HONG KONG
In late August, Sotheby’s Hong Kong announced it would hold the first of several auctions of modern and contemporary artworks collected by the Chinese billionaire Liu Yiqian and his wife Wang Wei, who in 2012 founded the private Long Museum in Shanghai and later a second branch in Shanghai and a satellite space in Chongqing. While maintaining that the works destined for sales come from their personal collection, Liu and Wang consigned a portion to Sotheby’s Hong Kong for the house’s auction week, (October 2–9), marking its 50th anniversary in Asia.
The special sale, “A Long Journey,” was held on the evening of October 5 between Sotheby’s modern and contemporary sales. Of (ca. 1919), which went for HKD 273 million (USD 34.8 million), almost 20 percent lower than the HKD 335 million (USD 42.8 million) they paid for it at Sotheby’s New York in 2015. In contrast, another modernist painting, (1938–39) by Rene Magritte, archieved HKD 77.5 million (USD 9.9 million), 30 percent more than what they spent, HKD 52 million (USD 6.7 million), for it at Christie’s New York in 2015. American artist Mark Bradford came third with his mixed-media canvas (2019), at HKD 29.5 million (USD 3.7 million), albeit barely touching its lowest estimates of HKD 30 million (USD 3.8 million). Among the ten collection artworks that went unsold were Yayoi Kusama’s human-sized bronze sculpture of a flower; a painting of a nude woman by Japanese-Parisian painter Leonard Tsuguharu; and an orchid still life by Nanyang School painter Georgette Chen, along with works by Chinese artists Wu Dayu, Zao Wou-ki, Ding Yi, and Liang Yuanwei.
