Christie’s first Abu Dhabi art sale totals $8.94m with nine auction records

Christie’s first fine art auction in Abu Dhabi, “Mawasim: 20 Years of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art”, raised $8.94 million on Sunday, November 1, and set nine auction records, The National reported, citing the auction house, with a hexagon-based work by Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian leading the evening.

A two-decade anniversary in the capital

The live sale took place at The Abu Dhabi EDITION hotel after a public preview that ran from October 28, according to Gulf News. It marked twenty years since Christie’s held its inaugural auction in the UAE at Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai on May 24, 2006, an event that, according to Al-Monitor, raised $8.5 million at the time.

The catalogue brought together around 70 works, including pieces from two of the region’s best-known collections of Arab art, the Dalloul Collection in Beirut and the Barjeel Art Foundation in Sharjah, Gulf News and Al-Monitor reported. The National put the final line-up at 70 lots by 58 artists from 13 countries.

According to The National, the result was Christie’s highest total for an evening sale of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art in more than a decade.

Farmanfarmaian leads, modernists follow

Farmanfarmaian’s Variations on the Hexagon (2006), estimated at $150,000 to $250,000, sold for $844,800 after nearly seven minutes of bidding, The National reported. The Iranian artist, who died in 2019, is known for mirror mosaics and geometric compositions rooted in Persian architectural traditions.

Turkish modernist Fahrelnissa Zeid followed with Composition (1948-1949) at $524,800. Iraqi painter Faisel Laibi Sahi’s Baghdad Cafe (The Coffee Shop), from 2016, and Iranian artist Ali Banisadr’s Homo Deus, from 2018, each fetched $512,000.

Three works sold for $486,400 each, according to the same report: Noces (Wedding), painted in 1958-1959 by the Armenian-Lebanese artist Paul Guiragossian; Portrait de Princesse Fadia (1952) by Egyptian master Mahmoud Said; and a second Zeid canvas, Endless Thoughts, from the 1970s. Before the sale, Christie’s Middle East managing director Meagan Kelly Horsman had described the Guiragossian, estimated at $300,000 to $500,000, as the sale’s lead work, Al-Monitor reported.

Palestinian abstract painter Samia Halaby’s Yesterday (1978) made $358,400 and Lebanese artist Ayman Baalbaki’s Babel Tower (2012) $281,600. Farhad Moshiri’s Untitled (2003) completed the top ten at $230,400.

Records and first appearances

Christie’s reported nine auction records, including medium-specific records for Guiragossian and Halaby, The National said. The evening also marked the auction debuts of three Emirati artists, Rami Farook, Fatma Lootah and Afra Al Dhaheri, alongside Lebanese painter Nabil Kanso.

The auction house said more than 30 percent of registered bidders were millennials or members of Generation Z, and 37 percent were new to Christie’s, according to The National.

“We were absolutely thrilled this evening to see bidding from across our global client base,” Anthea Peers, Christie’s president for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, told the newspaper, adding that the sale was “only the beginning” of the house’s activity in the emirate.

A crowded art season

The sale was one of several events in a busy autumn for the Gulf art market. Christie’s also showed in Abu Dhabi three works from its November sales in New York, led by Wassily Kandinsky’s Betonte Ecken (1923), estimated at $60 million to $80 million, Gulf News reported. Horsman told Al-Monitor that the auction coincides with the inaugural Frieze Abu Dhabi and the opening of the Guggenheim on Saadiyat Island, the district that also houses the Louvre Abu Dhabi.