Sotheby’s “Origins II” Results Suggest Saudi Collectors Are Prioritizing Legacy

Art Basel Qatar triggered a widespread moment of reflection in the art world, with articles still being published a week after the fair’s inaugural edition, analyzing what it meant for the broader industry. One thing that visiting Doha proved is that within the MENA region, there is an entire art scene—emerging but historically grounded—composed of names poised for broader international recognition. While the focus on the fair may have caused Sotheby’s second auction in Saudi Arabia, Origins II, to fly somewhat under the radar, the results nonetheless offered key insights for understanding the Gulf market and getting familiar with some of the names shaping its direction.

If one of the central claims in Qatar was that organizers may have accelerated certain stages by launching a fully government-backed fair before cultivating a deep collector base, the results in Saudi Arabia confirm the presence of an active and committed pool of buyers, often focused specifically on collecting artists from the region who may not yet have an established market in London or New York. Held late last month in the historic town of Diriyah, Origins II easily filled the 250-seat amphitheater to capacity, achieving $19,585,070 across its 61 lots—nearly doubling its $11.7 million low estimate—with a third of the works selling to local collectors.

In its inaugural Saudi auction last year, Sotheby’s relied more on blue-chip international art and cross-category luxury offerings; this time, the auction house deliberately catered to the region’s tastes and priorities. Saudi artists in particular were far more prominent, with nine works, all sold, achieving a combined total of $4.3 million and far surpassing the group’s $1.1 million high estimate.

Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s head of sale and contemporary art specialist, described the results as a clear validation of the growing appetite among collectors in the Kingdom. “We are seeing remarkable enthusiasm from both established and new buyers who are eager to engage with us and participate in this evolving market,” he confirmed in a statement. Yet he also emphasized the importance of the auction in fostering a two-way exchange, introducing local and regional artists to a broader collector base while expanding visibility and deepening engagement with the region’s cultural and artistic expression.

The top lot of the night, Safeya Binzagr’s Coffee Shop in Madina Road, fetched $2.1 million, 10 times its high estimate of $200,000, becoming the third-highest price ever achieved for a work by an Arab artist at auction and nearly doubling the previous auction record for a Saudi artist, set at Sotheby’s London in October 2023.

While her name may still be largely unfamiliar to much of the Western art world, Binzagr was one of the most important pioneers of modern Saudi Arabian art and among the first Saudi women to pursue a professional career as an artist. Her work stands as both a celebration and a preservation of Arabian heritage, capturing daily life in Harat Al-Sham and its neighboring alleys, transporting viewers to a bygone era shaped by enduring traditions. In doing so, it forms a quiet resistance to the accelerated forces of Western-led modernization while offering a rare visual record of Saudi Arabia’s pre-oil social fabric, making her an especially significant figure in a country increasingly seeking recognition for its history and cultural identity. She founded her own gallery and museum, Darat Safeya Binzagr, in 1995, with the goal of establishing one of the first intergenerational and multidisciplinary platforms dedicated to supporting and shaping the local art scene. Offered with distinguished provenance from the collection of Alberto Mestas García, former Ambassador of Spain to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and his wife, Mercedes Suárez de Tangil Guzmán, the work had never before appeared at an international auction, according to Artprice records.

But Binzagr was just one of several strong results achieved by Saudi artists that night. The sale opened with the auction debut of Mohamed Siam, whose Untitled (Camel Race) sold above estimate for $94,500 (est. $70,000-90,000). A key figure in Saudi Arabia’s second generation of modern artists, Siam built his reputation through a uniquely refined and psychedelically structured form of geometric abstraction rooted in Arabic calligraphy and Islamic visual systems. Integrating Arabic letterforms into tightly controlled abstract compositions, calligraphy expands into architecture and space, acting as both container and echo chamber, recalling the visual dynamism of Orphism or Futurism while retaining a distinctly local spiritual dimension. Like waves propagating across a landscape, the painting’s fragmentation evokes the hazy vibrancy of warm tones shimmering under the desert sun before settling into a state of harmonic stillness, inviting meditative contemplation and attunement with broader cosmic rhythms. Siam’s works are already held in several major public institutions in Saudi Arabia, including King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh and the Abdul Raouf Khalil Museum in Jeddah, underscoring the lasting institutional recognition of his cultural contributions to the Kingdom.

