Phillips Hong Kong will hold a modern and contemporary art auction in Hong Kong on March 29, 2026.With a focus on the fascinating dialogue between 20th-century masters and leading contemporary artists, this exhibition offers collectors a rare opportunity to witness the evolution of art history.

This season's auction encompasses classic works by international art masters such as Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Yayoi Kusama, Tracey Emin, Zao Wou-Ki, Liu Dan, Chen Yifei, and Takashi Murakami, while also presenting pioneering works by contemporary avant-garde artists such as Nicolas Party, Adam Pendleton, Robin F. Williams, and Mehdi Ghadyanloo, thus constructing an art exchange across eras.

Auction Arrangements

Modern and contemporary artEvening AuctionMarch 29, 4 PM

Modern and contemporary artFeatured AuctionMarch 29, 5 PM

PreviewMarch 20-29, 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM

addressPhillips Asia Headquarters | West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Building, 8 Austin Road West, West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong, G/F

Phillips Hong Kong Auction Director, Su WantingandHu Di, Head of Auction, Modern and Contemporary Art Department, Phillips Hong KongThe auction states: “This season’s auction coincides with Hong Kong Art Week, a major Asian cultural event, and will bring together a series of masterpieces that transcend generations and regions: from Renoir’s radiant Mediterranean landscapes and Yae Kusama’s evocative late canvases to Chen Yifei’s nostalgic waterside series and Takashi Murakami’s vivid reinterpretation of his iconic ‘Mr. DOB’ character. These works of exceptional provenance will intertwine with the most vibrant voices in contemporary art today, offering collectors an exceptional opportunity to acquire pieces that combine profound cultural dialogue, exceptional market value, and enduring artistic heritage.”

Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale:

4 PM on March 29

This seasonEvening AuctionOne of the highlights isYayoi Kusama's 2020 work, "Sunset in My Heart," is making its auction debut. The work was purchased directly from the Ota Gallery in Tokyo, a long-time collaborator of the artist, ensuring a clear and distinguished provenance.

Yayoi Kusama

"Sunset Glow in My Heart", written in 2020

Acrylic canvas, 100 x 100 cm

Estimate: HKD 5,000,000 - 7,000,000

The most unique aspect of this painting is that it breaks away from the artist's usual practice of naming the "Infinite Web" series with letters and numbers, giving it a rare and poetic title that reflects his deep personal narrative.

In terms of composition, the iconic red and white colors dance on the canvas, echoing her minimalist breakthrough of white backgrounds and white nets in the 1960s, and also embodying the accumulated energy of her early soft sculptures. Here, the red transcends the pigment itself, transforming into a symbol of vitality, the blazing sun, and the artist's indomitable creativity.

This work was created in 2020 amidst the global turmoil caused by the pandemic.Artists, forced to remain confined to their studios at the time, transformed their brushes into resilient testimonies. With its confident late style, "Sunset in My Heart" perfectly blends personal narrative, the imprint of the era, and artistic innovation, offering collectors a precious opportunity for a profound dialogue with a contemporary master.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir

Olive Tree Landscape, circa 1901

Oil on canvas, 36.8 x 49.4 cm

Estimate: HKD 2,000,000 - 3,000,000

As one of the founding masters of Impressionism, Renoir is known for his intimate and tender depictions of people.However, in the last decades of his artistic career, he underwent a profound shift—to escape the damp climate of northern France, he settled on the sunny Mediterranean coast, where the ancient olive tree, a symbol of resilience and eternity, became a central theme in his later works.

Around 1901, Renoir reached a crucial turning point.He decisively distanced himself from the Impressionist fascination with modern urban life, instead embracing the tranquility and classical charm of the South of France. For him, landscape was never a secondary subject, but rather the ultimate foundation for refining his vision of form and color.

In "Olive Grove Landscape," vegetation, light, and atmosphere intertwine to create a dazzling tapestry of color, fully showcasing the pinnacle of his late style. Renoir's works specifically depicting olive groves are extremely rare, with only four having appeared at auction to date.

This work is not only unique in its subject matter, but its illustrious provenance is also remarkable: in 1953, it entered the exceptional Impressionist collection of the legendary South African mining magnates Harry Oppenheimer and his wife.This testifies to the enduring quality and historical importance of this work.

Nicolas Party

Double Portrait, 2016

Pastel on linen, 140 x 140.3 cm

Estimate: HKD 2,500,000-3,500,000

Among the Western contemporary works featured in this season's evening auction, Nicolas Parti's "Double Portrait" stands out.The painting vividly demonstrates the artist's masterful control over color and form. The shimmering citrus hues—vibrant bright yellow and fiery orange—instantly capture the viewer's attention, imbuing the mysterious figures with a vibrant life.

