Christie’s will hold three auctions in Dubai, UAE, next month, as it celebrates its 10th anniversary and 20th sale season in the Middle East.

The auction will be held at the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel, DIFC, and covers Important Watches, Modern and Contemporary Art, and Element of Style.

This year, the Element of Style auction will include handbags and luxury objects, a new sales category.

The traditional painting sale, held on March 16, will celebrate the best of Middle Eastern art by integrating a 40-lot strong section entitled Now and Ten.

This sale represents the decade of trading with art from the region through a curated section of 40 works by leading Middle Eastern artists from private collections. The entirety of the art auction will offer a total of 125 selected works which present the artistic talents of the region.

Although the most condensed number of lots to date, these works showcases the highest pre-sale estimate of $8.5-12.0 million for the past 10 years, showcasing the development of the regional art market including such artists as Farhad Moshiri, Kadhim Haider, Mahmoud Said, Shafic Abboud, Azade Koker, Bahman Mohasses, Hadie Shafie, Hamed Ewais, Louay Kayyali, and Omar El-Nagdi, amongst others.

Among the highlights will be El-Nagdi’s 1992 triptych titled Sarajevo, carrying an estimate of $400,000-600,000, and Abboud’s Cafe de Verre, Cafe Hajj Daoud, Cafe Palestine, Cafe Al Bahrein painting.

Abboud’s work comprises 130 individually painted tempera on panels, all paying tribute to the ‘cafés engloutis’ of the late artist’s beloved city, Beirut.

Coming directly from the artist’s estate, these temperas used to hang on the wall of the artist’s own bedroom in his Parisian apartment where he lived from 1977 until his death in 2004.

Over the last decade, Christie’s has successfully and effectively established a solid global platform to promote artists from the Middle East, and contributed to the art market in the UAE and region.

Christie’s, the world's leading art business, had global auction, private and digital sales in 2015 that totalled £4.8 billion ($7.4 billion).


AUCTION DATES

March 13-16     Christie’s preview

March 13-14     Christie’s Education Course

March 15, 7 pm    Christie’s Important Watches Auction

March 16, 7 pm    Christie’s Dubai: Modern and Contemporary Art

March 17, 7 pm    Christie’s Element of Style Auction