The Day Sale on 26 November to Highlight the Collection of Zao Wou-Ki’s Daughter Sin-May Roy Zao, and a Diverse Range of Chinese Contemporary Artists

HONG KONG – 14 November 2024 – Phillips is thrilled to present highlights from the upcoming Modern & Contemporary Art auctions in Hong Kong on 25-26 November. Taking place on 25 November, the Evening Sale showcases exceptional works from a blend of Modern and Contemporary masters, including Sanyu, Pierre Soulages, Yoshitomo Nara, and Yayoi Kusama. Notable highlights also feature sought-after young talents such as Nicolas Party, Vojtěch Kovařík, Claire Tabouret, and Li Hei Di. Boasting an extensive selection of artworks, the Day Sale on 26 November ranges from established blue-chip to up-and-coming artists. Among the Modern highlights are works from the collection of Zao Wou-Ki’s daughter, Sin-May Roy Zao, creating unique dialogues between the works of her father and his close friends. The Day Sale will present a variety of Chinese contemporary artists from different periods spanning the last three decades, spotlighting prominent artists like Liu Ye, Wang Guangle, Sun Yitian, and more, tracking the development of this category and reflecting recent trends. Prior to the auctions, the preview exhibition will be open to the public at Phillips’ Asia headquarters in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District from 16 to 26 November.

Meiling Lee, Head of Modern & Contemporary Art, Asia, said, “We are honoured to present our Fall auctions, showcasing works from highly significant collections with impeccable provenance. Phillips is proud to have established itself as a leading auction house for Yoshitomo Nara in recent years, highlighted by the remarkable sales of Lookin' for a Treasure sold for HK$ 84 million / US$ 11 million, Hothouse Doll for HK$ 103 million / US$ 13 million, and Missing in Action for HK$ 123.7 million/ US $ 16 million, which set the second-highest auction price for the artist. We are delighted to present iconic works that encapsulate the very best of Nara’s practice during a time when his market continues to thrive. Additionally, reflecting the growing importance of Modern Art in our strategy, we are grateful to have been entrusted with the sale of significant works by Modern masters such as Sanyu, Pierre Soulages, and Zao Wou-Ki that have never been offered at auction.”

As previously announced, the Evening Sale will be led by Sanyu’s masterpiece Reclining Nude, with Raised Knee II, from the esteemed Collection of Doctor Eric Edwards in Paris. An acclaimed collector of works by Sanyu, Dr. Edwards has owned some of the artist’s most prominent pieces in the past, including the record-breaking Five Nudes. Created from a late period of Sanyu’s life, the present work epitomises his relentless quest into art, his time, and the world. With its boldly exaggerated composition and powerful, simplified linearity, Sanyu transcends traditional conventions, merging elements of Chinese shanshui with a fresh interpretation of the Western nude. In addition, a selection of ink on paper works by Sanyu from the Collection of Doris & Gilles Habart, inherited from Michel Habart in France, will be offered in the Day Sale. These pieces present the diverse aspects of Sanyu’s explorations of the female body.

Yoshitomo Nara’s Little Girl and Yayoi Kusama’s Nets & DotsThis season, Phillips is delighted to present iconic works that reflect a multitude of media and eras from Yoshitomo Nara’s artistic practice. Leading the Evening Sale is Baby Blue, a striking piece created at the turn of the millennium in 1999, which emerged during a pivotal moment in Nara’s career. The desirability of works from this period is underscored by the artist’s two highest auction results, which are canvases created just one year later. This piece is one of the few large canvases featuring the full torso of Nara's signature young girl, representing a notable moment before his transition to shoulder-up portraits in the latter half of the 2000s. Baby Blue was first unveiled at his solo exhibition at the Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York, marking a significant milestone as Nara’s debut show in the city.

Another leading highlight in the Evening Sale is Nara’s Fountain of Life, a groundbreaking and widely showcased sculpture from the artist’s early career. Other examples from this series have been prominently exhibited, including the first work made in 2001 and presented at his first major survey exhibition, I DON’T MIND, IF YOU FORGET ME., at the Yokohama Museum of Art. In the present work, Yoshitomo Nara captures the essence of childhood innocence while poignantly acknowledging its inevitable loss. This piece highlights the pain, grief, and loneliness of growing up. The delicate celadon green and lacquer finish evokes a sense of softness and empathy, critiquing how adult pressures can overshadow childhood simplicity. The work invites viewers to reflect on their childhood experiences, blending joy with an underlying sense of fear. As Nara’s only motorised sculpture, it signifies a key transition in his artistic evolution.

