As Christie’s launches a year‑long celebration marking four decades in Asia, the auction house opens its Hong Kong spring season with a major highlight: Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (1991), a crimson‑hued canvas from the artist’s most coveted period.
Estimated at HK$78–98 million (US$10–13 million), the painting will make its auction debut in the 20th/21st Century Evening Sale on 27 March at The Henderson, Christie’s Asia-Pacific headquarters.
At 93, the German artist has returned to the spotlight with a critically acclaimed retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, drawing renewed attention to the breadth and evolution of his experimental practice. Ahead of the auction, Abstraktes Bild will be exhibited in New York, London, Taipei, and Shanghai, before returning to Hong Kong Art Week for a final public viewing.
Gerhard Richter (b. 1932) | Abstraktes Bild, oil on canvas
Painted in 1991
200 x 180 cm
Estimate: HK$78,000,000 - 98,000,000 (US$10 - 13 million)
The Abstraktes Bild series is widely regarded as one of Richter's most important contributions to post‑war painting. Begun in 1976 and developed in phases over the following decades, it represents a sustained response to a deceptively simple question: what can painting still do in a world oversaturated with images?
While his earlier photo‑paintings and grey monochromes deconstructed figuration and the illusion of objectivity, Abstraktes Bild marked a shift to the physical language of paint – an embrace of materiality, chance, and gesture as valid means of constructing an image.
Central to these canvases is the squeegee: a large, custom‑made tool that Richter drags across wet oil paint in successive, overlapping passes. Each pull erases portions of the surface while revealing new configurations of colour, form, and depth. Layers are built up and scraped back in a continual cycle of construction and erasure, leaving surfaces of striking visual complexity.
Gerhard Richter in his studio
Close-up of the present lot
Close-up of the present lot
The present Abstraktes Bild is composed of vast stretches of layered, vivid red. It belongs to an exceptionally rare group within Richter’s oeuvre: only in 1991 did he make canvases dominated by this colour, and this is one of just 27 red Abstraktes Bild works, three of which are now held in institutional collections.
It dates from a period now recognised as a high point in Richter's practice. In 1991, a major retrospective at the Tate Gallery in London cemented Richter’s position with an international audience, following earlier landmark touring exhibitions across Europe and the U.S. between 1986 and 1988.
Never before offered at auction, this painting was acquired from and exhibited at the influential Galerie Liliane & Michel Durand‑Dessert in Paris – known for championing avant-garde artists and movements, including Arte Povera, among others.
Abstraktes Bild (1986) | Sold for £30.4 million (around US$44.5 million) at Sotheby’s London in 2015 (Auction record for the artist)
Abstraktes Bild (649‑2) (1987) | Sold for HK$214.6 million (US$27.6 million) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2020
Works completed between 1986 and 1992 are especially prized among collectors, with nine of the artist's ten highest auction prices coming from this period. Richter’s current auction record was set by Abstraktes Bild (1986), which sold for approximately £30.4 million (around US$44.5 million) at Sotheby’s London in 2015, making him the most expensive living artist then.
In recent years, interest in Richter’s work has grown significantly across Asia. In October 2020, Abstraktes Bild (649‑2) (1987) sold for HK$214.6 million (US$27.6 million) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, setting a record at the time for the most expensive Western artwork ever sold at auction in Asia. Another canvas realised £24.2 million (US$29.2 million) in a 2023 London sale, going to a collector in mainland China.
A similar red Abstraktes Bild – also created in 1991 and slightly larger than the present canvas – sold for US$16.6 million at Sotheby’s London in 2018.
Abstraktes Bild (1991) | 200 x 200 cm | Sold for US$16.6 million at Sotheby’s London in 2018
The present lot, 200 x 180 cm
Auction Details:
Auction House: Christie’s Hong Kong
Sale: 20th/21st Century Evening Sale
Date: 27 March 2026
Public Preview:
- New York | 5 - 6 February | 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York, NY 10020
- London | 13 - 16 February | 8 King Street, London, SW1Y 6QT
- Taipei | 28 February - 1 March | Dopeness Art Lab, No. 170, Sec. 2, Keelung Rd., Da'an Dist., Taipei
- Shanghai | 7 - 8 March | BUND ONE, 4/F, No.1 Zhongshan Dong Yi Road
- Hong Kong | 24 - 27 March | 6th Floor, The Henderson, 2 Murray Road, Central
*Preview dates and venues subject to change; pre-registration required