Art Basel Hong Kong anchored a week of intense activity, with sales spanning entry-level to multimillion-dollar prices, an expansive ecosystem of satellite fairs and new spaces opening concurrently. That busy, buzzy week culminated in an auction session worth an expected $200 million, with the three major houses aligning their seasonal evening sales for the first time, confirming the importance of the city as the main regional hub for the APAC market. The evening sales alone generated a combined HK$1.292 billion ($165 million) in one weekend, thanks in part to varied, cross-category and cross-period offerings that reflected the more fluid approach to collecting in the region, particularly among younger generations. These buyers tend to be more selective and intentional, favoring a long-term approach to art buying that prioritizes historically validated names—or overlooked ones, particularly from the region’s cultural history—rather than participation in the speculation that dominated the ultra-contemporary market just a few seasons ago. The latest auctions in Asia confirm in many ways the findings of the recent Mishcon de Reya x ArtTactic China Art Market Report. Hong Kong is seeing strong regional demand while continuing to serve as a key gateway to Asia, with contemporary and traditional Asian art and historically validated international art emerging as the primary drivers of a market in a phase of stabilization.
At Christie’s, four world records and 100 percent sold
Christie’s kicked off the March Hong Kong auctions with its 20th/21st Century evening sale on March 28 at The Henderson featuring a lineup of high-caliber artworks. Ada Tsui, VP and head of department of 20th/21st Century Art at Christie’s Asia Pacific, told Observer ahead of the sale that the selection reflected a new and spreading market confidence. The saleroom and gallery was packed throughout—a fitting start to the auction house’s anniversary celebrations. The final result spoke for itself: HK$655.7 million, up 17 percent year-on-year; 100 percent sold by lot; hammer prices 117 percent above the low estimate; and four world auction records set. The two subsequent day sales achieved an outstanding hammer price of 135 percent above the low estimate.
The sale opened with fresh work by young talent Li Hei Di, the youngest artist currently on Pace’s roster and one of the few under-30 names thriving in the current market. Rapidly doubling its HK$400,500 opening bid in a fierce four-way phone battle, the painting hammered at HK$1.5 million against a HK$500,000-800,000 estimate, achieving HK$1.9 million after fees—an augury of the growing momentum for her work, confirmed by both Phillips and Sotheby’s later in the weekend.
The star lot was a vibrant 1991 red canvas from Gerhard Richter’s sought-after Abstraktes Bild series. Offered with an estimate of HK$78-98 million ($10-13 million)—after a stellar year at auction and institutional attention marked by the large survey at Fondation Louis Vuitton—the painting opened at HK$64 million and hammered at HK$76 million on the phone with Tsui, achieving HK$92.1 million ($11.8 million) with fees.
But one of the most spectacular results of the night came from a name less immediately familiar to the international market: Walter Spies. Blick von der Höhe (A View from the Heights), a luminous portrayal of the Balinese landscape painted by the German-Russian artist during his mature Bali years, opened at HK$14 million and attracted fierce bidding before hammering at HK$48 million (HK$59.1 million/$7.5 million with fees) to set a new world auction record for the artist. Born in Russia and raised in Germany, Spies settled in the Dutch East Indies in the 1920s, making Bali his permanent home from 1927. Immersed in local life, learning the language and co-founding the Pita Maha artists’ cooperative, he developed a wispy, magical visual language that fused observed detail with spiritual atmosphere.
The other highlight was an elegant horse painting by the highly sought-after Chinese modernist Sanyu, Cheval agenouillé sur un tapis (Kneeling Horse on Carpet)—on the block after two generations in the Levy family following its creation in the 1950s—and one of only nine known works depicting a circus subject. Auctioneer Adrian Mayer opened at HK$20 million with phones already lined up, triggering a prolonged bidding battle that quickly matched and then exceeded the high estimate of HK$48 million, before finally hammering at HK$52 million (HK$63.9 million/$8.1 million with fees) to set a new world auction record for the artist in this category. The second Sanyu of the evening, Modèle nue, assise, de dos II (Seated Nude Model, Viewed from the Back II), also exceeded expectations, soaring rapidly from its opening bid of HK$8 million to HK$26.1 million, chased by bidders both in the room and across the phones and landing well above its HK$11-20 million estimate.