Another record was set by Abdel Badie Abdel Hay, a Sudan-born, Saudi-based artist, with one of his granite sculptures selling for $222,300, more than twice its low estimate. Directly evoking ancient Egyptian black basalt and diorite sculpture, Abdel Hay’s totemic and historically grounded works had already appeared at auction. His previous record was set by a reclining cat sculpture, sold at Sotheby’s 20th Century Art / Middle East online-only sale in March 2022 for $140,156.

Meanwhile, among other remarkable results for Saudi artists to watch closely, an untitled work from 1989 by Mohammed Al Saleem also sold for three times its initial estimate, achieving a new record price of $756,000 (est. $150,000-200,000). Al Saleem (1939-1997) is widely regarded as one of the central pioneers of Saudi modern art and as the founder of the Kingdom’s most important indigenous abstract movement, the Al-Afaqiyya (Horizontism) school. His work distills the Arabian desert into expansive, fluid horizons of vibrating abstract forms that convey both the psychological and spiritual experience of Saudi geography, transforming the landscape into a mental and emotional terrain that reflects an entire cultural ecosystem. Structured around horizontal bands that, in their formal and spatial rhythm, can also evoke calligraphy, his compositions communicate vastness, silence and a sense of infinity.

Several Al Saleem works have recently appeared at auction, frequently exceeding presale estimates. In 2025, he achieved the third-highest hammer price in the “Origins I” auction, where his O’ God, Honor Them and Do Not Honor an Enemy Over Them (1977) sold for $660,000 from its initial estimate of $180,000-250,000. The result followed another strong performance, when a 1990 painting sold for £630,000 ($809,956) at Christie’s Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art auction: including Highlights from the Dalloul Collection in October 2024. More broadly, his auction market has followed a clear upward trajectory since Untitled (1986) sold at Sotheby’s 20th Century Art/Middle East sale in London in October 2023 for $1,080,870, far exceeding its estimate of $121,583-182,374, which remains his current record. Only a less abstract and less historically significant work offered by Christie’s U.A.E. in an online-only sale performed modestly, selling at its low estimate of $126,000 after premium.

His active role in shaping the Saudi cultural scene has further reinforced the importance of his work within the country’s artistic history. He founded Dar Al Funoon Al-Sa’udiyyah in 1980 under the patronage of Prince Faisal bin Fahad Al-Saud, establishing the Kingdom’s first multipurpose creative space that served as a venue for exhibitions and supplied art materials to emerging artists. Al Saleem later launched the International Gallery, an independent exhibition space that hosted numerous solo and group shows and helped nurture a growing community of modern artists.

Also standing out in the sale was Saudi artist Abdulhalim Radwi, with four works selling at or above their estimates, led by Untitled (Hajj Arafah), which achieved $214,200 against an estimate of $100,000-150,000. More dynamically narrative while remaining rooted in surrealistic abstraction, Radwi’s compositions allow figures to emerge from the fragmentation of densely layered and ornamented spaces. This effect is driven by a distinctive visual rhythm rooted in Arabic calligraphy, Islamic geometry and the atmospheric and spatial logic of the Saudi landscape, translated into a distinctly modern visual language.

The sale also marked the auction debut of Dia Aziz Dia, who, like Radwi, was awarded a state-funded scholarship to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where he produced the work that came to auction, La Palma (The Palma), which soared to $226,800 from a far more modest estimate of $60,000-80,000. The painting depicts a solitary figure and a tree rendered in silhouette, set against a vortex of luminous yellow impasto that evokes a desert landscape. It was awarded first prize at the Carnevale ’71 exhibition in Rome, marking an early moment of international recognition both for the artist and for Saudi artists abroad. He would later represent Saudi Arabia at the 11th Kuwait Exhibition for Arab Artists in 1989 and at the Arab Forum for Contemporary Art in Doha, Qatar, in 2017. One of his most important public sculptures, The Gate of Mecca, still stands at the entrance to the city along the Mecca-Jeddah Highway.

