Saudi Arabian artist Safeya Binzagr broke both her own career record and the auction record in Saudi art history when her 1968 work Coffee Shop in Madina Road sold for 2.1 million dollars at Sotheby’s Diriyah auction.
Saudi Arabian artist Safeya Binzagr achieved a major milestone in Sotheby’s auction history with her 1968 painting Coffee Shop in Madina Road. The work was sold for 2.1 million dollars at an auction held in Saudi Arabia, marking the highest price the artist has ever achieved at auction. At the same time, this sale was recorded as the highest auction price ever reached for a work by a Saudi artist.
Offered at the evening sale held last Saturday in Diriyah, Riyadh, the painting far exceeded its pre-sale estimate of 150,000 to 200,000 dollars. With this result, Binzagr rose to third place among Arab artists who have achieved the highest prices in auction history. The previous record belonged to an untitled 1986 work by Mohammed Al Saleem, sold at Sotheby’s London in 2023.
International Interest in the Riyadh Sale
The auction, titled Origins II, achieved a total sales volume of 19.58 million dollars. The selection included artists from Saudi Arabia and the Middle East alongside leading figures of international contemporary art. Following Sotheby’s first auction in the kingdom last year, this sale is seen as a continuation of the auction house’s long-term plans for the region.
Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s contemporary art specialist and the director of the sale, stated that the results clearly demonstrated collector interest within the kingdom. Baghestani noted that both established collectors and new buyers actively participated in the market, and that local artists were being introduced to a broader network of collectors.
The auction took place at a time when Saudi Arabia is accelerating its investments in culture and the arts. While the third edition of the Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennial, which opened last week, stands out as one of the key milestones of this process, the region’s art ecosystem continues to attract international attention. In this context, Art Basel Qatar—the first Middle Eastern edition of Art Basel—is being held in Doha from February 5 to 7.
