Asian Art Market Continues to Climb

I've been following the Asian art market over the past several years and watching it grow steadily with each season. This past week's Spring sales in Hong Kong were no exception. The Sotheby's April 5 Contemporary Art sale far exceeded expectations, earning HK $130 million over its $94 estimate (see Art+Auction for a great article on the results and analysis). Among the more successful lots were a good example from Zeng Fanzhi's well regarded Mask Series and a work by Yayoi Kusama. Here are secondary pieces by each of them that caught my eye tonight when I viewed the catalogue. The third work is a painting that I fell in love with instantly, and whose hammer price was 4 times the amount of its estimate. So apparently I wasn't the only one to have this response:





Zeng Fanzhi
Couple
Oil on canvas
86 1/2 x 57 in.
Estimate: HK $2,800,000 - 3,500,000
Sold: HK $3,620,000 (USD $466,183.60)

Yayoi Kusama
Infinity Nets
Acrylic on canvas
28 5/8 x 35 7/8 in.
Estimate: HK $250,000 - 350,000
Sold: HK $475,000 (USD $61,242.12)

Jia Aili
On the Field of Hopes
Oil on canvas
64 1/2 x 104 1/4 in.
Estimate: HK $350,000 - 450,000
Sold: HK $1,940,000 (USD $250,125.70)