Christie's is marking its arrival as a fine art auctioneer in Abu Dhabi with a showpiece preview and its first sale in the emirate, underlining how quickly the Gulf capital has become a focus for the international art market.

The house will display three multi-million-dollar works from its upcoming New York evening sale at the Abu Dhabi Edition Ballroom until 1 November. Leading the group is Wassily Kandinsky's Betonte Ecken, painted in 1923 at a key moment in the emergence of abstract art and estimated at $60 million to $80 million. Alongside it are Mark Rothko's red, pink and white Untitled from 1968, estimated at $10 million to $15 million, and Pablo Picasso's Tete de femme from 1939, a portrait that appears to merge the identities of the artist's lovers Dora Maar and Marie-Therese Walter, estimated at $12 million to $18 million. The three works then travel to New York, where they go under the hammer on 17 November.

The preview comes ahead of Christie's first fine art auction in Abu Dhabi, MAWASIM: 20 Years of Modern and Contemporary Middle Eastern Art, which takes place on Sunday 1 November. Taking its name from the Arabic word for seasons, the sale features 70 works spanning nine decades, bringing together artists from across the Middle East and North Africa. Among the lots are Fahrelnissa Zeid's Composition from 1948-1949, estimated at $500,000 to $700,000, Faisel Laibi Sahi's Baghdad Cafe (The Coffee Shop) from 2016, and Mahmoud Said's Portrait de Princesse Fadia from 1952, depicting the youngest daughter of King Farouk I and Queen Farida of Egypt.

Christie's described the sale as recognising Abu Dhabi as an important new chapter for the house, shaped by its international outlook and cultural ambition. The event lands just ahead of Frieze Abu Dhabi, which opens on 19 November.

The Abu Dhabi sale is part of a wider shift of gravity in the art world toward the Gulf, where new fairs, museums and auction activity are arriving in quick succession.