TOP LOT OF THE EVENING:
More than 70 Bids in 4-Way, 20-Minute Bidding Battle Drive
Chu Teh-Chun’s Harmonie Hivernale
To Almost Triple Estimate: HK$229,568,000 / US$29,540,810
- Artist Auction Record Set at Sotheby’s for Second Consecutive Year -
ICONS: FIVE MASTERPIECES FROM ACROSS TIME AND SPACE
Sale Total: HK$373,953,000 / US$48,120,272
Pre-sale estimates: HK$292-428 million / US$38-55 million
New records set for works sold in Asia by Western Titans
- Pablo Picasso’s Buste de matador soars to HK$139,946,000 / US$18,008,251
- Alberto Giacometti’s Petit buste sur colonne sells for HK$25,585,000 / US$3,292,278
BEYOND LEGENDS: MODERN ART EVENING SALE
Sale Total: HK$771,141,400 / US$99,230,475
Sale exceeded high estimate (HK$485-758m/ US$62-97m) with 56% of lots sold achieving over high est
Auction Record for Chu Teh-Chun set by Sotheby’s for second consecutive year as Harmonie Hivernale soars to HK$229,568,000 / US$29,540,810, almost tripling estimates
- well above the artist’s previous record of HK$114m / US$14.7m, and the first time the artist’s work has crossed the US$20m threshold
Auction Record in Asia for Pierre Soulages whose Peinture 125 X 202 cm, 30 Octobre 1958 reaches HK$48,026,000 / US$6,179,986
The Madame Dothi Dumonteil collection of works from the Golden Age of Vietnamese Modern Art is 100% sold - led by Mai Trung Thu’s Portrait of Mademoiselle Phuong which fetches HK$24,375,000 / US$3,136,575, an auction record for any Vietnamese artwork and an auction record for the artist
Key insights
Four lots achieve over HK$100m / US$12.9m
- Sanyu, Nu avec un pékinois
- Pablo Picasso, Buste de matador
- Chu Teh-Chun, Harmonie Hivernale
- Zao Wou-Ki, 13.02.62
11 auction records:
- Artist auction records: Chu Teh-Chun, Mai Trung Thu, Li Huayi, Pham Hau, Le Thi Luu, André Brasilier and Chen Chi
- Artist records in Asia: Pablo Picasso, Alberto Giacometti, Pierre Soulages and Terry Frost
Modern Art offerings across the two sales* achieve a combined total of HK$1,042,148,400 / US$134,103,656 - second highest in this category at Sotheby’s Asia (highest total of HK$1.1 billion was achieved in Autumn 2018)
*Modern Art offering includes impressionist and modern art lots presented in “ICONS: Masterpieces from across Time and Space” (8001 Alberto Giacometti, Petit buste sur colonne, 8004 Sanyu, Nu avec un pékinois and 8005 Pablo Picasso, Buste de matador.)
Just announced live from the saleroom
One the finest large-scale Water Lilies paintings by Claude Monet ever to appear at auction will star in Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale on 12 May in New York. Estimated in the region of US$40 million, and measuring a monumental 40 by 79 inches, Le Bassin aux Nymphéas (1917-19) was conceived as part of the Grandes Décorations – the legendary series of monumental paintings Monet’s water lily pond at Giverny which can be found today in the Musée de l'Orangerie in Paris.
With exceptional provenance, including the collection of famed Hollywood and Broadway producer, Ray Stark and his wife Fran, this masterwork will go on view in Taipei beginning 26 April before returning to our York Avenue galleries for exhibition by appointment beginning 1 May. More details available here.
