For the first time, international auction houses in Hong Kong are holding competing marquee spring sales of Modern and contemporary art during Art Basel Hong Kong and the city’s concurrent art week.
“Strategically aligning with Art Basel allows us to capitalise on the influx of international collectors and art enthusiasts in the city, maximising exposure and sales opportunities,” says Elaine Holt, the chairman of Modern and contemporary art for Sotheby’s Asia.
Until recently, the biggest international auction houses—Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips and Bonhams—lacked their own Hong Kong headquarters, requiring them to hold previews and sales in the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, where the fair is held each year. Over the past two years, however, all four firms have opened sizeable locations with permanent salerooms in the city, allowing these events to coincide or, as the adviser Yuki Terase puts it, “go head to head”.
This week, Sotheby’s and Christie’s will stage evening sales, while Bonhams will hold a day auction of Asian art. Phillips, meanwhile, will continue to hold its marquee spring sale in May, as it has done since it opened its Hong Kong space in 2023, but “may adjust its schedule next year, as all international houses have now opened their spaces here”, says Meiling Lee, the head of Modern and contemporary art for Phillips Asia.
Marc Chagall’s 1930 painting Fleurs de printemps (La Cruche aux fleurs de printemps) is the centrepiece of Sotheby’s Modern and contemporary sale © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2025 credit: Sotheby’s.
Christie’s has secured this week’s prize lot: Jean-Michel Basquiat’s magenta-hued Sabado por la Noche (Saturday night, 1984), which will lead its 20th-/21st-century evening sale. It carries an estimate of HK$95m-HK$125m ($12.2m-$16m). The work was last sold in 2019, at Christie’s London, for $10m.
Few artists can match Basquiat’s recent track record in China. In 2021, Christie’s Hong Kong sold the artist’s 1982 painting Warrior for HK$323.6m ($41.8m), whereupon it became the most expensive work by a Western artist sold in Asia. Later that year it sold another 1982 work by Basquiat Untitled (One Eyed Man or Xerox Face) in Hong Kong for HK$234.3m ($30.3m).
“Basquiat is the Picasso of this generation,” Terase says. “In Asia especially, he is the trophy artist that every major collector wants.” She notes that the consignment was secured “last minute” and, thanks to its third-party guarantee, will make a healthy profit for its owner.
Safe bets are necessary in a trickier market. Chinese art buying has slowed since the pandemic: auction sales in Hong Kong and mainland China fell by 33% to $576m in 2024 compared with the previous year, the lowest level since 2017, according to a new report on the Chinese art market by the law firm Mishcon de Reya and the art analytics company ArtTactic.
The 2024 opening of Sotheby’s Maison in the Landmark Chater building signalled the auction house’s commitment to the Asian market Derry Ainsworth
As a result, this week’s sales are considerably slimmer than in previous years. Christie’s 43-lot sale includes just one eight-figure work, the aforementioned Basquiat, with paintings by Zao Wou-Ki (est HK$40m-HK$60m) and Magritte (est HK$42m-HK$55m) propping up the top end, for a total estimate of HK$442m to HK$663.9m. This is a far cry from the HK$1.6bn netted from its equivalent spring sale in 2021 and also south of the HK$858m it made from 63 lots in its equivalent 2019 sale.
Sotheby’s Modern and contemporary evening auction, meanwhile, carries an even lower pre-sale estimate of just HK$226.8m to HK$365.7m. It is also staging a selling exhibition, Corpus, featuring Giacometti’s La Jambe, cast in 1962.
“It is no secret that auction houses have been finding it harder to source at every location and this is no different for Hong Kong,” says the adviser Patti Wong. “The focus has been to bring works by artists with a strong Asian following and manage sellers’ price expectations down to a more reasonable level to entice buyers.”
Terase notes that this week’s sales include very few ultra-contemporary Western artists with nascent markets, “something that the Hong Kong sales used to be known for”. This trend began last autumn, she observes, when Sotheby’s and Christie’s both held inaugural sales at their Hong Kong headquarters. Gone were names like Julien Nguyen and Michaela Yearwood-Dan in favour of blue-chip favourites such as Van Gogh and Kim Whanki. Cristian Albu, Christie’s deputy chairman and head of 20th- and 21st-century art, Asia Pacific, told The Art Newspaper after the sale: “We walked away from the ultra-contemporary market, everything painted a year or two ago; I don’t want us to be part of the speculation.” In this week’s Christie’s Hong Kong sale, just one artist, Gongkan, is under 40.
The move to tried-and-tested names is even more pronounced at Sotheby’s, which has a “particular emphasis on established artists”, Holt says. Leading the sale is Marc Chagall’s Fleurs de printemps (1930, est HK$22m-HK$28m), while the top five lots include a Renoir nude, a reclining sculpture by Henry Moore and a Rodin bronze of a couple in an embrace.
This classic focus is “well timed”, Wong says, with institutional exhibitions of Western artists from the 19th and 20th centuries taking place in Hong Kong this week, notably Cézanne and Renoir Looking at the World at the Hong Kong Museum of Art and Picasso for Asia—a Conversation at M+. Phillips will also stage a selling exhibition of animal works by Picasso to coincide with the M+ show.
“Despite global market headwinds, Asia Pacific collectors remain a driving force in the art market,” Holt says. “The early March London auctions—a key litmus test for the market this year —secured a robust 90% sell-through rate and Asian collectors emerged triumphant.”
“While the global economy remains challenging, Asian collectors continue to be internationally active across our sales, not only in Hong Kong and Shanghai but also at Christie’s key global sale sites including New York, London, Geneva and Paris,” says Francis Bellin, the president of Christie’s Asia Pacific. “In 2024, collectors from the region contributed a solid 26% of the spend at Christie’s global auctions overall.”
Strong Asian bidding in global sales has been touted as proof of the region’s resilience, yet these same collectors appear to buy less energetically in Hong Kong and mainland China. Terase explained this in a newsletter she writes for Art Intelligence Global, the advisory firm she co-founded. While Asian collecting has entered a new phase of maturity in which “the urgency to build a world-class Western blue-chip collection overnight has somewhat softened”, she wrote, “[there is] a lack of high-quality supply being marketed in the region. This can make it feel as though there is a ‘slowdown’, but from where I’m standing it’s not for lack of collector appetite.”
Wong concurs, saying that “efforts to source from within the region need to be strengthened”, and emphasises the importance of this week’s performance. “Exceptional results will also be a draw for international consignors.”
• Christie’s 20th-/21st-century evening sale, 28 March, 7pm; Sotheby’s Modern and contemporary evening sale, 29 March, 7pm
