Under the hammer in Hong Kong: Basquiat’s ‘Ancient Scientist’ leads Christie’s auctions with estimate up to $9.7 million

One of the most important events of the autumn art season takes place in Hong Kong today: Christie’s is holding its 20th and 21st century marquee sales at its Asia-Pacific headquarters, The Henderson in Central, with headline works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, Yayoi Kusama and Zao Wou-Ki, as The Art Newspaper reports.

The headline lot of the September 29 evening sale is Basquiat’s “Ancient Scientist” (1984): a large mixed-media composition — acrylic, oilstick and Xerox paper collage on canvas — dominated by the skull, one of the American artist’s most emblematic motifs. The work is estimated between HK$56 and HK$76 million, roughly $7.1–9.7 million.

Among the evening’s headline lots is also Yayoi Kusama’s “A-Pumpkin (YHP)” (2011), estimated at HK$48–68 million ($6.1–8.7 million). It is the work’s first appearance at auction, just weeks after the Japanese artist’s death in August at the age of 97: the yellow pumpkin with black dots against the “Infinity Net” background remains among the most beloved motifs of her oeuvre.

Asian modernism is represented by Zao Wou-Ki’s “Voie lactée – 09.11.56” (1956), from the famous “Oracle Bone” period, when the Chinese-French artist transformed ancient Chinese inscriptions into abstract compositions evoking the Milky Way. Estimate: HK$45–75 million ($5.7–9.6 million).

The September 29–30 sales, part of Christie’s 40th anniversary in Asia, place special emphasis on artists with strong markets in Asia — Chu Teh-Chun (“Automne”), Liu Ye (“Blue Sea”), Wu Guanzhong, Park Seo-Bo — alongside major Western names such as Cézanne, Picasso, Dalí and Gerhard Richter.