This autumn, Christie’s Hong Kong celebrates the first anniversary of its new Asia Pacific headquarters at The Henderson with a series of spectacular auctions. On September 26 and 27, Christie’s Hong Kong will hold its “Hong Kong 20th and 21st Century Auctions,” showcasing masterpieces of modern and contemporary art from both the East and the West, creating a visual feast that transcends time and culture.

The lead lot is Picasso's masterpiece "Bust of a Woman", which is the important lot leading the auction and the only lot with an estimated price of over 100 million yuan. It has a third-party price guarantee. Zao Wou-Ki's abstract masterpiece "17.3.63" and David Hockney's works are also on sale. In addition, there are masterpieces by masters such as Yayoi Kusama, Kazuo Shiraga, Tamara de Lempicka and Paul Cézanne, presenting an artistic style and infinite inspiration that blends multiple perspectives and cultures.

Currently, the Asian market has strong demand for Impressionist and modern art. Taking this important opportunity, Christie's will connect with collectors in Asia and around the world with this blockbuster work, further consolidating its market leadership in selecting top art masterpieces for collectors in Asia.

September's 20th and 21st Century auctions begin with the lead lot, featuring Picasso's monumental painting "Bust of a Woman," alongside two striking Hockney works: "Table with Conversation" and "The Twelfth V.N. Paintings." While these two masterpieces are from different series, they both profoundly embody Hockney's ongoing exploration and breakthroughs in the art of seeing. Whether in his use of color, composition, or reimagining of space, they demonstrate the artist's extraordinary mastery of visual language and his innovative spirit—a visual feast.

Leading the sale is Picasso's monumental painting, Bust of a Woman, which returns to the auction market after over 25 years. This work is one of the largest and most exquisite portraits of Dora Maar to appear at auction in recent years. Maar was a key muse for Picasso, inspiring many of his most striking and daring portraits.

Wearing her distinctive hat, Maar gazes directly at the viewer with her signature deep eyes. This powerful and emotive work is a defining example of the artist’s portrait of his muse and creative partner, Dora Maar.

Picasso's oil painting "Bust of a Woman" (1944), as one of the most representative portraits of Dora Maar in his artistic career, has both profound academic value and extremely high market scarcity.

1. Academicity: The Wartime Spiritual Mirror in the Coordinates of Art History

1. A classic example of the fusion of Surrealism and Cubism

This work continues Picasso's breakthroughs from Cubism since the 1930s, while also incorporating Surrealist psychological metaphors. Maar's face is sharply divided in black and white, with the right eye presented from the front and the left from the side. This multi-dimensional visual collage breaks with the spatial logic of traditional portraiture. The hat, a central symbol, with its blue and yellow boat-shaped design and feathered tail, echoes the social phenomenon of 1940s Parisian women using exaggerated accessories to demonstrate their spiritual resistance during the war, and alludes to Surrealism's exploration of the "symbol of objects." As Brigitte Leal, curator of the Musée Picasso-Paris, puts it, Maar's hat is "a most provocative symbol," carrying cultural and political implications that transcend clothing.

2. Visual Poetics of Wartime Emotions

Created in the final weeks of the Nazi occupation of Paris (March 1944), the painting's contrasting black, white, and gray palette with the vibrant red of the dress's collar creates a tension between repression and passion. Maar's stern gaze and upright posture express both her personal will and the collective spirit of the occupied city. The red on her chest, interpreted as a "triple symbol of danger, passion, and hope," creates a dramatic contrast with the lighter tones of the background, reflecting the intertwined anticipation and fear of liberation among wartime Parisians.

3. Maar’s dual identity as a muse

Dora Maar (1907-1997) was a French woman born in France but raised in Argentina. She is best known for modeling for Picasso and photographing him during the creation of Guernica. Starting in the 1930s, she posed for Picasso for nearly a decade, and their relationship became so close that after converting to Catholicism, Dora once said, "After Picasso, there was only God." Dora Maar was a Surrealist photographer whose artistic practice profoundly influenced Picasso.

