Christie’s first fine art auction in Abu Dhabi will offer more than 70 works spanning six decades of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art.
Mawasim: 20 Years of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art will be held at the Abu Dhabi Edition hotel on November 1. It marks 20 years since Christie’s held its first UAE auction in Dubai in 2006. The sale includes artists from across the Arab world, Iran and Turkey, with works drawn from collections including Beirut’s Dalloul Collection and Sharjah’s Barjeel Art Foundation.
The sale is taking place during a busy period for Abu Dhabi’s art scene, with Frieze art fair following later in November and Guggenheim Abu Dhabi opening on December 11. Christie’s Middle East and Africa chairman Ridha Moumni previously told The National that the auction house intended to become “more present and more visible in the city”.
Among the works are an early Fahrelnissa Zeid abstract piece, a royal Egyptian portrait completed months before the monarchy fell and a monumental Paul Guiragossian.
Here are five works to look out for.
Fahrelnissa Zeid's Composition, 1948-1949
Estimated at $500,000 to $700,000, Composition is among the most valuable works in the sale and comes from a decisive period in Fahrelnissa Zeid’s development.
Painted in 1948–49, the work captures her move towards the kaleidoscopic abstraction that would establish her international reputation in the following decade. Interlocking passages of blue, red, yellow and orange are divided by dark lines, creating a visual language shaped partly by Zeid’s experience of seeing cities and landscapes from the air.
The painting also has a strong personal history. After her husband, Prince Zeid Al-Hussein, became Iraq’s ambassador to Britain, Zeid established a studio at the Iraqi Embassy in London, where Composition was displayed.
The work remained with her through later stages of her life, including her years in Amman, making it both an important early abstraction and a witness to her own movement between cities and countries.
Mahmoud Said's Portrait de Princesse Fadia, 1952
Mahmoud Said’s Portrait de Princesse Fadia, estimated at $400,000 to $600,000, carries one of the most personal provenances in the auction.
The sitter is Princess Fadia, the youngest daughter of King Farouk I and Queen Farida of Egypt. Said was her great-uncle, making the painting as much a family portrait as a royal one.
Its timing gives it added historical weight. Painted in 1952, it was completed only months before Egypt’s monarchy came to an end. Saïd gave the portrait to Queen Farida before it passed to Princess Fadia and remained within the family.
According to the catalogue, it was among the possessions Fadia took with her into exile. What began as a portrait of royal childhood became a lasting connection to a life that had abruptly changed.
Said had also painted Queen Farida as a child decades earlier, giving the work a link to two generations of the same family.
Paul Guiragossian's Noces (Wedding), 1958-1959
At almost 2.4 metres wide, Noces is one of the largest works by Paul Guiragossian to come to market.
Estimated at $300,000 to $500,000, the painting predates the mature figurative style for which the Lebanese-Armenian artist became widely known. A seated bride anchors a gathering of musicians, dancers and guests, while the compressed space and elongated figures anticipate the more expressive direction his work would take.
One detail is especially personal. Among the musicians is a blind figure recalling Guiragossian’s father, who was blind and remembered as a violinist and singer.
The painting was acquired directly from Guiragossian by Lebanese architect and collector Farid Trad and was shown at the artist’s 1959 exhibition in Beirut. Moumni has described it as one of Guiragossian’s most exceptional works.
Its return to the market is also timely, with 2026 marking the centenary of the artist’s birth and Bassam Freiha Art Foundation in Abu Dhabi presenting an exhibition devoted to his work.
Ahmed Mater's Golden Hour, 2011
Ahmed Mater’s Golden Hour examines the transformation of Makkah through one of the most recognisable views in the Islamic world.
Estimated at $80,000 to $120,000, the monumental photograph belongs to Mater’s Desert of Pharan project, which looks at the changing relationship between the holy city’s sacred history and its rapidly evolving urban landscape.
The Kaaba and pilgrims performing tawaf sit at the centre of the image, surrounded by cranes, construction equipment and new infrastructure. Mater places the cyclical movement of a centuries-old ritual against the constant momentum of development.
The result is less a simple contrast than a layering of different ideas of time: religious continuity, ancient landscape and modern construction all occupying the same frame.
There are four prints of Golden Hour in total: three numbered edition copies, plus one artist’s proof. Christie’s is selling the single artist’s proof. Another example from the edition is held by Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha.
Hassan Sharif's Press Conference No 2, 2008
Hassan Sharif’s Press Conference No 2 brings satire into the sale.
Painted in 2008 and estimated at $50,000 to $70,000, the work presents a distorted public speaker whose open mouth, misaligned eyes and exaggerated appearance undermine the authority normally associated with political spectacle. The objects in front of him resemble microphones but also spoons and ladles, giving the scene an absurd edge.
The painting connects to Sharif’s early career as a cartoonist for Akhbar Dubai, where he addressed political and social subjects before becoming one of the central figures in the development of conceptual and experimental art in the UAE.
That influence continued well beyond his own practice. Moumni previously told The National that Sharif would appear in the sale alongside younger Emirati artists shaped by his legacy.
Press conference No 2 was also included in Christie’s 2023 exhibition, Emirati Art Reimagined: Hassan Sharif and the Contemporary Voices.