Other highlights preceding these top lots included Claude Monet’s La maison à travers les roses, which opened at HK$12 million and landed within estimate at HK$18.5 million hammer (HK$23.1 million after fees), sold on the phone by Emmanuel Chan. Painted in Giverny in 1925-1926 and covered by a third-party guarantee, the work was originally acquired at Sotheby’s in 2018 for $1,035,000. Immediately after, an early Van Gogh, Meisje in het bosch (A Girl in a Wood) from 1883, opened at HK$5.8 million before quickly soaring above its high estimate in a back-and-forth across phones and hammering at HK$27 million (HK$33.4 million after fees).
Beyond the top lots, Irish-Japanese artist Atsushi Kaga’s Yes! (A Bag Made by My Mother)—a work distilling his characteristic fusion of Tokyo Otaku culture, Irish literary wit and Edo-period Rinpa elegance into a meditation on maternal legacy—achieved HK$4.6 million, followed by Lenz Geerk’s Couple on a Fresco, which set a new benchmark at HK$2.2 million. Completing the four records, the 17th-century Dutch naturalist-artist Johannes Goedaert’s Flowers in a Chinese Porcelain Vase, with Butterflies and Other Insects achieved HK$10.2 million—a result that perfectly illustrates the cross-category curiosity that defines this market.
Demand remains strong for the vibrant landscapes of Italian artist Salvo—retroactively rediscovered by the international market through his affinity with Nicolas Party—whose late La fine del giorno (2014) fetched HK$4.8 million after fees, hammering at HK$3.8 million well above its HK$1.4-1.8 million estimate, chased on the phones and by an online bidder from California.
A cooler response greeted a 1981 Basquiat, which landed just within estimate at HK$22.2 million, its loose association with the Year of the Horse perhaps no longer sufficient on its own for the international blue-chip name to resonate deeply with local buyers. Other international blue-chip names met their estimates squarely: the 1967 Picasso Nu couché et musicien sold for HK$15.8 million after fees; the highly anticipated orange-toned The Chair by David Hockney—featured in eight exhibitions, including most recently at Louis Vuitton Paris—hammered straightforwardly at HK$31.5 million (HK$38.9 million after fees) from an opening bid of HK$26 million. Both lots were covered by third-party guarantees.
More cautious bidding accompanied some of the hyped contemporary Chinese names; a work by Huang Yuxing hammered just above the low estimate for HK$3.5 million (HK$4.5 million with fees). Other pieces by regional names with strong market and institutional positioning included two historical Zao Wou-Ki works (HK$34.7 million and HK$15.1 million), an iconic yellow pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama (HK$39.5 million), a glazed-glass-ball deer Pix-Cell sculpture by Kohei Nawa (HK$6.6 million) and Lee Ufan’s From Line (HK$9.9 million). But a black-and-white abstraction by Korean contemporary artist Lee Bae exceeded expectations, soaring to HK$2.4 million from a modest HK$450,000-600,000 estimate, justified by genuine scarcity at the primary level, where it is almost impossible to access the artist’s work.
Also surpassing its high estimate was an early 1960s canvas by Chinese-French postwar pioneer Lalan, which achieved HK$4.4 million against a HK$2.8-3.8 million estimate, as demand for her work grows amid both institutional and market appreciation, driven particularly by collectors in Mainland China. Fierce bidding across phones and the room also pushed a painting by Filipino artist Robert Ventura above estimate to hammer at HK$2 million (HK$2.5 million after fees).