Coming to auction for the first time from a distinguished European collection, Untitled, offered in this season’s Day Sale, is a painting on canvas executed in oil, showcasing a playful and sketch-like quality, made all the more captivating with its simplified narrative configuration and pared-down use of colour. Executed in 1992 while the artist was still in Germany, the motif of a little ship in the foregrounded is a highly recognisable mark that registers intensely with the artist’s strong sense of nostalgia and yearning for his distant home in Japan. From 1991 to 1992, Nara repeatedly explored various expressions with the motif, rendering his characters as either holding, playing with or gazing silently at varying ships. These works form a significant corpus, acting as Nara's strongest and deepest emotional outlet at this moment in time.

Suika to Fork (Watermelon and Fork), offered in the Evening Sale, embodies Yayoi Kusama’s core concept of “Infinity Nets.” This piece also incorporates her iconic dots and organic shapes, combining two fundamental elements – nets and dots – to create an illusion of infinite repetition and multiplication. The background is adorned with a vast net of blue-outlined triangles, while the depiction of fruit reflects Kusama’s longstanding fascination with pumpkins as a personal motif. Through her use of repetition, the watermelon emerges as a significant symbol, akin to how pumpkins have provided her solace from anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and hallucinations.

The Encounter of Zao Wou-Ki and Pierre SoulagesComing to auction for the first time, French master Pierre Soulages’s Peinture 202 x 143 cm, 25 septembre 1967, offered in the Evening Sale, presents a visual dichotomy, where the stark contrast between black and white engages in a harmonious dialogue rather than a clash. As one of the largest works by the artist ever offered at auction, the present work has been featured in several prestigious institutional exhibitions. The painting brilliantly captures Soulages’s remarkable ability to reflect light within the deep black hues he employs. The influence of Japanese aesthetics is evident in his minimalist approach, evoking a profound sense of balance throughout his work. Pierre Soulages is celebrated worldwide, with his pieces held in renowned collections such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Notably, he became only the third artist, after Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall, to receive a retrospective at the Louvre during his lifetime in 2019.

In this November’s Day Sale, Phillips is pleased to offer a few exceptional works from the collection of Zao Wou-Ki's daughter, Sin-May Roy Zao. This collection includes Zao’s works that showcase the most experimental and innovative facet of his oeuvre, together with works by the artist’s contemporaries and friends, Pierre Soulages and Eduardo Chillida. Leading the collection is 27.6.70, which Zao signed not only with his artist’s signature but also endearingly inscribed "Pour Sin-May Papa (For Sin-May Papa). " This piece is a precious testament to the more intimate aspect of the artist’s work, revealing the profound care and love he infused into his brush. 27.6.70 is an embodiment of the many undercurrents that coincided and collided to reveal Zao’s multifaceted art and its constant search for new meanings. Following her first collaboration with Phillips Hong Kong in 2022, Sin-May once again shares memorable works with contemporary art lovers, bringing them to Hong Kong—her city of birth, which holds special significance for both her and her father.

Chinese Contemporary PioneersOffered at auction for the first time in the Evening Sale, Mondrian, Hello is an exceptional work that embodies the artistic vision of Chinese artist Liu Ye. The piece depicts a girl against a gradient background of blue and light yellow, gazing toward a mysterious light source. It pays homage to Piet Mondrian's iconic use of black lines and primary colour blocks, with yellow playing a prominent role. Liu Ye’s meticulous attention to detail is evident in the girl’s facial features and the geometric forms surrounding her. This work masterfully blends realism and abstraction, creating a captivating synthesis of Chinese and Western artistic traditions.

Another work by Liu Ye, H.C. Andersen, is highlighted in this season’s Day Sale, featuring the Danish author as a direct painterly subject. Lyricism, childlike innocence, and curiosity have always been at the heart of Liu’s creative outputs. In the present work, Liu Ye presents a playful, lively and infantilised rendition of Andersen, as imagined in his mind’s eye, by depicting the famed author with a tongue-out, rebellious and playful face. At once a possible self-reimagination in the artist's mind, H.C. Andersen subverts traditional painterly conventions and a new take on portraiture is revealed.