In "Bust of a Woman," Picasso not only continues his exploration of the symbolism of hats in his photographic work "Double Portrait with Hat" (1936-37), but also portrays her as a model of the "modern muse"—retaining her intellectual independence while revealing her complex emotional core through distortion. This treatment, elevating the muse from a passive model to a creative partner, is extremely rare in Picasso's portraits of women.

4. A spiritual dialogue with Guernica

When Picasso created "Guernica" in 1937, Maar documented the creative process with photography. Their collaboration established a critical tone for wartime art. "Bust of a Woman" continues this tradition, reflecting the impact of war on humanity through individual portraiture. Maar's gaze in the painting can be seen as a microcosm of the gaze of the victims in "Guernica," together forming Picasso's dual narrative of violence and hope.

2. Market Scarcity: A Focus of Competition among Global Collectors Over 25 Years

1. Market endorsement of top museum collections

Portraits of Maar created around the same time as Bust of a Woman, such as Weeping Woman (1937), are on long-term loan, while another from 1944 is owned by the National Gallery of Canada. The museum-quality status of these works not only confirms the centrality of Bust of a Woman in Picasso's wartime oeuvre but also makes it a sought-after "tradable museum piece" among private collectors.

2. Ultra-long market cycle and comparison with similar works

After being auctioned in New York in early May 1999 for $1.88 million, this work remained dormant for 25 years, a period before the Picasso market fully boomed. Its resurgence coincides with a surge in demand for modern art in the Asian market. From $1.88 million in 1999 to an estimated price of $11,054,525-13,625,345 in 2025, this represents a six- to seven-fold increase. Compared to top-tier Dora Maar portraits of the same period, which often fetch tens of millions of dollars, this work is relatively accessible yet extremely scarce, sparking competition among collectors.

Compare recent auction records for Picasso's Maar portraits: "Dora Maar" (1939) sold for HK$169.4 million in Hong Kong in 2022, setting the second-highest price for a Picasso at auction in Asia; and "Seated Woman in a Blue Robe" (1942, 73 × 60 cm), estimated at US$35 million to US$50 million, sold for US$45,047,500 at Christie's New York in 2017. "Bust of a Woman," a larger (80.8 × 65 cm) and better-preserved wartime work, has an estimated price range of HK$86 million to HK$106 million, reflecting both respect for historical transaction records and the potential for a premium due to its scarcity.

3. A strategic layout window for Asian collectors

Christie's has chosen this work as the lead lot of its Hong Kong Autumn Auction, accurately capturing the robust Asian market demand for Western modern art. According to statistics, Asian collectors accounted for 35% of Christie's global Modern Art sales in 2021, and Picasso's works in the region have seen an average annual increase of over 12%. This auction specifically emphasizes "connecting collectors in Asia and around the world," reflecting the auction house's confidence in the purchasing power of regional collectors. As Picasso's most intellectual muse, Maar's portrait holds a unique cultural appeal among elite Asian collectors—symbolizing a deep engagement with art history while also resonating with contemporary issues surrounding independent women.

4. The safe-haven property of the art market is strengthened

Against the backdrop of heightened global economic uncertainty in 2025, the safe-haven value of top-tier artworks has become increasingly prominent. As a market asset, Picasso's works significantly outperform other assets during periods of economic volatility. For example, on May 4, 2020, during the pandemic, Picasso's "Dora et Kitten" (1941) sold in New York for $95.216 million, a 48% increase from its 2013 auction price. The scarcity and historical value of "Bust of a Woman" make it an ideal asset for institutional collectors and high-net-worth individuals.

The scholarly significance of "Bust of a Woman" stems from its breakthrough in Cubism, its visual transformation of wartime ethos, and its depiction of Maar's dual identity as artist and muse. Its market scarcity is reflected in its museum-quality quality, exceptionally long market cycles, and strategic demand from Asian collectors. This auction not only re-examines Picasso's legacy but also represents a significant shift in the global art market toward Asia. As Christie's Asia Pacific Chairman, Ching Shoukang, stated, works like this "will attract the enthusiastic attention of art collectors worldwide due to their pinnacle quality." For buyers, acquiring this work is not only about acquiring a masterpiece but also about participating in the historical process of shaping the contemporary art market.

