Christie's First Abu Dhabi Auction Comes With $60M Kandinsky Preview

By Grace Kim

A Kandinsky carrying a $60 million to $80 million estimate lands in Abu Dhabi this week, days before Christie's hosts its first fine art auction in the emirate. Wassily Kandinsky's Betonte Ecken (1923) goes on view Wednesday at the Abu Dhabi Edition hotel on Al Bateen Marina — not for sale there, but as bait for Gulf collectors ahead of Christie's marquee New York sales.

The auction itself, dubbed "MAWASIM: 20 Years of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art," presents roughly 70 lots of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art next week. Mawasim means "seasons" in Arabic, a nod to the 20 years since Christie's held its first sale in the United Arab Emirates, in Dubai, in 2006.

The roster reads like a regional survey. Names include:

• Fahrelnissa Zeid, the Turkish abstractionist and one of the first women to attend art school in Turkey
• Iraqi painter Faisel Laibi Sahi
• Egyptian modernist Mahmoud Saïd
• Palestinian American artist Samia Halaby

Estimates run from $8,000–$12,000 at the low end to $500,000–$700,000 at the top. Christie's chairman for the Middle East and Africa, Ridha Moumni, called the sale "probably the most important event of modern and contemporary Eastern art for many years" in an interview with the Khaleej Times.

Why does the Gulf suddenly have an arts season?

The sale works as a starting pistol for what is rapidly becoming the UAE's November arts calendar. Competition for business in the Gulf among auction houses is heating up, and Christie's is staking its claim early.

The schedule stacks up fast:

• November 19–22: Frieze hosts the first edition of its Abu Dhabi fair at Manarat Al Saadiyat.
• December 10: Sotheby's caps its second "Collectors' Week" with its inaugural fine art sale in the emirate, "Breaking Ground," at the new Saadiyat Grove Experience Center on Saadiyat Island — the city's cultural hub. That sale features headline names like Andy Warhol and Claude Monet, with much higher top estimates.
• December 11: The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi finally opens its doors.

What does this change for collectors? Mainly convenience and leverage: within a single month, the emirate will host two inaugural auctions, a new international fair and a museum opening, concentrating the region's market activity in one place at one time.

What's on view besides the sale?

Three major works from Christie's upcoming New York sales will hang at the Abu Dhabi Edition, none of them in the auction. Alongside the Kandinsky:

• Mark Rothko's Untitled (1968), estimated at $10 million to $15 million
• Pablo Picasso's Tête de femme (1939), estimated at $12 million to $18 million

The logic is straightforward. Christie's wants deep-pocketed Gulf bidders to see these lots in person before the New York sales. Moumni made the pitch explicit to the Khaleej Times: "The UAE is the country where we have the biggest number of bidders in our auction. In terms of concentration, the UAE is the land of collectors of modern and contemporary art."

If MAWASIM performs, expect Christie's to anchor the Abu Dhabi season annually — and to keep using the emirate as a preview stage for its biggest New York trophies.