Parthi sketched his figures with precise and concise brushstrokes. Though details were stripped away, the figures were imbued with psychological ambiguity. These androgynous, ambiguous beings oscillated between familiarity and strangeness, leading the viewer to gaze and question, rather than providing definitive answers. Thus, it is evident that Parthi's exploration of the fundamental elements of painting never ceased: color here is not merely a descriptive language, but also a structural element of the painting; though the form is highly simplified, it contains profound meaning.

"Double Portrait" perfectly embodies the unique charm of his work—a contemporary practice that revitalizes classical traditions and continues to resonate with the viewer's senses.

Trish Emin

"I Gaze at That Mirror", written in 2022

Acrylic canvas, 152.1 x 182 cm

Estimate: HKD 3,500,000 - 4,500,000

As a leading figure in contemporary British art, Tracey Emin continues to push the boundaries of confessional art with her highly personal and uncompromising sincerity. "I Gaze into the Mirror," created in 2022, comes at a highly acclaimed period in her artistic career—a profound creative rebirth that followed her battle with aggressive cancer in 2020.

In this new chapter, death, fragility, and resilience become the core themes of his large-scale paintings, deeply moving viewers and critics with an urgent power that directly reaches the heart.

The importance of this work was already evident in the 2023 solo exhibition "You Should Have Saved Me" at the Galleria Lorcan O'Neil in Rome, but its significance is even more extraordinary now—at this time, the artist is receiving unprecedented institutional recognition, with his largest retrospective to date, "A Second Life," being held at Tate Modern in London, running until September.

Adam Pendleton

Untitled (Days), written in 2023

Screen printing ink on canvas, 127 x 152.4 cm

Estimate: HKD 1,500,000 - 2,400,000

Adam Pendleton is one of the most insightful voices in contemporary American art.This season's evening sale features his work "Untitled (Days)," showcasing his consistent conceptual rigor.

Pendleton is best known for his groundbreaking "Black Dada" theoretical framework.His notable exhibition experiences include the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Venice Biennale. Through layered and juxtaposed pictorial structures, he continuously explores the intersection of language, identity, and abstraction, rejecting any anchoring to a single meaning.

In "Untitled (Days)," the curved brushstrokes gradually dissolve into the dense black ink, ultimately forming an almost empty image. Only the drooping drip marks break the silence—this colorless surface is both the trace of the artist's daily practice and his resistance to the end of narrative.

Pendleton's works have been collected by major museums around the world. He continues to use abstraction as a medium for cultural criticism and artistic resistance, injecting new contemporary meaning into this classic language.

Liu Dan

"A Concise Dictionary", written in 2011

Ink and color on paper, 200 × 260 cm

Estimate: HKD 3,500,000 - 4,500,000

Liu Dan is one of the most internationally influential benchmark artists in the field of contemporary Chinese ink painting.With his exceptional academic value and unique artistic vision, he redefined ink painting on the international stage. This season's evening auction presents his important work, "Mini Dictionary," a perfect embodiment of the artist's extraordinary creativity.

Liu Dan skillfully employs traditional Chinese ink painting techniques to subvert the logic of viewing the real world. The work is striking in its grand scale: a pocket dictionary used by elementary school students is dramatically enlarged, completely overturning the normal way of viewing and transforming the familiar object into a magnificent and immersive visual experience.

However, the true essence of this work lies in Liu Dan's perfect fusion of opposing forces—he magnifies the subject matter with extreme realism and precision, while every brushstroke is deeply rooted in the lyrical charm and subtle spirit of classical Chinese painting, creating a captivating aesthetic realm between ultimate visual realism and the freehand spirit of the East.

Takashi Murakami

Untitled, painted in 2019

Acrylic, platinum leaf, canvas mounted on a wooden board.

150 x 140 cm

Estimate: HKD 2,200,000 - 3,500,000

Takashi Murakami's Untitled work encapsulates the essence of his "Superflat" aesthetic, blurring the lines between high art and popular culture through his iconic persona, "Mr. DOB." Since its debut in 1993, "Mr. DOB" has become a cornerstone of Murakami's creative practice, creating a timeless tension between playful pop imagery and unsettling psychological depth.

On this large canvas, three kaleidoscopic faces are compressed into a flat surface, with vibrant colors contrasting sharply with sharp teeth and frenzied expressions—beneath the surface jubilation lies a restless energy.

The artwork uses platinum leaf as a background, a material from traditional Japanese decorative art, which clashes with the flatness of industrialization to create a strong cultural irony.

