All sold for auctions in Hong Kong
The week of Art Basel also catalysed the auctions: white gloves for Christie's and Sotheby's auctions. The total with Bonhams and Phillips exceeds 200 million US dollars
Key points
The auction session held in Hong Kong during the ArtBasel Art Week, held from 25 to 29 March, was a great success for all the catalogues offered by the major Western auction houses, with both Christie's and Sotheby's evening auctions selling entirely and a total that, with the other houses and smaller catalogues, exceeded 200 million US dollars (US$).
Richter and Sanyu lead Christie's
Christie's celebrated its 40th anniversary in the region on 27 March in the elegant setting of The Henderson skyscraper, with a reduced catalogue of 37 lots all selling for total proceeds of more than HK$655m, or US$83.8m, up on last year's similar catalogue and exceeding expectations. Four of the top five realisations were protected by third-party guarantees, as were most of the million-dollar works of Western origin. The only one to surpass the US$10m mark was Gerhard Richter's two-metre large canvas 'Abstraktes Bild' from 1991 in bright red tones, which realised HK$92m (equivalent to US$11.8m) within estimate.
A protracted sequence of relaunches for the figurative work "Cheval agenouillé sur un tapis (Horse kneeling on a carpet)" by Sanyu, a Chinese-born painter who was part of the Paris School in the 1950s-1960s, a medium-sized oil on masonite depicting a horse, which bodes well for the year, brought the work to exceed its high estimate at HK$64 million (US$8.2 million). The realisation narrowly surpasses a new record for a work by German-born Primitivist painter Walter Spies, known in the inter-war years for works set in what was then a Dutch colony in Indonesia, such as the 1934 night view 'Balinese' with an unusual aerial viewpoint, which thanks in part to the guarantee, clocks in at HK$59 million from an estimate of HK$48-68 million. Yet another canvas version of Kusama's infamous gourd is also protected by the guarantee at HK$39.5m, towards the high estimate of HK$32-40m with commissions, just above David Hockney's 1985 tribute 'Chair' to Van Gogh, which is close to HK$39m from a guaranteed estimate of HK$32-48m.
Two well-known painting masters need no guarantees: Zao Wou-Ki whose large 1951 canvas stops at HK$35.7 million within the estimate, and Van Gogh with his earth-coloured 1883 early period composition 'Meisje in het bosch (A Girl in the Woods)', long contended for up to HK$33.4 million from an estimate of HK$10-20 million.
Also successful was the choice to offer a work of ancient art, a rare and meticulous Still Life with flowers, insects and a Chinese vase painted by the Flemish Johannes Goadaert in the 17th century, which due to its rarity and quality far exceeded the guaranteed estimate of HK$ 3.5-5.5 million to over HK$ 10 million.
