Christie’s auctioneer Yü-Ge Wang wearing jewellery by Pomellato at the evening sale.Courtesy of Christie's

Christie’s First Fine Art Auction in Abu Dhabi Totals $8.94 M.

by · ARTnews

On Sunday, Christie’s hosted its debut fine art sale in Abu Dhabi, “MAWASIM: 20 Years of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art,” to mark the auction house’s 20th anniversary of its first auction in the United Arab Emirates. The sale totaled $8.94 million.

The evening sale held at the Abu Dhabi Edition hotel featured works by artists from the Middle East and North Africa. Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian’s Variations on the Hexagon (2006) led the auction, selling for $844,800; the painting’s estimate was $150,000 to $250,000. Bidding for the work by Farmanfarmaian, who is currently the subject of a retrospective at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm, lasted for seven minutes.

Works From Agnes Gund’s Collection Head to Christie’s, Led by $8 M. Vija Celmins PaintingChristie’s will auction works from Agnes Gund’s collection, including an $8 million Vija Celmins painting, to benefit the Gund Art Foundation.Daniel Cassady, 28 Oct 2026Christie’s First Abu Dhabi Art Auction to Be Accompanied by Exhibition of $60 M.–$80 M. KandinskyAs Frieze, Sotheby's, and the Guggenheim descend on Abu Dhabi, Christie's will stage its first art auction in the emirate.Harrison Jacobs, 27 Oct 2026

Other notable lots included Fahrelnissa Zeid’s Composition (1948-49), which sold for $524,800, beating its low estimate of $500,000; Faisel Laibi Sahi’s Baghdad Café (The Coffee Shop), 2016, which sold for $512,000, beating its low estimate of $400,000; and Ali Banisadr’s Homo Deus (2018), which brought in $512,000 and approached its high estimate of $550,000. (These sales figures, and all others in this piece, account for premium fees.) Only eight lots went unsold out of the 68 offered, making for 88.2 percent of lots sold.

Auction records were achieved for nine artists: Jellal Ben Abdallah, Paul Guiragossian, Faisel Laibi Sahi, Juliana Seraphim, Nabil Kanso, Samia Halaby, Rami Farook, Fatma Lootah, and Afra Al Dhaheri. Guiragossian’s Noces (Wedding), 1958–59, sold for $486,400, nearly beating its high estimate of $500,000.

In a joint statement, Christie’s Ridha Moumni, chairman of Middle East and Africa, and Marie-Claire Thijsen, head of sale and specialist at Christie’s UK and UAE operations, said that the auction’s results highlight the “breadth of bidding across the sale demonstrates the international interest this category has achieved today. Its scale reflects the depth of the region’s art sector and its capacity to support a major sale of this kind.” Christie’s reported that more than 30 percent of registrants were millennial and Gen Z bidders, and that 37 percent of the participants were new to Christie’s.

Leading up to the sale at Christie’s in Abu Dhabi, the auction house displayed three major works from its upcoming marquee New York sales on view at Abu Dhabi Edition hotel. The works included Wassily Kandinsky’s Betonte Ecken (1923), which carries a $60 million–$80 million estimate; Mark Rothko’s Untitled (1968), which carries a $10 million–$15 million estimate; and Pablo Picasso’s Tête de femme (1939), which carries a $12 million–$18 million estimate.