1. The Scarce Nature of the Creative Dimension: A Key Turning Point in an Artistic Career

1988 marked a watershed year in Hockney’s artistic career. In the previous decade, he had focused on photographic collages, installation art (such as the “Larger Panorama” series), and stage design, leading to a sharp decline in his oil painting output.

Table Talk marks his return to traditional oil painting. Following his major retrospective at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) that year, he created a series of "narrative abstractions" set in his Hollywood Hills studio, of which Table Talk is a core work. Comprising only approximately ten paintings, the series focuses on the fusion of interior spaces and natural landscapes, a far smaller number than his other themes.

Interim results of media experiments

In 1988, Hockney was exploring the fusion of Cubist perspective and Eastern aesthetics. He incorporated the horizontal composition of George Rowley's Principles of Chinese Painting into his work, allowing the diptych format of "Table Chat" to transcend the monotonous perspective of traditional oil painting, creating a visual flow similar to a handscroll. This technique was extremely rare in his work from the 1980s, attempted only in a few works such as "My Room" (1986), further highlighting the rarity of "Table Chat."

The uniqueness of the subject matter

Compared to his narrative works from the 1970s, which centered on human interaction (such as "Portrait of an Artist"), "Table Chat" suggests human presence through an empty interior scene: the tilted dining table and empty chairs create a dialogue with the abstracted landscape outside the window, conveying a postmodern sense of alienation. This "absent presence" theme only appeared in Hockney's paintings around 1988, after which he turned to purer abstraction (such as the 1990s "Some Very New Paintings" series), making this work a unique example of bridging figuration and abstraction.

From an art historical perspective, the scarcity of this work is inherently a manifestation of its unique cultural value. The flatness of the blue tablecloth in the painting echoes Cézanne, while the mountains outside the window allude to the artistic conception of Northern Song Dynasty landscape paintings. This cross-cultural fusion is unique in Hockney's work. As Christie's experts point out, this type of work is not only a key to understanding the artist's transformation, but also an important specimen that fills a gap in Western art historical research in the 1980s. Its scarcity transcends simple market circulation frequency and becomes a unique existence in the coordinates of art history.

This work was also chosen for the front and back covers of the catalogue for the Yale Center for British Art exhibition, "The School of London and Their Friends: The Collection of Elaine and Melvin Merians." Elaine and Melvin Merians' collection is considered one of the most important in the United States, with Patrick McCaughey, director of the Yale Center for British Art, stating that their collection is second only to that of London's Tate Modern.

These 1980s paintings, with museum-quality exhibition records, account for less than 15% of Hockney's oeuvre. The scarcity of these works, as paintings from this transitional period, is further amplified. 83% of Hockney's auction sales throughout his career were prints, while his paintings, largely confined to museum collections, are rarely circulated, creating a sense of inherent scarcity.

2. Scarcity Verification of Market Circulation: Low-Frequency, High-Premium Transaction Traces

The collectors of Hockney's works are mainly museums and family foundations, and the re-auction rate is extremely low.

In terms of time, the circulation frequency of "Table Talk" is far below the market average. The work was sold at Christie's London on June 20, 2007, for £602,400, and again on July 2, 2014, for £1,650,500, a gap of seven years. ArtPro data shows that a seven-year circulation gap is rare in the market. More notably, after the 2014 auction, the work remained in a private European collection for 11 years before it first appeared on the Asian market in 2025. This long-term lock-in further exacerbated the market's supply shortage.

From a spatial perspective, the supply gap in the Asian market exacerbates its scarcity. Between 2020 and 2024, Hockney's share of sales in Asia increased from 19% to 34%, yet narrative abstract paintings from the 1980s had never been publicly auctioned in Asia. This regional supply imbalance contrasts sharply with growing demand—Asian collectors' demand for Western modern art has increased by 12% annually. As the first work of its kind to enter the Asian market, Table Talk fills a critical gap in the regional collecting system.

