Three-year record: Sotheby’s Hong Kong evening auctions raise 96 million dollars

Sotheby’s Hong Kong closed its evening auctions of 28 September with a combined total of HK$738,554,400 — around 96 million dollars — 35 per cent more than last season and the house’s highest result in Hong Kong since the autumn of 2023, as Sotheby’s announces, while USA Art News also confirms the positive trend of the Asian art market.

The evening’s top lot was “Present” (1994) by Yoshitomo Nara — the artist’s first painting on canvas showing his iconic child in full figure — which sold for HK$71.66 million, around 9.3 million dollars. Also by Nara, “The Crated Room in Iceland/Drawing Room” (2009), seen at auction for the first time and not shown publicly for 17 years, reached HK$61.9 million, around 8.05 million dollars.

A historic first was also marked by the auction format: for the first time, Sotheby’s held a single-artist auction in Asia — “The Foujita Lexicon: Works from the Lewis Collection” — which sold 100 per cent (white-glove), with a total of HK$67.2 million, around 8.74 million dollars. Joe Lewis’s collection had been assembled over three decades, while the top lot, Foujita’s “Le rêve (Hommage à La Fontaine)” (1949), sold for 3.38 million dollars against an initial estimate of 510–765 thousand.

The evening’s new records also extend to European masters: an Asian record for Renoir — “Paysage avec figures” (1890–93) sold for HK$52.14 million, around 6.78 million dollars, more than double the estimate — and the highest price ever in Asia for Matisse, with “Femme nue” (around 1915) reaching HK$21.03 million, around 2.73 million dollars. New artist records were also set for Hu Xiaoyuan and Li Hei Di, while 100 per cent of the lots by Japanese artists were sold — Kusama’s “Infinity-Nets” and Ishida’s “Can’t Fly Anymore” went above their high estimates. A Vietnamese record, that of Vu Cao Dam, was not missing either.

The evening’s enthusiasm was also reflected in the flow of the public: almost 85,000 visitors attended the accompanying exhibition “PSYCHO: Identity Alienation Shadow Duality” over 12 days. The auction hammer was held by Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art EMEA & Asia.