At Phillips, Nara’s East Village bar doodles led strong results
Phillips has built a strong client base in Hong Kong and across the region, having been the first to establish a permanent venue in the city and hold regular sales there. Opening just as Art Basel was closing its doors, its Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale totaled HK$49.5 million ($6.3 million), with a 98 percent sell-through rate by value and 93 percent by lot—bringing the combined total to HK$88.5 million ($11.3 million) with the Modern & Contemporary Art sale, which generated HK$39.1 million ($5 million).
Danielle So, Phillips Hong Kong head of auctions, Modern & Contemporary Art, attributed the success to a tightly curated selection of works that resonate across generations and geographies. Phillips appears to have mastered the multicultural, trans-genre, trans-historical character of the Hong Kong market—with highlights ranging from traditional Chinese ink painting to work by international contemporary artists such as Adam Pendleton, whose work connects with that aesthetic, alongside the evergreen Asian passion for Impressionist masters like Renoir and blue-chip names like Yayoi Kusama. Only one work was withdrawn before the sale—Takashi Murakami’s Untitled (2019)—and Huang Yuxing’s Full Moon (2017) was the only unsold lot. Phillips’ Priority Bid strategy is already popular in Asia, with 60 percent of lots offered in the evening sale receiving bids ahead of the start. Head of sale Rebecca Hu confirmed that 80 percent of buyers across both sales came from Asia.
Leading the evening sale was Liu Dan’s Dictionary (2011), which achieved HK$11.5 million ($1.47 million)—more than two and a half times its HK$4.5 million high estimate—and set a new auction record for the artist, surpassing the previous high of HK$10 million achieved in 2017. The result follows the largest survey to date dedicated to the 72-year-old artist, “Liu Dan: Morphogenesis,” staged at Phillips’ Hong Kong space in West Kowloon Cultural District with 26 ink and watercolor works spanning four decades of his oeuvre. A monumental ink painting in which Liu employs traditional Chinese techniques to subvert conventional perceptions of reality—dramatically enlarging an elementary school dictionary and transforming a familiar object into a monument—the work was backed by a guarantee that further confirmed its relevance in the artist’s oeuvre. Considered today one of the most influential figures in contemporary Chinese ink painting for his unique combination of scholarly depth with a singularly contemporary artistic vision, Liu reflected on this work: “I often think that when a person is reading a painting, they should also try to ask themselves—is this painting also reading you at the same time?”
Despite the strong presence of mainly Asian bidding in the sale, international names also outperformed all pre-sale expectations. Adam Pendleton’s Untitled (Days) (2023) sold for HK$5.4 million ($691,879), more than doubling its HK$1.5-2.4 million estimate to become the second-highest auction result for the artist. The result follows his recent Hirshhorn survey, “Adam Pendleton: Love, Queen,” and MoMA’s acquisition of all 35 works that made up his monumental atrium installation, “Who Is Queen?”.
Phillips also offered a significantly more poetic Kusama—Sunset Afterglow Inside My Heart, painted in 2020 during the pandemic, when the artist issued one of her rare public statements declaring that “the entire world is fighting.” Fresh to market, it sold within estimate for HK$6.5 million ($823,665), despite its personal significance in the artist’s life journey and its use of Kusama’s most iconic color combination of red and white.
Yoshitomo Nara’s doodle on a New York East Village bar door doubled its pre-sale high estimate, fetching HK$2.1 million from its HK$800,000-1.2 million estimate, after two years of global institutional attention. Nara had sketched his trademark doe-eyed figures after a celebratory night out in 2009, following the installation of a Chelsea show, ending the evening in a New York holding cell after drawing on a subway wall. The restroom door was removed and preserved in 2024 before hitting the auction block.
Timed with the momentum of the artist’s recently opened large-scale survey at Tate Modern, Tracey Emin’s I See the Mirror (2022) sold just shy of its high estimate, achieving HK$4.3 million ($543,619). The monumental canvas originated from Emin’s most critically acclaimed period—the profound creative rebirth following her battle with aggressive cancer in 2020, surgery that irrevocably altered her body and that she has described as leaving her with “severe disabilities.”
