$65 million Chinese oil painting leads one of Asia’s largest ever art auctions

A painting by the Chinese-French painter Zao Wou-Ki sold for a record 510 million Hong Kong dollars ($65 million) Sunday, leading one of Asia’s largest ever art auctions.

The artist’s abstract work “Juin-Octobre 1985” is now the most expensive painting ever to go under the hammer in Hong Kong, according to Sotheby’s.

It was a record-breaking evening at the auction house, which sold $200 million worth of art at the sale. Asian artists featured prominently alongside household Western names, with Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara’s “Portrait of AE” selling for more than 26.5 million Hong Kong dollars ($3.4 million).

Elsewhere, records were set for eight different Asian artists, including Taiwan’s Richard Lin and China’s Hao Liang and Wang Xingwei, whose works all attracted bids in excess of $1 million.

But it was Zao’s “Juin-Octobre 1985,” named for its completion date, that secured the highest price tag of the night. Measuring 10 meters (33 feet) in length, the oil painting sold for more than double that previously paid for an artwork by Zao, who died in 2013.

Sothebys

A painting from Claude Monet's "Haystacks" series sold for $110.7 million in May 2019, making it the most expensive Impressionist artwork ever to be bought at auction.

Courtesy Christie's

David Hockney's "Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures)" set a new auction record for a living artist when it sold for $90.3 million in November 2018. That figure has since been overtaken by Jeff Koons' 1986 "Rabbit" sculpture, which sold for more than $91 million.

Courtesy Sotheby's Hong Kong

Zao Wou-Ki's abstract painting "Juin-Octobre 1985" has become the most expensive painting to ever sell at auction in Hong Kong.

courtesy christies

Pablo Picasso's Les femmes d'Alger previously held the auction record after selling for $179.4 million in 2015.

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The sale of Edvard Munch's "The Scream" to billionaire Leon Black for $119.9 million in 2012 marked more than a new art record: it was the first time that a pastel, rather than an oil or acrylic painting, came anywhere near achieving such a price.

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Rock star Eric Clapton sold his "Abstraktse Bild" by art star Gerhard Richter in 2012 for £21.3 million, establishing a new record for a living artist and the highest price ever paid for a Gerhard Richter painting.

courtesy sothebys

Vincent van Gogh's "Portrait of Dr. Gachet" rocked the art world in 1990 when it sold to Tokyo's Kobayashi gallery for $82.5 million at Christie's -- more than twice the previous auction record.

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Pablo Picasso's "Garçon a la Pipe" broke the $100 million ceiling when it sold at Sotheby's for over $104 million in May, 2004 -- the first painting to exceed the record set in 1990 for the "Dr.Gachet."

courtesy christies

The portrait of the ample-bodied Sue Tilley, a British government worker, was one of four such paintings the British artist produced of the woman he called "Fat Sue." The portrait achieved a record for the artist when it sold at Christie's New York in May, 2015.

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Appetite for Modigliani's work had already been on the rise when this rare nude came up for sale. It set a new record for the artist -- and one of the highest prices ever set at auction -- when it sold at Christie's in November, 2015 to a Chinese billionaire bidding by telephone.

Born in Beijing before moving to Paris after World War II, Zao is known for combining classical Chinese painting techniques with the abstract influences of Western modernism. Sunday’s auction result “crowns (him as the) king of Asian oil painters,” according to the chair of Sotheby’s Asia, Patti Wong.

“With so many new benchmarks set here tonight, it is evident that Asian appetite for great examples of modern and contemporary art – be they Asian or Western – is voracious,” she said in a press statement.

Also notable among the lots was contemporary artist Xu Zhen’s “Xuzhen Supermarket,” a mock convenience store stocked entirely with empty packages. Billed by Sotheby’s as the first “concept” to be auctioned as an artwork in Asia, the winning bid of 2 million Hong Kong dollars ($255,000) obtained “the right to commission new physical recreations and enactments of the concept, to be executed by Xu Zhen,” according to the auction house.

Western art proved popular too, attracting a record total of 260 million Hong Kong dollars ($33.2 million) across the auction. Pablo Picasso’s “Buste d’homme lauré,” which saw a winning bid of 61 million Hong Kong dollars ($7.8 million), led a line-up of high-profile European and American artists including Joan Mitchell, Gerhard Richter, Anish Kapoor and KAWS.