The rise of Palestinian artist Samia Halaby is expected to continue this fall

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Christie’s 2013 Paintings in November 2020, Christie’s 2013 Paintings during the 2013 pandemic Water lily Less than $37,000. When the painting returned to the block in May this year (almost a two-year market correction), it violated the slowdown, selling for $138,600, more than three and a half times its previous results.

This performance is hardly an outlier. Halaby is a Palestinian American artist who has been making experiments with abstract and computer influences of painting since 1959, and has seen a sharp rise in institutional attention and market value over the past decade. one Artnews The analysis found that in the past three years, there were 8 of her top ten auction results, including three in 2025. Her 11 pieces cleared the six-digit threshold at auction, mostly within the same time frame.

Institutional momentum is developing at the same time. Halaby’s first American museum survey opened last year at the Eli and Edyth Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University, which canceled another part of the show that originally appeared at the Indiana University’s Eskinajina Museum of Art. The exhibition follows a 2023 review at the Sharjah Art Gallery in the United Arab Emirates. In recent years, Halaby’s works have also been included in group exhibitions or committees at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate Modern, Kunsthalle Wien and Mudam in Luxembourg.

The same month Water lily For sale in 2020, another work sets the current auction record for Halaby. Large format oil painting Mediterranean Sea #279 (1974) exaggerated its £70,000 high estimate to £400,000 ($534,000) in Christie’s London estimate. (Unless otherwise stated, all prices include the buyer’s premium.)

“It’s interesting that during this time, we’ll all get that depth when the art market really isn’t at its peak,” said Marie-Claire Thijsen, deputy director of post-war and contemporary art at Christie. Artnews.

According to Thijsen, the most coveted period in Halaby’s practice was the 1970s. This proves this in recent sales: many of her best results come from her “Diagonal Flight” series (1974-79). In February, at Sotheby’s first sale in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Blue Trap (in the train station)sold for $384,000 in 1977, overestimated at $200,000. The painting comes from the collections of Khaled and Hisham Samawi, founders of Ayyam Gallery in Dubai, which has represented Halaby since 2006.

Noor Soussi, head of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art sales at Bonhams, said Harabee’s rise reflects a wider institutional and market shift for Arab female artists. Soussi tells Artnews By email.

Broad Art Museum assistant curator Rachel Winter and Halaby’s investigation organizers agreed. “In my opinion, socio-political events have also prompted people to return some of their attention to artists in the Arab world in the past two years,” she told her. Artnews.

Although Halaby’s 1970s canvas had already set a high level, her computer-generated work began to attract priority attention since the 1980s. Before the rise of NFT and generative art, Halaby worked on early Apple computers, creating fascinating colorful abstractions.

“She was interested in the power of computers very early,” Thijsen said.

Yassaman Ali, Phillips Middle East Regional Director, told Artnews In an email, Halaby experimented with digital tools, “and finally got their overdue attention. Institutionally, as well as in private collections and foundations, she provided a platform for her work to showcase and appreciate.”

Last year, Center Pompidou obtained three computer-generated works by Halaby from the 1980s. The Saastamoinen Foundation in Finland has added several. In May, MoMA announced that it also passed digital work from Halaby Artnews 1 of 1 series by top 200 collectors Ryan Zurrer. (Major collectors and institutions in the Middle East have collected Halaby’s work for many years, including the Barjeel Art Foundation in Qatar and Sharjah.

According to Thijsen, these acquisitions reflect a broader growth in our and European institutions seeking to support Arab and Middle Eastern artists. “They have reached a strong grasp of not having very strong work, and they are actively seeking to get it in this category,” she said. She added that interest in the United States has also grown since Halaby was included in the 2024 Venice Biennale, where she received special mentions from the jury there.

Since then, Christie’s has conducted several private sales to Halaby’s work, including major institutions and top private collectors.

Experts tell Artnews They hope that Haraby’s momentum will continue.

“The market is increasingly attracting artists who shape modernism in their own way, and Halaby is firmly in it,” said Bonhams’ Soussi. “As several important goods line up in the fall, including the works of major Arab modernists, we expect her market to continue to strengthen as collectors and institutions further recognize the depth of her work.”

“She has been challenging the boundaries of painting, abstraction, digital art,” Thijsen added. “Luckily, maybe it’s a bigger audience with this lens of diversity and inclusion.”

At Philips, Ali sees Halaby’s digital work as key to her growing legacy and gains re-relevance in advances in digital art, blockchain and artificial intelligence.

“Maybe, you can say we finally collectively caught up with Samia Halaby’s thinking process because she has been so forward-looking,” Ali said. “Maybe that’s why we finally appreciate her for who she is.”