by SABAH HAIDER
Christie’s Dubai has surprised itself since it opened in 2005 by selling many works by regional artists, and for unexpectedly high prices. What does the global market expect from the region?
Last month Christie’s held its eighth series of auctions – having sold more than $125 million worth and more than 1,000 works since 2006. Of their total sales, almost a third has been Iranian art and the rest Arab art. But the big draw for the April sale was Egyptian art: Christie’s featured a collection of 25 “museum-quality works from the collection of Dr Mohammed Said Farsi, the former mayor of Jeddah”. An anonymous buyer paid the top price, $2.43m, for a painting by the Egyptian artist Mahmoud Said (1897-1964), Les Chadoufs (1934), which had been expected to raise no more than $200,000. This could signal a growing appetite for modern and contemporary Egyptian art – which has a strong movement of artists (most now dead) such as Mahmoud Said and Abdel Hadi al-Gazzar, considered pioneers of Arab modern art. Jeha claims “it will be more commonplace over the next five years to find Middle Eastern works in international museums, as well as in collections. More and more museums in the US are actively acquiring Middle Eastern works.”