Sotheby’s to hold first Abu Dhabi fine art auction on December 10

The latest:

Works by Claude Monet and Andy Warhol will be offered alongside paintings by pioneering Emirati artists when Sotheby’s holds its first fine art auction in Abu Dhabi on December 10. The sale, titled Breaking Ground, anchors the second edition of Collectors’ Week and falls one day before Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opens on December 11.

Details:

• The format: Six auctions will be held at the new Saadiyat Grove Experience Centre on Saadiyat Island across two days, expanding Collectors’ Week beyond last year’s luxury-only format. Watches, jewellery, handbags, cars and high-performance bicycles go under the hammer on December 9, with the fine art sale following on December 10.
• The headline lots: Monet’s Prunes et Abricots, painted between 1882 and 1885 and commissioned by his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel for a Paris drawing room, carries an estimate of $2 million to $2.6 million. Warhol’s Ads portfolio from 1985, made two years before his death, is also on offer.
• The Abu Dhabi link: A 2007 Christo drawing of The Mastaba of Abu Dhabi, the proposed permanent work in the Liwa desert conceived with Jeanne-Claude as a monumental structure of hundreds of thousands of oil barrels, is estimated at $180,000 to $250,000.
• The Emirati names: Hassan Sharif and Mohamed Ahmed Ibrahim, both pioneers of contemporary art in the UAE, feature alongside Najat Makki, whose A Woman’s State of Being from 1988 is estimated at $30,000 to $50,000. Sotheby’s says it is working with artists and estates to bring Nujoom Al-Ghanem and Nasser Al-Yousif to auction for the first time.
• Women artists: Katia Boueiz, head of Sotheby’s UAE and chairman for the Middle East, said the Breaking Ground title came from artists who paved the way for later generations. That framing shaped a focus on women including Huguette Caland, Inji Efflatoun, Fahrelnissa Zeid and Etel Adnan, whose 1998 Ta’ir al-Nar is estimated at $50,000 to $70,000.
• The wider roster: Other artists represented include S H Raza, Paul Guiragossian and Fernando Botero, whose 2008 bronze Donna con Ombrello carries an estimate of $350,000 to $550,000. A 2022 untitled work by Jade Fadojutimi is estimated at $500,000 to $700,000.
• The luxury side: The returning luxury auctions include about 50 watches from the single-owner Shapes of Cartier collection, among them a rare Twin Strap dating from roughly 1970 to 1971. The car sale features a 2009 Ferrari Scuderia Spider 16M and a 2004 360 Challenge Stradale.
• The jewels: Jewellery highlights include a fancy brown-orange diamond weighing more than 40 carats. Public exhibitions, panel discussions and masterclasses will precede the auctions, with Sotheby’s set to release further lot details in November. Exhibition dates and visiting hours were not included in the announcement.
• The season: The sale closes an unusually dense stretch for Abu Dhabi’s art market, following Christie’s first fine art auction in the city on November 1 and the inaugural Frieze Abu Dhabi from November 19 to 22.
• The rationale: Boueiz said last year’s debut edition featured a fine art exhibition whose works were there to be seen rather than sold, and described queues of visitors wanting to see them in person. She said conversations on the ground “set the tone for our planning for this next edition.”

Background:

Collectors’ Week launched last year as a luxury-only programme of watches, jewellery and cars. Fine art appeared then only as a non-selling exhibition, making the December 10 auction the first time Sotheby’s has put artworks up for bidding in Abu Dhabi.

Between the lines:

Boueiz framed the ambition as embedding Abu Dhabi within the international art market rather than simply importing that market. The lot list reads as that argument in practice: Monet and Warhol supply the global draw, while first-time auction appearances by Nujoom Al-Ghanem and Nasser Al-Yousif test whether international collectors follow the imported names into regional ones.

What’s next

Sotheby’s releases further lot details in November. The December 9 luxury sales open the week, fine art follows on December 10, and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opens the next day.