And while significantly lower than the six-figure results he was regularly hitting a few seasons ago, Nicholas Party’s Two Portraits (2016) exceeded its HK$2.5-3.5 million estimate to sell for HK$4.1 million ($527,146). The work failed to sell in May 2024 at Christie’s Hong Kong, having originally been acquired at another Phillips auction in 2022 for HK$6.5 million at the height of the ultra-contemporary hype and the artist’s speculative market peak.
With Asian buyers focused on historically validated names, Phillips also had strong results on the Modern and Impressionist side, with Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Paysage aux oliviers climbing to HK$4.9 million from its HK$2-3 million estimate. Another top result was for Chen Yifei’s Late Afternoon (Suzhou) (1984), which almost doubled its high estimate, selling for HK$2.1 million after fees against a HK$1.4-2.5 million estimate, confirming the current demand for overseas Chinese artists who trained abroad and built cross-border markets. Created in 1984, the work belongs to a period in which the artist turned away from monumental historical narratives toward a quieter, more introspective visual language shaped by memory, atmosphere and longing for place—culturally rooted, but newly liberated in subject matter.
Demand also appears to be returning for Zhang Xiaogang; his Bloodline Series—Father and Daughter (2005) surpassed its HK$3.5-5.5 million estimate to sell for HK$6.7 million ($856,612), suggesting that one of the most globally recognized names in Chinese contemporary art may be finding a second wind. The work belongs to the artist’s most celebrated series, which debuted at the Venice Biennale in 1995 and propelled his market as it steadily grew during the 2000s boom in Chinese contemporary art.
At Sotheby’s, a white glove cross-category, cross-century journey
Late the same evening, Sotheby’s staged the final stress test of the Asia market this season, the high-tier Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction preceded, as has become the house’s signature, by a thoughtfully curated exhibition in the Maison’s scenic Grotto. The dramatic lower-level space designed by Rotterdam-based architecture firm MVRDV, with its contoured ceilings rising to six meters and atmosphere shaped by Taoist principles of dichotomy and dynamic change, has become one of Hong Kong’s most distinctive venues for intimate encounters with art. This season it hosted “Beyond the Abstract,” the most sweeping survey of abstraction ever mounted in Greater China and an unusually ambitious attempt to trace a dialogue across 3,000 years of human mark-making, from ancient artifacts to 20th-century titans, pairing painting, sculpture, works on paper and historic objects across cultures and centuries. As Nicolas Chow, chairman of Sotheby’s Asia, framed it, the exhibition challenged the widespread assumption that abstraction is a modern invention, positioning African sculpture and Chinese antiquities as counterpoints to Mitchell, Rothko, Twombly and Zao Wou-Ki.
For two special nights, the exhibition was further amplified by “Sounds of the Grotto”—an immersive electronic music DJ set by Detroit artist Shawescape Renegade, which paired contemporary sonic experimentation with ancient and modern visual abstraction that felt genuinely fresh as an auction marketing strategy and brand experience, aimed equally at art connoisseurs and the younger creative audiences the house is increasingly courting. The strategy worked: Sotheby’s Maison welcomed almost 44,500 visitors over the two weeks of the exhibition—nearly 30 percent more than attended last March’s—bringing the total to well over one million since the opening of their Hong Kong space.
The sale itself was a success, generating HK$548 million ($70 million) across 54 lots, with a 100 percent sell-through rate after four withdrawals, and a result over 60 percent higher than last season’s total. Led from the rostrum by Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art, EMEA & Asia, almost half of all lots exceeded their high estimates.
