Newly separated from an Italian prince, the American-born painter-poet Kay Sage (1898–1963) snuck into the studio of the surrealist Kurt Seligmann—enticed by a stack of paintings visible from the hallway of the Hotel Grosvenor in Paris. Later that summer, at Seligmann’s urging, she visited Galerie Charpentier and saw a painting titled Je vous attends (I am waiting for you) (1934)—the first she would glimpse of her future husband, Yves Tanguy (1900–55). The chance encounter proved transformative: already a student of landscape painting, she resolved to move to Paris from Italy and earn her place among the ranks of the Surrealists. In 1938, the seemingly predestined couple met and remained constant companions until Tanguy’s death in 1955.
A powerful tropical cyclone swept over southern China, but it did not deter an international auction house to continue with its sale on 9 October. Sotheby's Hong Kong Modern Art Evening Sale performed much lower than expected, with a total hammer price of HK$485 million (around US$61.7 million) dollars – less than the HK$648 million (US$83.2 million) dollar total estimated price.