Saudi Artist Breaks Record with $2m Sale at Sotheby’s Diriyah Auction

A painting by Safeya Binzagr set a new auction record for the Saudi Arabian artist in Diriyah on Saturday, where it was sold by Sotheby’s for more than ten times its top estimate.

Binzagr’s Coffee Shop in Madina Road (1968) made $2.06 million (including fees) at Sotheby’s Origins II, having gone under the hammer with an estimate of $150,000–200,000. The sale marks the third highest price ever achieved at auction by an Arab artist.

Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s head of contemporary art day sale, 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 added.

The work came from the collection of Alberto Mestas García, the former Spanish ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and his wife Mercedes Suárez de Tangil Guzmán. 

Born in 1940, Binzagr was educated first in Cairo and then at Saint Martin’s School of Art in London. She held one of Saudi Arabia’s first shows by women artists in 1968, and in 1995, she opened the Darat Safeya Binzagr cultural centre in Jeddah. Binzagr died in 2024, aged 84, and is often remembered as the ‘spiritual mother of contemporary Saudi art’.

Origins II’s second-largest sale was achieved by Pablo Picasso’s Paysage (1965) at $1.5 million (with fees), albeit well below its estimate of $2–$3 million.

Works from other Saudi artists performed well, with an untitled 1989 work by Mohammed Al Saleem selling for $756,000 (with fees), more than triple its top estimate of $200,000, while artists from across the region also saw positive results. 

An oil painting, Divine Winds (2012) by Tehran-born Ali Banisadr, doubled its estimate to achieve $315,000 (with fees), while Deux Pêcheurs (Two Fishermen) (1954) by Ahmed Morsi sold for $189,000, setting a new auction record for the Egyptian artist.

Baghestani said: ‘What’s particularly exciting is how this sale has introduced local and regional artists to a wider collector base, expanding visibility and sparking deeper interest in the cultural and artistic expression of the region.’

By comparison, some bigger international names fared slightly less well. Andy Warhol’s Disquieting Muses (After de Chirico) (1982), sold for $1.03 million (with fees) against an estimate of $800,000–1.2 million, while a large-scale concave mirror sculpture by Anish Kapoor made $730,800 (with fees) with an estimate of $600,000–800,000.

Origins II marks Sotheby’s second foray into Saudi Arabia. The first edition of the auction, which took place in Diriyah in February last year, achieved $17.28 million (with fees) with a sell-through rate of 67 percent by lot and 74 percent by value.

Overall, Saturday’s auction netted $19.6 million (with fees), bringing the total for both events to more than $32 million. —[O]

Main image: Safeya Binzagr, Coffee Shop in Madina Road (1968). Courtesy Sotheby's.