Sotheby’s will hold its second Saudi Arabian auction next month, featuring works by Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, and the founding mother of Saudi contemporary art.
The auction house’s successful debut in the kingdom in February pulled in $17.28 million from the sale of fine art, designer items, and memorabilia. January’s auction will offer only art, partly in response to greater demand for works from Saudi Arabia: “The first sale… was an important learning moment for us,” a Sotheby’s executive told Artnet News.
In addition to well-known Western works, Sotheby’s will auction the “bucolic” Coffee Shop in Madina Road (1968) by Safeya Binzagr, the “spiritual mother of contemporary Saudi art,” who died in 2024, The Art Newspaper wrote.