Works by major artists of East and West will go to the auction block in Phillips’ debut art sale in Hong Kong next month, with market stars like George Condo, Yayoi Kusama, Gerhard Richter, Lee Ufan, Andy Warhol, and Liu Wei represented.
Gerhard Richter, Abstraktes Bild 776-1 (Abstract Painting) (1992). Courtesy Phillips.
The date is set for November 27 at the Mandarin Oriental, and the sale is estimated to bring in as much as 100 million Hong Kong dollars ($12.9 million). The highest-ticket artworks are a Roy Lichtenstein landscape painting estimated to sell for as much as 35 million HKD ($4.5 million) and an abstraction by Richter tagged at up to 25 million HKD ($3.2 million).
Auction houses have lately experimented with mixing art from various historical periods in their major sales (see Christie’s New York’s blockbuster “Looking Forward to the Past” sale in 2015), and Phillips will test that formula further, offering contemporary design, photography, and editions in the same sale as the fine-art offerings.
The auction is headed up by former Sotheby’s specialist Jonathan Crockett, who was named deputy chairman of Asia in March. “Over the past few years there has been a significant transformation in the buying habits of Asian collectors, who are becoming increasingly interested in art from around the world,” said Crockett in announcing the sale. “We are therefore excited to launch with a fresh approach with an auction that is removed from traditional constraints.”
Among the offerings are design pieces by Wendell Castle, Finn Juhl, Alessandro Mendini, and Jean Prouvé; photography by practitioners like Hiroshi Sugimoto and Irving Penn; and editions by Yves Klein and Roy Lichtenstein.
Scroll down for more images of key works in the sale.
Roy Lichtenstein, Landscape With Grass (1996). Courtesy Phillips.
Finn Juhl, “Chieftain” armchair, model no. FJ49, circa 1950, is estimated at up to 2 million HKD (about $258,000). Courtesy Phillips.
Nick Knight, Sander (1992), is estimated at up to 620,000 HKD (about $78,000). Courtesy Phillips.
Adrian Ghenie, Elvis (2009), is estimated at up to 1.5 million HKD ( about $193,000). Courtesy Phillips.