Sotheby’s Hong Kong Evening Auction Total Hits Three-Year High

A s Alex Branczik, Sotheby’s Chairman of Modern and Contemporary Art, EMEA & Asia, brought the hammer down on lot after record-breaking lot in a packed saleroom, it was clear that 28 September would become an evening to remember in Hong Kong. With a combined sale total of HK$738,554,400 / US$ 96,012,072, it marked a 35% increase on the previous season, and Hong Kong’s highest total in the category since Autumn 2023.

These results capped off an astounding 12 days where nearly 85,000 visitors queued around Landmark Central to view PSYCHO: Identity Alienation Shadow Duality, the latest installment in Sotheby’s Maison’s program of cross-category, museum-quality exhibitions bringing together major private loans alongside landmark works from the Modern & Contemporary Art auctions. Exploring the tensions and contradictions beneath modern life through the psychological language of art, cinema and literature, it featured standout works such as Yoshitomo Nara’s Present (1994) and The Crated Room in Iceland/Drawing Room (2009).

Yoshitomo Nara’s Present (1994) — Yoshitomo Nara’s *Present* (1994)

Present, the first Nara painting on canvas to depict his iconic child in full figure and one of the two largest knife-bearing canvases of the 1990s, became the top lot of the night, realizing HK$71,660,000 / US$9,315,800. Crated Room in Iceland/Drawing Room—fresh to auction and unseen by the public for 17 years since it was presented at Nara’s 2009 exhibition at Reykjavik Art Museum—was not far behind, fetching an impressive HK$61,900,000 / US$8,047,000.

There was 100% sell-through rate for Japanese artists across both evening sales, including Yayoi Kusama’s ethereal white-on-blue Infinity-Nets (LHLUJ) (2017), which sold above its high estimate at HK$15,360,000 (US$1,996,800); Tetsuya Ishida’s Can't Fly Anymore (1996) also surpassed its high estimate at HK$ 12,160,000 (US$1,580,800), and Yu Nishimura’s at night (2022) more than doubled its high estimate to fetch HK$2,304,000 (US$299,520).

Oliver Barker, Sotheby's European Chairman, receives white gloves after *The Foujita Lexicon* achieved 100% sell-through.

The market’s appetite for Japanese art was also on show in the intense bidding for The Foujita Lexicon: Works from the Lewis Collection. Sotheby’s first dedicated single-artist auction in Asia, and the most comprehensive offering of Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita's work ever presented at auction in the region, The Foujita Lexicon achieved a white-glove, 100% sold, total of HK$67,224,000 / US$8,739,120. The Lewis Collection was meticulously assembled over three decades, and represents one of the most celebrated private collections devoted to the French-Japanese artist.

Numerous works from the sale are expected to feature in the Clark Art Institute's forthcoming Foujita exhibition in Summer 2028, including Mon portrait (1924), Le rêve (Hommage à La Fontaine) (1949), Madeleine endormie (1933), Le Mexique (1933), La femme au miroir (1918), La belle espagnole (1952), and Femme debout (1914). Le rêve (Hommage à La Fontaine) and Nu assoupi sur la table (1927) were acquired by Japan’s Musée Ando à Karuizawa, the only museum in the world dedicated exclusively to the works of Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita.

Other notable lots saw inspired bidding on Monday evening:

● New auction records were set for two contemporary Chinese artists when Hu Xiaoyuan's Wood - Rift I (2011-13) surpassed its high estimate to achieve HK1,664,000 (US$216,320) and Li Hei Di's The Heaviest of Burdens Crushes Us, We Sink Beneath It, It Pins Us to the Ground (2023) achieved HK$3,328,000 (US$432,640), more than double its high estimate, with 18 bids placed.

● The highest price for any Vietnamese work sold at auction now belongs to Vu Cao Dam, when Conversation d'élégantes au jardin (1939), an elegant tableau of five ladies seated in conversation, sold above its pre-sale high estimate at HK$28,960,000 (US$ 3,764,800), with 14 bids placed.

● A new auction record in Asia for the Impressionist master Pierre-Auguste Renoir when Paysage avec figures (1890-93) sold for HK$ 52,140,000 (US$6,778,200), more than double its high estimate.

● The highest ever price in Asia for the French Fauvist Henri Matisse was achieved when Femme nue (circa 1915) sold for HK$21,030,000 (US$2,733,900).