On October 1–2, Abu Dhabi will welcome the most valuable Sotheby’s exhibition ever held in the Middle East, with a total estimated value of around $150 million.
The show will take place at the Bassam Frieh Foundation in the cultural district of Saadiyat Island and marks the first public display of Sotheby’s fine art in the UAE, reports Art News.
The exhibition features six masterpieces by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Frida Kahlo, René Magritte, Camille Pissarro, and Edvard Munch, many of which have never before been shown in the Middle East. Three of the works have not been exhibited publicly for over 50 years. Highlights include Munch’s St. John’s Night from American collector Leonard Lauder, van Gogh and Gauguin paintings previously housed at Cindy and Jay Pritzker’s Chicago home, and Magritte’s Le Jockey perdu (1942) from the collection of Matthew and Kay Baksbaum.
After Abu Dhabi, the works will travel to London and Paris, followed by Sotheby’s auctions in New York this fall, coinciding with the opening of the auction house’s new Madison Avenue headquarters.
Katia Nunui Boueiz, head of Sotheby’s UAE, called the exhibition “a historic event—the first public fine art exhibition in the emirate and the largest and most valuable Sotheby’s show in the region.”
The exhibition also highlights Sotheby’s strategic partnership with Abu Dhabi’s sovereign fund ADQ, which last year acquired a minority stake in the auction house as part of $1 billion in joint investments aimed at expanding Sotheby’s global growth and innovation initiatives.
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