On October 1 and 2, Abu Dhabi will host the most expensive art exhibition Sotheby’s has ever staged in the Middle East. Collectively valued at around $150 million, it is also the first public fine art show the house has put on in the UAE. The six masterpieces involved were painted by Vincent van Gogh, Paul Gauguin, Frida Khalo, René Magritte, Camille Pissaro, and Edvard Munch. It will take place at the private Bassam Freiha Art Foundation in Abu Dhabi’s Saadiyat Island Cultural District.
The move comes as Sotheby’s gears up to hold Abu Dhabi Collectors’ Week in November, its first series of luxury marquee sales in the emirate. “In recent months, Sotheby’s has staged a number of remarkable events in Abu Dhabi, but this exhibition represents a true milestone – our first ever public exhibition of fine art in this emirate; and the most extensive and valuable exhibition ever staged in the region by Sotheby’s,” Katia Nounoi Boueiz, head of Sotheby’s UAE, said in a statement.
Each of the works comes from “major private collections,” the house added. Munch’s (St. John’s Night) (Midsummer Night’s Eve) (1901-3) was sourced from American collector Leonard A. Lauder, while until recently, the van Gogh and Gauguin paintings hung in the Chicago home of Cindy and Jay Pritzker. [“Their] impact on the cultural life of their home city is immense, and whose renowned prize for architecture has honored many of the world’s leading architects, including Jean Nouvel, designer of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, and Frank Gehry, architect of the new Abu Dhabi arm of the Guggenheim,” Sotheby’s said.
Magritte’s Le Jockey perdu (1942) comes from the collection of Matthew and Kay Bucksbaum, prominent American philanthropists known for their contributions to the arts.
None of the works to be exhibited have ever been shown in the Middle East before, and three of them have not been seen in public for more than 50 years. After the exhibition in Abu Dhabi, they will travel to London and Paris before returning to New York, where they will hit the auction block during the fall marquee sales in November. The auctions will mark the opening of Sotheby’s new headquarters in the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue.
“Presenting these masterpieces in the Middle East was an opportunity we just couldn’t miss,” Julian Dawes, head of impressionist and modern art at Sotheby’s, told ARTnews. “Drawn from some of the world’s most celebrated private collections, these six masterworks by Van Gogh, Gauguin, Kahlo, Munch, Magritte and Pissarro are being shown together here for the very first time in an historic exhibition, and several works have not been seen publicly in decades. This exhibition marks an exciting and true milestone for us as the most valuable and significant Sotheby’s has ever staged in the region.”
Sotheby’s made its relationship with the UAE official last summer when it sold a minority stake to Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund and investment company, ADQ. As part of the deal, ADQ bought newly issued Sotheby’s shares to “reduce leverage and support the company’s growth and innovation plans,” a statement said at the time. Still, Drahi remained the majority shareholder and is pumping additional capital into the auction business under the agreement. The total planned investment of both ADQ and Drahi is a cool $1 billion.