A graduate of Beijing’s prestigious Central Academy of Fine Arts, Wang Guangle is a key member of N12, a collective of young artists from the Academy. He is widely regarded as a pioneer of conceptual painting in China. Created as part of Wang Guangle’s graduating exhibition at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, 3pm to 5pm No. 3 presented in the Day Sale is a groundbreaking work from a small series of only five graduation pieces, that marked the artist’s early foray into the conceptual realm. The 3pm-5pm series exemplifies Wang’s initial interest in the concept of time, exploring how its intangible passage is manifested visually as streams of light projected onto the stone-tiled roof in his studio. Executed with oil on canvas, Wang boldly broke away with conventional aesthetic paradigms that emphasised tangibility, colour saturation and sense of volume.

Wang’s early investigation on the subject of time laid the foundation for his widely acclaimed Terrazzo series, where he introduced new narratives and concepts, as well as figuration and abstraction into the motif of terrazzo, and thus moves to focus on the evolving materiality of terrazzo as a reflection of temporal experience. Featured in the Evening Sale, Terrazzo 2004.4-6 presents a visceral rendering of the terrazzo’s textured nature on the canvas surface. A perfect halo of light glows in the centre of the terrazzo, fusing verisimilitude and time itself, injecting the work with a sense of mystery while maintaining a distance from reality. Terrazzo was a very common construction material in China in the 1980s and 1990s and was gradually replaced by marble and ceramic tiles after the 2000s. Such ordinary material, from its popularity to its gradual disappearance, carries the traces of people over time

Up-and-coming Chinese TalentsKnown as China’s “It” artist, Sun Yitian’s influence extends beyond the gallery walls into the realms of fashion and design, most notably through her recent collaboration with Louis Vuitton. Void 6, presented in the Day Sale, stands out as exemplary of Sun’s delicate style, which she describes exists on a very narrow strip of land hovering between realism and surrealism. A cartoonish, inflated toy lion roars on the left canvas panel, while its solitary eye floats mysteriously on the right canvas panel, calling to mind an extraterrestrial saucer.

Chinese-born, London-based artist Li Hei Di is celebrated for their exploration of identity, desire, and transformation. This year, the prestigious Pace Gallery announced its representation of Li, making them the youngest artist they have ever represented. Featured in the Evening Sale as the artist’s Asia auction debut, Orange Swim presents a large orange half-submerged in water, showcasing a more figurative style than many of their later works. The title personifies the fruit, infusing the scene with life through the playful phrase ‘orange swim’. The work adopts an ambiguous quality, playfully misleading viewers into perceiving the refracted image underwater as a realistic depiction of the fruit.

Currently based in Beijing, Hu Xiaoyuan has gained recognition in international art circles, with her works exhibited in numerous esteemed museums and art centres. In 2019, she was nominated for the inaugural Sigg Prize by M+ in Hong Kong. The “Wood” series, which began in 2008, is Hu’s most recognisable body of work. Featured in the Evening Sale, the long, narrow piece Wood-Lachrymose resembles a teardrop, with the ancient term "shan" referring to the appearance of flowing tears. The Wood series is unique, presenting a gentle, compassionate, and delicate temperament. Ink marks depict natural wood grain on silk, while white paint adds a sense of tranquility, and nails preserve memories.

Fresh to the market, Mountains featured in the Evening Sale is a stunning example of Nicolas Party’s highly acclaimed pastel paintings. Both alluring and imposing, this nearly two-meter-long work commands attention, transporting viewers on a mesmerising journey through a majestic mountain landscape. Exhibited in 2023 as part of Party's solo show at The Modern Institute in Glasgow, where only twelve works were displayed, Mountains stands out as one of the largest pieces. This work reflects the current strength of the artist’s market, as his top four auction results have all been achieved in the past two years.

Born in the Czech Republic in 1993, Vojtěch Kovařík has swiftly emerged as a significant voice in contemporary art. He reimagines mythologies through a contemporary lens, infusing his works with elements of ancient wisdom and deep emotional resonance. Argos Builds a Ship, also offered in the Evening Sale, exemplifies Kovařík’s signature style, featuring a figure with a sculptural face rendered in intensely saturated colours. His simplified yet powerful forms convey a monumental presence. Depicted in a striking blue, Argos twists dynamically against a gradient blue background, his form dominating the canvas in a way that reflects both his mythical status and personal struggles. While referencing ancient Greek narratives, Kovařík uses them as a springboard to explore modern human dilemmas.

Small Stress IV featured in the Day Sale is part of Antony Gormley’s ‘Small Blockworks’ series, which renders the body through architectural syntax at half its height. The present work uses black cubic masses with hard, sharp edges to build the human form. This piece exemplifies Gormley’s approach of conditioning bodily presence within the post-and-lintel system, reconstructing the organic outline of the body into a geometric interplay of verticality and horizontality.