The sale also delivered strong results for other established and historically significant artists from the MENA region. A rare masterwork by Mahmoud Sabri, a central figure in Iraqi modernism, sold for $403,200 (estimate: $400,000-500,000). Ahmed Morsi, one of the most intellectually rigorous and influential figures in modern Arab art and a key bridge between Egypt’s artistic scene and the international mid-20th-century avant-garde through his distinctively Surrealist vocabulary, also set a new auction record, with his Deux Pêcheurs (Two Fishermen) selling for $189,000 (estimate: $120,000-180,000). Meanwhile, Iranian-born and New York-based artist Ali Banisadr’s Divine Winds more than doubled its estimate to achieve $315,000 (estimate: $100,000-150,000), a result that followed his sold-out presentation at Art Basel Qatar with Perrotin, which represents him alongside Victoria Miró and Olney Gleason (formerly Kasmin).

At 88, Samia Halaby, a Palestinian-born, Tribeca-based abstract artist and early pioneer of digital art, is also finally receiving broader market recognition. Her Copper, from the Samawi Collection, one of the largest private collections of modern Arab, Iranian and Turkish art, soared to $315,000, well above its estimate of $120,000-180,000. During Art Basel Qatar, several works by Halaby were also on view at Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art as part of “we refuse,” a major survey exhibition running through February 9, 2026, culminating what, according to ArtTactic, was her strongest market year on record, with total sales reaching $956,076. Just last November, her Gardenia fetched £152,400 ($199,974), well above its £50,000-£70,000 estimate at Christie’s London, while Flowers in the Sky for Hala (1995) sold within estimate for £146,050.

Beyond the headline figures for artists still largely unfamiliar to the Western side of the art market, what stands out most clearly is that as the Saudi collector base expands and becomes more active, it appears to favor artists with strong institutional validation that affirms their cultural significance within the country’s historical narrative—and, in turn, reinforces their economic value. Rather than gravitating toward speculation on newly minted ultra-contemporary local stars, as seen in other emerging regional markets that often produce boom-and-bust cycles, collectors seem to be prioritizing foundational figures. The country’s cultural buildout is creating a more sustainable structural demand rooted in historical continuity, as its rapidly expanding art ecosystem and institutional infrastructure require anchoring narratives more than speculative surges driven by newly produced work.

At the same time, international blue-chip and historically validated contemporary names also delivered strong results, attracting significant interest from regional collectors and signaling a growing willingness among Saudi buyers to position their acquisitions within a global art-historical continuum. This reflects a deliberate effort to integrate foundational international figures alongside regional pioneers, particularly through works that sustain a meaningful two-way dialogue. Pablo Picasso’s late-life Paysage sold for $1,600,000 (estimate: $2-3 million) to become the second most valuable artwork ever sold at auction in Saudi Arabia, while two ceramics by the artist exceeded their estimates, led by Femme du barbu, which achieved $60,480 (estimate: $20,000-30,000).

Seven works by Roy Lichtenstein, consigned directly from the personal collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein, immediately found enthusiastic buyers in Saudi Arabia, marking the latest installment of works from the artist’s estate to come to auction across a series of sales in New York. The group achieved a 100 percent sell-through rate, contributing to a combined total of more than $172 million realized so far from the estate. Leading the selection this time was Interior with Ajax (Study), created as a preparatory work for a painting commissioned by late fashion designer Gianni Versace, which realized $882,000 (est. $600,000-800,000).

Warhol’s de Chirico-inspired Disquieting Muses (After de Chirico) sold within estimate for $1,033,200, alongside a complete set of four screenprints of Muhammad Ali that achieved $352,000. Meanwhile, a large and iconic pink mirror by Anish Kapoor sold for $730,800 (est. $600,000-800,000), while James Turrell’s luminous field of green and blue light achieved $630,000 (est. $350,000-450,000), marking the third highest auction price for the artist, who recently unveiled plans for a monumental installation in AlUla.

Taken together, the results suggest that the region’s collector base is increasingly oriented toward acquiring institutionally validated works rather than speculative contemporary production. As both collectors and cultural institutions commit to constructing a national and regional canon in real time, the Saudi art market appears poised to develop on a foundation of historical validation and long-term cultural investment, rather than volatility driven by short-term speculation.

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