The undisputed star of the entire Hong Kong Art Week—across all three houses—turned out to be not a canonical Western name but a work by a woman artist, consummating a slow-building market thesis in a single hammer blow. Joan Mitchell’s La Grande Vallée VII surpassed its HK$110 million estimate, becoming both the most expensive lot sold in Asia this season and the highest price ever achieved by a woman artist at auction in Asia, fetching HK$137.3 million ($17.6 million). The musically and chromatically vibrant abstract diptych belonged to the artist’s late-career series, which Mitchell created across 13 months of intensive work dedicated to her close friend and companion Gisèle Barreau, a French composer who lost her cousin to cancer just three days after Mitchell lost her own sister. The diptych last sold at Christie’s New York in July 2020 for $14.5 million—making the result a near-tenfold increase in just six years and confirming the momentum Mitchell’s market is building in Asia. The result was all the more striking for arriving in the context of “Beyond the Abstract,” where Mitchell had been positioned not merely as a market trophy but as part of a 3,000-year conversation about the human impulse to mark, gesture and feel through form.
The Rothko that followed was another masterpiece for the books. The early canvas, No. 10 (1949) from Rothko’s brief “Multiform” transitional period, was one of 12 works shown in his landmark January 1950 Betty Parsons Gallery exhibition and one of only three from that group still in private hands. This hazy, lyrical early abstraction drew at least five phone bidders before hammering at HK$54 million, achieving HK$66.8 million ($8.5 million) with fees against a HK$28-40 million estimate. Rothko appears in Asia only rarely. The only previous occasion was at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2024, when a large-scale 1954 color-field canvas fetched HK$252.5 million to become the fourth-most-expensive Western work ever sold in the region. The sale of this earlier canvas comes ahead of two major Rothko appearances in the New York May marquee sales: the monumental 1957 Brown and Blacks in Reds—which was also on view at the Maison during art week—carrying a $70-100 million estimate, and a second 1949 canvas estimated at $15-20 million, both from the collection of the late legendary financier turned art dealer Robert Mnuchin.
Another highly anticipated lot, given the market’s high demand for the artist, was Sanyu’s Beijing Circus. Recently resurfaced from an American collection in Minneapolis, where it was hidden for five decades, arriving just in time for the Year of the Horse. The painting on Masonite was previously unknown among the 321 recorded oil paintings by the artist, and the precious canvas opened at HK$28 million and attracted a three-way battle before hammering at HK$38 million, selling for HK$47.3 million ($6 million) with fees. The work had been acquired at a Minneapolis gallery estate sale in 1976 by a woman new to Sanyu, who bought it on instinct after being drawn to the horse—she later became an artist and an active collector herself. The same buyer apparently also acquired the large-scale Zao Wou-Ki from the artist’s celebrated Oracle Bone period, which hammered just above the low estimate at HK$32.5 million—a single-evening commitment of HK$87.8 million that spoke for itself. Later in the auction, Zao Wou-Ki’s warmly vibrant Terre rouge—16.01.2005 attracted 16 bids, achieving HK$32 million ($4.1 million).
Opening the sale was a sculpture of timeless, primordial beauty—poised between the archaic and the contemporary—Huma Bhabha’s Constantinium, by the already institutionally validated Pakistani-American artist, which from its opening bid of HK$1 million rapidly climbed between online and phone bids to HK$2.2 million, well above its HK$1.2-1.8 million estimate, selling for HK$2.8 million ($359,491) after fees.
A few lots later, the iconic Kusama yellow pumpkin hammered quite straightforwardly at its low estimate of HK$40 million. Other sculptural works also performed strongly. The elegant white Relief Sculpture (1995), organically carved in Portland stone by celebrated Singaporean-British sculptor Kim Lim, hammered at HK$1.4 million in the room (HK$1.8 million after fees), setting a new auction record for the artist. Later in the sale, Ugo Rondinone’s iconically colorful monolithic sculpture The Lucid (2017) achieved HK$3.6 million ($457,533), setting a new record for works by the artist sold at auction in Asia, as did Henri Matisse’s painting Jeune fille en noir (1919), fetching HK$8.3 million ($1.1 million).
