HONG KONG.- Tonight, Sotheby’s Modern Art Evening Sale - the first flagship evening sale of year in Hong Kong - realised HK$826 million / US$107 million – the second highest total for the category ever achieved at Sotheby’s. A total of six auction records were set throughout the evening, with four lots achieving over HK$100m / US$12.9m.

A ten-minute bidding battle between four determined collectors drove the final sale price of Sanyu’s Quatre nus to HK$258m / US$33.3m. Bidding opened at HK$160m and climbed in steady increments, with two bidders pushing each other ever higher before going to a bidder on the phone. Chu Teh-Chun’s monumental Les éléments confédérés, the artist’s only pentaptych, soared to HK$114m / US$14.7m after a five-minute, four-way bidding battle, a price besting the artist’s previous HK$91.8 million record. Seven paintings by Zao Wou-Ki were 100% sold for a combined total of HK$318.5m / US$41m, led by the artist’s ‘Hurricane Period’ masterpieces 20.03.60 and 19.11.59, which brought respectively HK$115m / US$14.8m and HK$111m / US$14.3m.

Vinci Chang, Sotheby’s Head of Modern Asian Art, commented: “The stellar result of tonight’s sale is testament to the market’s undiminished appetite for top quality masterpieces. Clients who were not able to join us in person this season were enthusiastically bidding on the telephones – translating into an exceptionally strong auction total, with some stand-out individual results, and new auction records for a number of artists including for Chu Teh-Chun – a fitting tribute in the year that marks the centenary of the artist’s birth. To set a new benchmark for Sanyu with another of his iconic masterpieces, across two consecutive seasons, is a measure of the artist’s stature among collectors. We were equally thrilled with the results for seven masterpieces by Zao Wou-Ki, an artist in whom we continue to take pride in nurturing.”

SIX AUCTION RECORDS INCLUDING FOUR ARTIST AUCTION RECORDS:

• Chu Teh-Chun’s Les éléments confédérés
Sale price: HK$113,688,000 / US$14,678,000




• Guan Zilan’s Portrait of a Young Girl
Sale price: HK$9,775,000 / US$1,261,268

• Pang Jiun’s Monet’s Garden
Sale price: HK$7,375,000 / US$951,596

• Chen Ting-Shih’s Four Seasons
Sale price: HK$1,500,000 / US$387,090

OTHER AUCTION RECORDS:

• Chu Teh-Chun’s La Lune
Sale price: HK$4,735,000 / US$610,957
Chu Teh-Chun Calligraphy Record

• Sanyu’s Femme nue etendue
Sale price: HK$12,175,000 / US$1,570,940
Sanyu Oil Painting on Mirror Record