HONG KONG.- Christie's will present the Hong Kong 20th/21st Century Spring Auctions, held live at Christie's Asia Pacific headquarters at The Henderson during Hong Kong Art Week. This highly anticipated sales series begins on 27 March with the 20th/21st Century Evening Sale, followed by the 20th Century Day Sale and the 21st Century Day Sale on 28 March, bringing together an exceptional selection of works by renowned artists from around the globe, including highlights by Gerhard Richter, Sanyu, Walter Spies, David Hockney, Yayoi Kusama, Zao Wou-Ki and more. The preview exhibition is free and open to the public from 24 to 27 March. Presented as Christie's celebrates its 40th Anniversary in Asia, the sales are part of a programme of auctions, special exhibitions and events throughout 2026.

Gerhard Richter's Abstraktes Bild (1991; estimate: HK$78,000,000 – 98,000,000 / US$10,000,000 – 13,000,000) will make its auction debut as the headliner of the Evening Sale. Painted in 1991, the same year as Richter's landmark retrospective at Tate, London, this powerful, incandescent work is an extremely rare example within the artist's famed Abstraktes Bild series due to its dominant fields of radiant red paint. With outstanding provenance that includes Galerie Liliane & Michel DurandDessert, Abstraktes Bild embodies Richter's masterful handling of a squeegee to rigorously build deep, tonal painterly layers, scraping and manipulating the surface in places to reveal a multitude of colours hidden beneath.

A further highlight is Sanyu's Cheval agenouillé sur un tapis (Kneeling Horse on Carpet) (1950s-1960s; estimate: HK$28,000,000 – 48,000,000 / US$3,600,000 – 6,200,000), which will also appear at auction for the first time. Presented with impeccable provenance, the work was acquired directly by and kept for generations within the Lévy family – close friends and important supporters of Sanyu. A beautiful example of the artist's scarcely-seen horse-themed works, and one of only nine in existence to depict a circus subject – the painting fuses both Eastern symbolism and Western circus culture, envisioning a horse mid-performance, kneeling elegantly on a golden carpet adorned with a pattern of auspicious Chinese motifs. The work is part of a selection of artistry in the Evening and Day Sales, including paintings by Marc Chagall, and Jean Michel-Basquiat, that highlight the symbolic breadth the horse has offered artists across eras and genres.

On 28 March, the Day Sales will round off the series, showcasing a rich spectrum of international artistic perspectives. The 20th Century Day Sale is led by Zao Wou-Ki's 18.03.63 from his legendary Hurricane Period (1963, estimate HK$11,000,000 – 18,000,000 / US$1,500,000 – 2,300,000), alongside works by Western masters including Marc Chagall, and Joan Miró. The sale includes an exemplary offering of Korean and Japanese art, as well as a selection of Southeast Asian art highlighted by the private collection of Melchior Dejouany. Dejouany's collection passionately traces the depth and evolution of Vietnamese creativity across an 80-year period (1935–2015), featuring early masters of the Indochina School of Fine Arts such as Nguyễn Gia Trí and Lê Phổ, alongside leading contemporary voices including Nguyễn Trung. A representative abstract composition by Christine Ay Tjoe's …to See the White Land (2012, estimate: HK$8,000,000 – 12,000,000) leads the 21st Century Day Sale, joined by Nicolas Party's Still Life (2015, HK$7,000,000 – 12,000,000), composed of an iconic triple fruit motif, as well as highlights by Gerhard Richter, Yayoi Kusama, Andy Warhol, and Günther Förg.