In terms of price performance, this work exhibits a significant scarcity premium. Its 2014 sale price increased by 174% compared to its 2007 level, far exceeding the average increase for Hockney's oil paintings during the same period. Furthermore, its second auction sale exceeded its low estimate by 2.7 times, demonstrating the market's recognition of its value during this period of transition. This premium stems from the scarcity of similar works—between 2007 and 2025, only one narrative abstract oil painting from the 1980s, "Table Talk," was publicly offered at auction worldwide.

In the blue-chip-dominated market of 2025, the scarcity value of "Table Talk" is further amplified. Hockney has been ranked among the top three living artists worldwide by auction turnover, and his 2025 major retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris further strengthened the market's awareness of his work. As a work that combines museum exhibition records with a clear legacy, "Table Talk" embodies this core asset, making it an irreplaceable asset in building a Hockney collection.

Whether it is the pulsating visual guidance or the abstract rhythm of colors, Hockney's works remind us that viewing is not a single gaze, but a continuous journey.

1. Positioning in Art History

The "Very New" series represents Hockney's culmination of his experiments with Cubism and Expressionism. The swirling organic forms in "Painter 12" continue Picasso's exploration of multiple perspectives while incorporating the artist's own theory of perspective, becoming a key example of his shifting artistic practice in the 1990s.

The series was exhibited in its entirety at the André Emmerich Gallery in New York in 1993 and was included in a 2017-2018 traveling retrospective exhibition at Tate Britain in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This academic endorsement reinforces its cultural rarity.

1. Context of the Series: The "Very New" series, created between 1992 and 1993, comprises 26 works and represents Hockney's core experiment in transitioning from narrative figurative art of the 1980s to an abstract language. During this period, Hockney had just completed the stage design for the London Covent Garden opera The Shadowless Woman. Combining dramatic spatial manipulation with inspiration from the Malibu, California seascape, Hockney developed the concept of "interior landscape"—constructing a subjective spatial experience through interwoven colors and flowing forms.

2. Scarcity of the creative dimension

According to ArtPro data, oil paintings account for less than 17% of Hockney's lifetime creations, and the "Very New" series, as a series in which he focused on exploring abstract language, has a total of 26 paintings, accounting for less than 0.05% of his extant works worldwide.

The "Very New" series primarily utilizes large-scale oil and acrylic paints, sometimes supplemented with charcoal or pastel sketches. Paint application favors thick, direct, flat applications rather than traditional layered shading. Broad brushstrokes, often using large brushes, emphasize the contours of form. Spatial representation utilizes multiple perspectives/non-linear perspectives: tables, figures, and furniture may be juxtaposed within the same frame from varying angles. Color and lighting are primarily highly saturated, with contrasts of bright pink, emerald green, deep purple, and vibrant yellow common. Light sources are not naturalistic, but rather artificial, like stage projections.

"Painting 12," the middle piece in the series, carries the significance of the transition from early exploration to mature expression. Its interweaving of orange and indigo echoes Malibu sunsets while also hinting at the dramatic tension of stage design, representing the series' techniques and concepts.

2. Market Circulation Track and Scarcity Verification

1. Circulation frequency and scale

As of September 2025, of the 26 works in the "Very New" series, six (including repeated auctions) have been publicly auctioned, accounting for 23% of the total. Some works, such as "Painting 5" and "Painting 21," have been auctioned repeatedly, reflecting the long-term holding and periodic circulation characteristics of collectors. Compared to the average 18-year holding period for Hockney's oil paintings, the circulation frequency of the "Very New" series remains low in the market, highlighting the scarcity of the supply side.

2. Price growth trajectory

Series premium characteristics: The transaction price of "Painting No. 26" in 2024 increased by 127% compared with a similar work in 2007, far exceeding the average increase of 42% for Hockney's oil paintings in the same period (ArtPro data), demonstrating the excess returns brought by the scarcity of the series.

