Asia Society Hong Kong brings our global ‘Art for Breakfast’ Series to the city during Hong Kong’s international Arts Month. Members are welcomed to our JC hall for a light breakfast and conversations with new perspectives on the art market.
After a year of turbulence and despite the general depression of the global economy, topics of Greater China and Asia-Pacific’s art market are still rapidly expanding. As we watch the region overtake the US to become the largest market share of public auction sales, Christie’s headline Non-Fungible Token (NFT) art piece selling for a record-breaking $69 Million USD to a Singaporean blockchain entrepreneur, and a record high of $12.4 Billion USD for online art sales. It’s about time to re-engage with innovative speakers and look to the future.
Xu Beihong s Slave and Lion (1924) Courtesy of Christie s
Christie s will offer an early oil painting by the 20th-century Chinese Realist artist Xu Beihong with a price tag of £32m to £41m, the highest estimate placed on an Asian work of art by a Western auction house.
Slave and Lion (1924) will be presented in a single lot sale, immediately after Christie s 20th and 21st century Evening Sale in Hong Kong on 24 May.
The most expensive Asian work sold by Christie s currently stands at £41m for
Wood and Rock, an 11th-century handscroll by the Chinese calligrapher Su Shi.
However, the Xu work will need to surpass its high estimate to beat the record holder for an Asian work sold by a Western house a ten-metre oil painting by the late Chinese-French artist Zao Wou-ki that made £46.4m at Sotheby s in Hong Kong in 2018.
Phillips Hong Kong fall auctions realise HK$710 million
Graeme Thompson, Worldwide Head of Jewellery, Phillips, conducted the auction of Les Jardins de Giverny which fetched HK$20 million. Image courtesy of Phillips.
HONG KONG
.- Jonathan Crockett, Chairman, Asia, Phillips, said: Despite a challenging global environment in 2020, our fifth anniversary in Asia marked an outstanding year for Phillips, with auction sales in Hong Kong increasing by more than 24% over the previous year, to HK$1.18 billion/ US$152 million, and once again marking our best year in the region. Our Hong Kong Sales of 20th Century & Contemporary Art & Design have consistently set new records for the category, with the Fall auction series seeing an 87% year-on-year increase and setting multiple world auction records. This season, we continued to see astonishing international participation in our Hong Kong Watch auction, with 1,600 bidders raising their paddles in the saleroom, over the phone and online, th