Twenty years after its first sale in the United Arab Emirates, Christie’s is holding its first fine art auction in Abu Dhabi on 1 November. And chief executive Bonnie Brennan makes clear it is not meant to be a one-off. “The market can sustain two centres,” she told the UAE newspaper The National this week — a moment in London, and a moment in the Gulf.
Mawasim: 70 works, nine decades
The sale, Mawasim: 20 Years of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art, takes place at the Abu Dhabi Edition hotel and marks two decades since Christie’s inaugural UAE auction in Dubai in 2006. It brings together around 70 works spanning nine decades, including pieces connected to Sharjah’s Barjeel Art Foundation and Beirut’s Dalloul Collection. Brennan singles out paintings by Samia Halaby and Nabil Nahas, suggesting one work in the sale is something “any Rothko buyer would love to own”.
Alongside the auction, Christie’s has flown in works by Rothko, Kandinsky and Picasso from its upcoming New York sales, plus watches and paintings offered privately — a way of testing what Gulf collectors want across categories.
Perfect timing
The calendar helps. Abu Dhabi is in the middle of a landmark season: Frieze stages its first fair in the city in November, and the long-awaited Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is due to open on 11 December. Brennan wants a regular sales calendar, year-round exhibitions and education programmes with local museums to cultivate collectors “brick by brick”.
New buyers, strong numbers
The push comes on the back of a strong year. Christie’s reported $3.5 billion in auction sales for the first half of 2026, up 71 per cent year on year, and says millennials and Gen Z made up 47 per cent of new clients. Brennan argues confidence unlocks supply: when owners believe prices are right, they consign. Results for Pollock and Brancusi in spring, she says, encouraged sellers to bring important works this autumn.
For Middle Eastern artists, the bigger prize may be visibility. Brennan wants to place their works in other international sales too, so that collectors of Western modernism meet them side by side. If that happens, Abu Dhabi could become not just a new saleroom, but a new route into the canon.