Those were not the only records of the night. One of the most interesting was Eugène Carrière’s tender portrait of his wife and child, Caresse (circa 1894), which soared to 2.5 times its high estimate to hammer at HK$2.8 million (HK$3.6 million after fees)—a new auction record for the long-overlooked 19th-century artist, representing an increase of over 325 percent on his previous benchmark. Classified by contemporaries as a French Symbolist of the fin de siècle, celebrated for his near-monochrome brown palette and dreamlike, ethereal quality, Carrière earned among the first critical descriptions of a painting as approaching “abstract”—making his inclusion in “Beyond the Abstract” feel less like a curatorial conceit and more like a historical correction. Recently featured in the Kunstmuseum Basel survey on Medardo Rosso, who was deeply inspired by him, Carrière was also the subject of a dedicated exhibition at Sotheby’s Maison last year.
Chinese antiques enjoyed continued momentum in their regional market. A large Lingbi scholar’s rock from the Ming-Qing dynasty sold on the phone for HK$1.2 million, exceeding its high estimate. Similar enthusiasm welcomed a rare Amamori kohiki vase from the Joseon dynasty, 15th-16th century, which surpassed its estimate after a back-and-forth of over 10 bids on the phone, hammering just shy of its high estimate but achieving HK$6 million ($768,003) after fees.
A guaranteed Lee Ufan sold quite straightforwardly at its low estimate of HK$4 million. The French school performed within expectations when resonating with the gestural side of Asian painting: an expansive horizontal Hans Hartung soared from its opening bid of HK$1.2 million to hammer just shy of its high estimate at HK$2.6 million. A few lots later, George Mathieu landed squarely within estimate at HK$1.7 million on the phone. Confirming a regional interest in Italian established names reported by some galleries at Art Basel, a Morandi still life hammered at HK$6.5 million on the phone against a HK$2.5-4.5 million estimate, more than doubling the high to achieve HK$8.3 million ($1.1 million) after fees.
Other regional artists who have recently gained attention also delivered solid results. An elegant, feminine portrait by Vietnamese artist Mai Trung Thu hammered well above estimate at HK$5 million, selling for HK$7 million after fees, while another more articulated composition landed squarely within estimate at HK$4.5 million hammer (HK$5.8 million after fees). Another work by similarly revered modernist painter Lê Phổ also sold within estimate for HK$5.1 million. French-Chinese artist Lalan at Sotheby’s sold just shy of her highest estimate for HK$1.9 million. Wu Guanzhong’s Red Lotus Flowers (2003) was the session’s most electrifying regional moment—32 bids driving it to hammer for HK$13.5 million, selling for nearly triple its high estimate at HK$17.3 million ($2.2 million) after fees.
More cautious were the results on the contemporary side, particularly for international names that have been gaining traction mostly in the U.S. Both Matthew Wong lots struggled, hammering below their low estimates at HK$3 million and HK$4 million respectively—a notable softening for an artist whose posthumous market had until recently seemed impervious. A Herman Bas hammered at its low estimate of HK$2.5 million, and a Keith Haring closed at HK$11 million against a HK$14-20 million estimate, underlining the continued wariness around Western blue-chip names whose resonance with local buyers has visibly cooled.
Yet some recently rising contemporary names with strong collector bases in Asia still performed well above expectations. Nineteen bidders pursued Yu Nishimura’s portrait young man bug (2021) in a bidding battle lasting over five minutes, driving it to hammer at HK$2.2 million (HK$2.8 million after fees)—quadrupling its HK$700,000 estimate as the Japanese talent continues to attract collectors across geographies. A similar fandom is fueling the market for young abstract artist Li Hei Di, whose The Reservoir of Understanding (2022) nearly tripled its high estimate to achieve HK$1.9 million ($245,107) after fees. And Lucy Bull continues her momentum in Asia: her fresh-to-market 22:14 (2022) fetched nearly 3.5 times its low estimate to sell for HK$12.2 million ($1.6 million) after fees.
Taken together, these results paint a vivid portrait of a market that is maturing without losing its appetite and building lasting value and legacy rather than chasing speculative heat.
