Sanyu Continues to Dominate Hong Kong Auctions
By Lauren Long
ZAO WOU-KI,
The relay-style 20th Century: Hong Kong to New York, uniting salerooms in the two cities, follows on the success of the house’s USD 420 million global relay sale in July. The latest sale brought in USD 119 million, selling 90 percent of the lots offered, and was livestreamed to an audience of 500,000 people. The star lot was Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s fresh-to-market portrait of his model Carmen Gaumin in oil, Pierreuse (1889), which was purchased during the New York leg for USD 9 million, well above the USD 5 million high estimate. Auction favorite Yoshitomo Nara’s portrait of a girl, Agent Orange (In the Milky Lake) (2009), made HKD 66 million (USD 8.5 million) in Hong Kong, within estimates. Another postwar Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama, more than doubled the high estimate for the acrylic-on-canvas A-PUMPKIN-SPW (2014), attaining HKD 38.6 million (USD 5 million).
Nara is expected to lead tonight at Phillips’ 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in collaboration with Poly Auction Hong Kong, with Hot House Doll (1995), depicting a seated girl. The awaited inaugural joint sale by the two houses is offering 32 lots with estimates ranging between HKD 200,000 (USD 25,800) to HKD 70 million (USD 8.9 million).
Lauren Long is ArtAsiaPacific’s news and web editor.
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