Hong Kong Auction Results Bounce Back With Big Wins for Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips
1April 1, 2026
Last Friday, Christie’sHong Kong20th/21st-century salefully sold out; just one of several highly encouraging indicators of skyrocketing auction sales prospects in the region. Christie’s sold all thirty-seven lots—which includedGerhard Richter’sAbstraktes Bild, 1991, Sanyu’sCheval agenouillé sur un tapis(Kneeling Horse on Carpet), ca. 1950s–60s and Walter Spies’s Balinese landscapeBlick Von Der Höhe(A View from Above), 1934—for a total of HK$655,761,600, or $83,802,193 USD, marking a 17% increase from last year’s March Evening Sale.
Sotheby’s and Phillips fared just as well: Sotheby’s evening sale at the Maison at Landmark Chater on March 29 earned HK$548.4 million, whilePhillipsraked in HK$88.5 million based on two evening sales. Sotheby’s landed a particularly high water mark, selling Joan Mitchell’sLa Grande Vallée VII, 1983 for HK$137.4 million. The Mitchell painting, a lively abstraction of a sunlit valley, is now the most expensive work by a woman artistsold at auctionin Asia.
Meanwhile, at the Phillips auction, Yoshitomo Nara’s drawing of a red-haired girl on a door from a bar in New York’s East Village doubled its estimate to earn HK$2.1 million.
“We saw great energy, deep bidding, and witnessed solid momentum in the market,” Cristian Albu, Head of 20th/21st Century Art at Christie’s Asia Pacific, said in a statement. “The diversity of our offering highlights the ever-expanding tastes of the region. Collectors responded passionately to Chinese Modern masters, the breadth of Western art, Southeast Asian, Japanese, and Korean works, as well as the first Old Master in our Evening Sale.”
“We were almost 120 per cent above our low estimate, which is a good sign of the market’s health—clients were bidding above estimates and actively chasing works at auction,” Rahul Kadakia, the president of Asia Pacific at Christie’s, said at a press conference, per Artnews.
The auction houses timed their evening sales to coincide with Art Basel Hong Kong, a strategy that they employed last year as well and which seems to have paid off.