3. Regional scarcity

Between 2020 and 2024, Hockney's share of sales in the Asian market increased from 19% to 34%, yet abstract works have never been publicly auctioned in Asia. The Hong Kong debut of "Frame 12" fills a gap in the regional market, creating a mismatch between supply and demand and the growing demand for Western abstract art among Asian collectors.

Spring at Giverny in Afternoon Light: Monet's first masterpiece

Claude Monet's 1885 work, Printemps à Giverny, effet d'après-midi, will be featured in the Hong Kong 20th & 21st Century Art Evening Sale on September 26. This work is not only a moving ode to springtime in Giverny, as depicted by the artist, but also a landmark work that marks a pivotal turning point in the history of modern art. Its profound scholarly value, extreme market scarcity, and distinguished collector heritage all combine to establish it as a star lot of this season.

1. Academic Positioning: A Methodological Revolution that Inherits the Past and Forges the Future

The core academic value of this work lies in its physical evidence and starting point for a fundamental shift in Monet's artistic methodology. In 1883, Monet moved to Giverny, where he found the enduring fulcrum of his art. Created two years later, "Spring at Giverny in the Afternoon Light" bears witness to his revolutionary move from single-scene sketching to the practice of "series painting."

Monet created two versions of this orchard scene: one capturing the hazy, soft atmosphere of early morning light, and the other, the present work, capturing the vibrant, pouring light of the afternoon. As the journalist Georges Jeanniot, who traveled with Monet, remarked, the artist began “working on two or three canvases simultaneously,” alternating between them as the light shifted.

This method of systematically comparing the same subject in time is no longer a traditional method of capturing instantaneous impressions, but rather an in-depth exploration and scientific experiment of the core proposition of Impressionism, “light and time”.It laid the foundation for the creative logic of subsequent great series such as "Haystacks", "Rouen Cathedral" and even "Water Lilies"., marking Monet's transformation from an "impression capturer" to a "researcher of light and color". Its far-reaching influence inspired Cézanne, Van Gogh and others, and reshaped the way of observing modern art.

II. Market Trends: Rare Museum-Level Opportunities

In the art market,Monet consistently ranks among the top blue chips in the Impressionist and Modern art sectors.The demand and value of his works have become stronger with the test of time.

The early Giverny landscapes (1883-1887) are key works that marked the artist's maturity and transformation, and have always been the focus of collections by major museums around the world.According to statistics, the vast majority of works from this period have been permanently collected by world-class institutions such as the Musée d'Orsay, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and very few are circulating in the market.

Over the past thirty years,Only a few Giverny landscapes from 1885-1886 have appeared at public auction.The work "Spring at Giverny in the Afternoon Light" being auctioned this time is not only the first work from Monet's critical Giverny period to appear at auction in Asia in the past decade, but its special status as the starting point of a "serialization" also makes it scarce to the level of museum quality, providing a once-in-a-lifetime acquisition opportunity for top collectors around the world.

3. Collection significance: a century-old legacy of illustrious origins

The value of a masterpiece by a top master lies not only in its artistic and academic level, but also in its clear, prominent and orderly collection provenance.

The work was first acquired directly from Monet in September 1885 by Paul Durand-Ruel, Monet's lifelong dealer and a prominent figure in Impressionism. The following year, it was featured in Durand-Ruel's landmark exhibition at the National Academy of Design in New York—a pivotal event in the arrival of Impressionism in the United States and the launch of its global influence. It then passed into the collection of Erwin Davis, one of the earliest and leading Impressionist collectors in the United States, where it remained until 1899.In 1913, the dealer sold it to the family of Hunt Henderson, a New Orleans sugar tycoon. For more than a hundred years, the painting has been carefully collected by the family and has never appeared on the market..

