Tuesday into Wednesday.

Frigid air combined with a low-pressure system over the Gulf is behind the storm, which could bring heavy snow just south of the Interstate 20 corridor across northern Louisiana and into Mississippi and a mix of snow, sleet, and freezing rain near the Interstate 10 corridor from Houston to Mobile, Alabama.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry on Saturday issued a state of emergency ahead of the severe weather, urging residents to prepare and keep watch on the forecast.