Untitled, which was featured in the historic exhibition Baka at the Perrotin Gallery in Paris, is a rare and important reinterpretation of "Mr. DOB," demonstrating Takashi Murakami's enduring ability to transform popular images into cultural commentary—casting profound reflections at the intersection of consumerism, fine art, and contemporary contradictions.

Selected Modern and Contemporary Art Auction:

5 PM on March 29

Zao Wou-Ki's Untitled (Landscape and Figures) captures a significant turning point in the artist's journey toward abstraction, born during his famous European "Grand Tour" period.

Zhao Wuji

Untitled (Landscape and People)Written in 1951

Oil paint cardboard,35 x 27 cm

Estimate: HKD 2,000,000-3,000,000

At that time, Western landscapes, classical architecture, and ancient ruins successively entered his field of vision, gradually pushing him away from figuration and opening up a completely new artistic vocabulary. In this poetic night scene, simplified elements—cuddling figures, houses in a settlement, and a half-moon—emerge on the canvas with lyrical brushstrokes and layered textures, reminiscent of the rubbings and weathered bronzes of ancient China. His brushstrokes move between delicacy and certainty, rooted in Eastern tradition while calmly responding to exotic scenery.

The image is based on a simple color scheme, but is unexpectedly softened by a touch of rose color, interspersed with colorful light and shadow of blue, yellow, red and green - like a gentle dream floating between memory and imagination, shimmering with fleeting shadows of memory.

As a rare early work bridging the figurative and the abstract, "Untitled (Landscape and Figures)" bears witness to the starting point of Zao Wou-Ki's fusion of Eastern and Western aesthetics—this ever-growing sensibility ultimately became the core of his signature style. Echoing with important contemporary works in international museums, it offers us a rare perspective on how a master, while inheriting tradition, steadfastly moves towards the future.

Chen Yifei

Dusk (Suzhou), painted in 1984

Oil on canvas, 76.2 x 106.7 cm

Estimate: HKD 850,000-1,200,000

Chen Yifei

Ancient Bridge (Suzhou), painted in 1984

Oil on canvas, 106.7 x 76.2 cm

Estimate: HKD 700,000-1,000,000

Chen Yifei is one of the most influential figures in modern Chinese art.In the 1980s, he gained international renown for his "Water Towns" series, which blended nostalgic imagery of Jiangnan with his unique soft-focus technique.

Two works created in 1984 will be featured in this Hong Kong March auction."Twilight (Suzhou)" and "Ancient Bridge (Suzhou)" represent his exemplary works from this period.The collection first appeared at the Hammer Galleries in New York and was later exhibited at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

The premiere of these two works coincided with Chen Yifei's rapid rise in the Western art market:In 1985, his painting "Memories of My Hometown - Twin Bridges" depicting the Twin Bridges of Zhouzhuang was gifted to Deng Xiaoping, then the leader of China, by Dr. Hammer, the founder of the gallery and an oil tycoon.This allowed the work to enter the cultural history of China and the United States as a "national gift," and made Chen Yifei one of the few contemporary Chinese artists whose works were given national symbolic significance.

In the same year, another painting depicting a water town, "The Bridge," was selected as a first-day cover issued by the United Nations Post Office, further solidifying his international influence. These works not only embody Chen Yifei's poetic expression of Jiangnan, but also mark him as the first Chinese painter to spark a collecting frenzy in the mainstream Western art market, thus becoming precious representatives of cultural exchange and market value.

also,Phillips' selected auctions this season will feature a curated "Modern Japan" theme for the first time.This auction focuses on five artists who hold important positions in the history of modern Japanese art: Ryuzaburo Umehara, Zenzaburo Kojima, Seiji Toriumi, Kazuya Wakita, and Saburo Aso. They not only laid the foundation for the development of modern Japanese art, but their works are also held in the permanent collections of important institutions such as the National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo. The "modern Japanese art" movement originated during the Meiji Restoration, when artists introduced Western oil painting techniques to Japan and, through the integration of traditional aesthetics such as the Rinpa and Nanga schools, gradually shaped a unique identity for modern Japanese art. This auction presents this special section to pay tribute to this profound artistic heritage. The pioneering explorations of these masters not only laid the foundation for Japan's diverse and vibrant art scene, but their influence continues to resonate in contemporary creation.

Auction Arrangements

Modern and contemporary artEvening AuctionMarch 29, 4 PM

Modern and contemporary artFeatured AuctionMarch 29, 5 PM

PreviewMarch 20-29, 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM

addressPhillips Asia Headquarters | West Kowloon Cultural District Authority Building, 8 Austin Road West, West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong, G/F

Stay tuned to ArtPro for the latest updates on the global art market.