This authoritative heritage, spanning three centuries and changing hands only three times, not only guarantees the work's authenticity and state of preservation, but also imbues it with a rich historical heritage and collecting story. It charts the entire journey of Impressionism from a French avant-garde art movement to a globally recognized classic, itself a condensed collection history. Now making its Asian debut, it is sure to spark fierce competition among the world's top collectors seeking the triple guarantee of scholarship, rarity, and provenance. It is expected to be a central feature of the 20th & 21st Century Evening Sale in Hong Kong on September 26th, carrying both scholarly and market value, offering collectors a unique opportunity.

Zao Wou-Ki began to emerge on the international art scene in the early 1960s. This work, exhibited in the artist's first retrospective at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, Germany in 1965, has a clear scholarly record. The work employs a classic central axis composition, with calligraphic brushstrokes imbued with speed and power, embodying the dynamic beauty of Chinese cursive script and the chromatic tension of Western Abstract Expressionism.

Furthermore, during this period, Zao Wou-Ki moved into a Paris studio equipped with a glass skylight. The introduction of natural light directly influenced his keen grasp and expression of the relationship between light and shadow in his creations. This work is a testament to the maturity of his artistic language during this period.

From the perspective of market scarcity,Only 19 paintings of similar or larger size created by Zao Wou-Ki in the 1960s in vibrant red hues remain, eight of which have never appeared at auction. 17.3.63 is one of them.Most of these works are already in the collections of major museums and institutions, with extremely limited numbers circulating in private collections. Therefore, this work is not only a rarity among the artist's works of the same color and period, but is also extremely rare to appear in the auction market, demonstrating its remarkable scarcity.

In terms of collectible significance, "17.3.63," a masterpiece from the peak of Zao Wou-Ki's artistic career, blends Eastern and Western aesthetics, embodying the brushwork of traditional Chinese calligraphy and the expressive colors of Western modern painting. It marks his significant contribution to the international abstract art movement. The work has been included in numerous major exhibitions and has been highly recognized by senior executives at Christie's Asia, including those at Christie's, as a masterpiece of "museum quality." Zao Wou-Ki's work continues to be hailed by major cultural institutions worldwide, including a 2024 retrospective at the China Academy of Art and a print exhibition at the M+ Museum in Hong Kong, demonstrating the continued influence of his art and the consolidation of his scholarly value. Acquiring this work is not only a testament to Zao Wou-Ki's personal artistic achievements, but also a crucial insight into the development of 20th-century Eastern Modernist art.

A rare large-scale pumpkin-themed work, "Pumpkin [TWAQN]"

Yayoi Kusama has a global influence as a benchmark figure in Asian contemporary art. She is one of the most influential living artists in the global museum exhibition and collection system. The demand for her works transcends generations and regions, and she has a solid and broad collection base, especially in the Asian market.

Yayoi Kusama's 2015 painting, "Pumpkin [TWAQN]," is one of the most recognizable and spiritually significant motifs in her artistic vocabulary. This magnificent (112 x 145.5 cm) oil painting embodies over seven decades of the artist's creative obsession and philosophical reflections, culminating in her three core aesthetics: "Infinity Net," "Polka Dot," and "Pumpkin."

For Kusama, the pumpkin is not only a warm carrier of memories of her hometown, but also a transcendental, soulful presence. Its rounded, plump form and deep black polka dots against a vibrant yellow background create a visual universe both enchanting and tranquil, perfectly embodying the artist's pursuit of the spiritual realms of "self-dissolution" and "eternal infinity."

Museum-quality paintings of this size, created during the full maturity of his artistic career, remain extremely rare in private collections.The estimated price of this work (HKD 22,000,000-32,000,000) is in line with its market potential, reflecting its strong appeal to experienced and institutional collectors.

The collector's value of this work is further enhanced by its impeccable exhibition and publication record. It was featured in the 2017 major touring retrospective "Yayoi Kusama: Life is the Heart of a Rainbow" at the National Gallery Singapore and the Queensland Art Gallery, and was published in the authoritative catalogue of the same name. This significant institutional exhibition history significantly enhances the work's academic credibility and market value. Its provenance is clear and unadulterated, having originally been released by the artist's leading gallery, Ota Fine Arts Singapore, and remaining in the current collection.

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author： molly xie