Historically, the art world has been dominated by male voices. Only in recent decades – through the rise of feminism and greater gender awareness – have women artists begun receiving the recognition they long deserved. In the market, works created from a female perspective have seen unprecedented attention over the past ten years, reflected in soaring prices and record-breaking results.
Today, living female artists have crossed the HK$100 million threshold at auction. Phillips’ upcoming Modern and Contemporary Evening Sale in Hong Kong on 27 September will spotlight a compelling roster of women whose practices are reshaping the art landscape.
Among them are Loie Hollowell, a rising American artist known for her sensual and symbolic abstractions; Ruth Asawa, celebrated for her ethereal wire sculptures; and Miriam Cahn, whose emotionally charged paintings confront systems of power and trauma.
The featured works, alongside a broader selection of offerings, are on view now through auction day at Phillips’ West Kowloon Galleries during the public preview.
Lot 4 | Loie Hollowell | Hung (down), oil and acrylic on linen mounted to panel
Executed in 2016, in the USA
121.9 x 91.4 cm
Provenance:
- Feuer/Mesler, New York
- Private Collection, New York
- Sotheby's, New York, 15 November 2019, lot 407
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$4,500,000 - 6,500,000 (US$577,000 - 833,000)
Loie Hollowell has repeatedly seen her works surpass HK$10 million at auction. The American artist often explores themes of sexuality, fertility, and the body, using light, color, and abstract geometric forms to express these ideas.
Influenced by Tantric art and spiritual traditions, Hollowell refers to her compositions as “abstract body landscapes,” drawing comparisons to feminist pioneers like Georgia O’Keeffe and Judy Chicago.
Her paintings draw directly from her personal life experiences, particularly her pregnancy and childbirth. In each work, she presents full-scale depictions of specific parts of the body – whether the head, breasts, groin, or the entire figure – rendered with bold intimacy and symbolic abstraction.
Loie Hollowell
In Hung (down), featured in this auction, Loie Hollowell uses a bold and direct figurative approach to depict an inverted female body, seemingly compressed by two male forms on either side.
The work was created in 2016, during Hillary Clinton’s U.S. presidential campaign, a time when media coverage was often laced with gender bias. This painting serves as Hollowell’s response, using vivid colors and symmetrical composition to provoke reflection on female consciousness and political tension, and to emphasize the need to confront the oppressive inequalities that persist in society.
After its completion, the work debuted in Hollowell’s solo exhibition Mother Tongue at Feuer/Mesler Gallery in New York. The show marked a turning point in her career, showcasing her fusion of painting with sculptural elements, and the entire show sold out.
Hung (down) is a key work in Hollowell’s career, exemplifying her unique blend of geometric abstraction and bodily symbolism. When the piece first appeared at auction in New York in 2019, it fetched over US$250,000 – well above its estimate of US$60,000-80,000.
Lot 5 | Ruth Asawa | Untitled S.013 (Hanging Single-Lobed, Five-Layer Continuous Form within a Form), hanging sculpture, woven oxidised copper wire
Executed circa 1987, in the USA; this work is numbered S.013/80
22.5 x 28.8 x 28.8 cm
Provenance:
- Collection of the Asawa Family
- Christie's, New York, 9 November 2011, lot 609
- Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Estimate: HK$2,200,000 - 4,200,000 (US$282,000 - 538,000)
Another artist who has broken the HK$10 million barrier is Ruth Asawa, the Japanese-American sculptor whose suspended wire forms have become icons of postwar American art.
Asawa was born in 1926 into a Japanese-American farming family in California and demonstrated artistic talent from a young age. During World War II, due to hostilities between the United States and Japan, she was forcibly sent to live in an internment camp. The trauma and suffering of being confined behind barbed wire eventually became part of her artistic language. The metal wire once used for restraint became a medium that connected life and freedom.
The turning point in Asawa’s artistic journey came when she met her mentor, Josef Albers. Born in Germany, Albers studied at the Bauhaus and later became the school’s first student to also serve as a teacher. After the Nazis came to power, he emigrated to the United States, where he began developing his iconic series of minimalist square paintings.
After World War II, Asawa enrolled at Black Mountain College in North Carolina, a progressive art school where she met Albers. Inspired by his teachings, she began to explore metal wire as a creative medium.
Ruth Asawa
During a summer field trip, Asawa traveled to Mexico, where she observed Indigenous artisans using crochet techniques to weave metal baskets. She expanded on the craftsmanship taught by Josef Albers, eventually developing her own distinctive style of suspended wire sculptures.
These sculptures hang in mid-air, allowing the artist to build works in any space while letting light and air move freely through them. Asawa described this approach as an “economy of a line,” a method that gave her creative freedom. This technique became the core of her artistic expression and remained one of the most acclaimed aspects of her work throughout her career.
The piece featured in this auction, Untitled S.013 (1987), was crafted entirely by hand. Through this weaving process, she reintroduced light, air, and touch into the language of sculpture, creating forms that are at once transparent and full, light yet strong.
Details of Untitled S.013
Asawa’s works are held in major institutions including the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the de Young Museum in San Francisco. After her passing in 2013 at the age of 87, a major retrospective at David Zwirner Gallery in New York brought renewed attention to her work, and her market saw a significant rise. In 2019 alone, five of her works sold for over US$2 million each. Her current auction record, set in 2020, stands at US$5.38 million.
This October, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York will host a landmark retrospective of Asawa’s work, further elevating the profile of this pioneering Japanese-American artist.
Lot 2 | Miriam Cahn | flüchtling, 17/18' 12'02, oil on canvas
Painted in 2002, in Switzerland
165.5 x 89.5 cm
Provenance:
- Meyer Riegger, Switzerland
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$800,000 - 1,200,000 (US$103,000 - 154,000)
Miriam Cahn’s paintings are charged with intensity and emotion. The Swiss artist explores themes such as violence, gender, war, and social justice, using raw, expressive imagery to challenge conventional representations of the body and identity.
Born in 1949 into a Jewish family in Basel, Cahn became actively involved in feminist and anti-nuclear movements during the 1970s and ’80s – issues that would go on to shape the core of her artistic practice. In an interview, she remarked:
“Female artists have a lot to do. Because art history is mostly done by men. So they have their vision on females, which means females are to be erotic […] It’s a tradition in art history. So we have a lot to do. Because we have to rewrite the art history.”
In her early work, Cahn used charcoal drawings to depict the wounded, the marginalized, and the threatened – using art as a way to confront and question structures of gender and power.
In 2023, Cahn participated in a major retrospective at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris
Over time, she turned to oil painting, where she unflinchingly depicted violence and primal, unsettling imagery that elicits strong physical, emotional, and psychological responses. Despite occasionally sparking controversy, her bold approach led her to become, in 1983, the first woman artist to hold a solo exhibition at the Kunsthalle Basel. The following year, she represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennale.
In this sale, Phillips presents flüchtling, 17/18' 12'02 (2002), a painting that addresses the trauma of displacement caused by war. For Cahn, the work is not only a reflection on current events, but also a gesture of empathy and ethical responsibility, calling on women to claim greater influence in public discourse.
In recent years, Cahn’s work has received heightened international attention. After appearing in the 2022 Venice Biennale, she was honored with a major retrospective at Palais de Tokyo in Paris in 2023. That same year, her vertical oil painting Das Genaue Hinschauen (The Close Look) sold at auction in London for over £580,000 (around US$703,000), setting a new auction record for the artist.
Auction Details:
Auction House: Phillips Hong Kong
Sale: Modern & Contemporary Art Evening Sale
Date and Time: 27 September 2025 | 7 pm (Hong Kong local time)
Number of Lots: 26