Riyadh: A painting by Saudi artist Safeya Binzagr sold for $2.1 million at Sotheby’s “Origins II” auction in Riyadh on Saturday, proving to be the most expensive item of the evening and setting a new auction record for a Saudi artist. The artwork, “Coffee Shop on Medina Road” (1968), sold for $1.65 million before the buyer’s premium, which is an additional fee paid by the buyer to the auction house on top of the hammer price. This result nearly doubled the previous auction record for a Saudi artist and became the most valuable artwork ever sold at auction in the Kingdom. It is also the third highest price achieved for an Arab artist at auction. It was offered as part of “Origins II,” Sotheby’s second auction in Saudi Arabia, which featured 62 modern and contemporary lots and included Saudi artists as well as regional and international names. Collectors from more than 40 countries participated in the auction, with approximately one-third of the lots sold to buyers from Saudi Arabia. The sale totaled $19.6 million, exceeding its pre-sale estimate, and bringing the total value of artworks offered in “Origins” and “Origins II” to more than $32 million. Saudi artists were prominent in the evening’s results. All nine Saudi artworks offered found buyers, generating a total of $4.3 million, far exceeding pre-sale expectations. Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art for the Middle East, told Arab News at the auction that “Safeya made more money tonight than any other artist, which is incredible.” He added that the results reflect Sotheby’s broader objective in the Kingdom. “Tonight’s results show exactly what we’re trying to do here: bringing international collectors to Saudi Arabia and introducing them to Saudi artists, especially the pioneers.” All nine artworks by Saudi artists offered in the sale found buyers, fetching a total of $4.3 million. Additional auction records were set for Egyptian artist Ahmed Morsi and Sudanese artist Abdel Badi Abdel Hay. An untitled 1989 artwork by Mohammed Al-Saleem sold for $756,000, more than three times its estimate, while another work by the artist, “Flow” from 1987, sold for $630,000. The sale opened with the first auction appearance of Mohammed Siam, whose “Untitled (Camel Race)” sold for $94,500. Dia Aziz Dia, also making his auction debut, saw his award-winning “La Palma (The Palm)” sell for $226,800. The sale coincided with the opening week of the Contemporary Art Biennale in Riyadh, reinforcing the city’s growing role as a focal point for both cultural institutions and the art market. Baghestani said that Saudi modern artists are now receiving the market recognition they should have received long ago. He said, “There is so much interest and so much demand, and the prices are where they should be.” International highlights included works by Pablo Picasso, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, and Anish Kapoor, demonstrating Saudi Arabia’s growing role as a destination for major global art events and collectors. Picasso’s “Paysage,” painted in the last decade of the artist’s life, sold for $1,600,000, becoming the second most expensive artwork ever sold at auction in Saudi Arabia. Seven works by Lichtenstein from the artist and his wife’s personal collection, including collages, prints, works on paper, and sculptures, all sold. Two of Warhol’s artworks were included in the sale: “Disquieting Muses (After De Chirico),” which sold for $1,033,200, and a complete set of four screenprints of “Muhammad Ali,” which fetched $352,000. Baghestani said the strong results were directly related to the freshness of the material. “These weren’t works that had been traded around,” he said. “Some of them hadn’t been seen since the 1970s.”
A painting by Saudi artist Safeya Binzagr was auctioned for $2.1 million, setting a new record.
