Joan Mitchell’s La Grande Vallée VII sold for HK$137 million (US$17.6 million) with fees at Sotheby’s Hong Kong yesterday (29 Mar), becoming the most valuable work by a woman artist ever sold at auction in Asia and setting a new regional auction record for Mitchell.
Carrying the highest estimate of the season at HK$110 million, the painting was hammered to an online bidder for HK$115 million at the house’s Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction. It was the top lot of Hong Kong’s spring auction week.
At the sale, three works were withdrawn and all 54 remaining lots sold, bringing the total to about HK$548 million (US$70 million). Another highlight was Mark Rothko’s No. 10 (1949), from his transitional period, which achieved HK$66.8 million with fees, well above its HK$28 million estimate.
One buyer alone spent HK$87.8 million over the evening, acquiring a newly discovered horse painting by Sanyu and a large‑scale canvas from Zao Wou‑Ki’s “Oracle Bone” period.
Evelyn Lin | Chairman, Modern and Contemporary Art, Asia
Lot 15 | Joan Mitchell (1925-1992) | La Grande Vallée VII, oil on canvas, in two parts (Auction record for a work by a woman artist at auction in Asia and auction record for the artist in Asia)
Executed in 1983
Overall: 260.3 x 260.7 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Jean Fournier, Paris, 1985
- Private collection, France, 1985
- Anon. sale; Francis Briest Drouot-Montaigne, Paris, 9 October 1989, lot 54
- Lennon, Weinberg, Inc., New York
- Private collection, 1989
- Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall, Sweden, 1996
- Edward Tyler Nahem Fine Art, New York, 2005
- Private collection, United States
- Private collection, New York, 2008
- Private Collection (acquired from the above)
- Christie's, New York, 10 July 2020, Lot 61
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$110,000,000 - 300,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$115,000,000
Sold: HK$137,350,000 (US$17.6 million)
La Grande Vallée VII belongs to a group of 21 paintings Joan Mitchell made in 1983-84, dedicated to her friend Gisèle Barreau, a French composer who lost her cousin just three days after Mitchell lost her beloved sister.
Often regarded as the summit of the artist’s late career, La Grande Vallée is the largest single body of work she ever produced, comprising 15 single canvases, five diptychs, and one triptych. The present work is one of only two diptychs still in private hands, with the others now in public collections, including the Fondation Cartier and museums in France.
While the other privately owned diptych has never appeared at auction, La Grande Vallée VII last sold in 2020, when Christie’s sold it in New York for US$14.5 million. Mitchell’s all-time auction record currently stands at US$29.1 million, set by Untitled (1959) in 2023.
Joan Mitchell in her Vétheuil studio, 1983
Untitled (1959) | Sold: US$29.1 million, Christie’s New York, 2023 (Auction record for the artist)
Joan Mitchell and Gisèle Barreau
In 1979, Barreau moved into Mitchell’s estate in Vétheuil, France, and over the next few years became the painter’s close companion and indispensable assistant. She often spoke of “la grande vallée”, a valley in Brittany where she had played as a child with her cousin. When her cousin died of cancer in 1983 at the age of 28, he told her on his deathbed: “If we could only return to the Grande Vallée once again.”
Sharing Barreau’s grief, Mitchell threw herself into painting, working with an intensity that over 13 months culminated in the La Grande Vallée series. “I was stuck on a subject,” she later recalled. “I thought, ‘Shit, I’ll paint the Grande Vallée for her.’”
Although Mitchell never visited the place herself, she conjured an abstract landscape out of emotion and imagination, drawing on Barreau’s memories of calm water, lush greenery, and strong light.
La Grande Vallée VII debuted with 15 other works from the series in Mitchell’s 1984 solo exhibition at Galerie Jean Fournier in Paris, and is considered one of the most colourful, vibrant paintings in the group.
Joan Mitchell | La Grande Vallée VI (1983) | Collection of Fondation Cartier, Paris
Joan Mitchell | La Grande Vallée XVII, Carl (1984) | Collection of Frac Sud, Cité de l'art contemporain, Marseille
Joan Mitchell | La Grande Vallée IX (1983) | Collection of Musée des impressionnismes, Giverny
Lot 20 | Mark Rothko (1903-1970) | No. 10, oil on canvas
Executed in 1949
154.5 x 75 cm
Provenance:
- Betty Parsons Gallery, New York
- Mr and Mrs Joseph Bransten, San Francisco (acquired from the above in 1950)
- Mr John Bransten, San Francisco (by descent from the above in 1980)
- Christie’s, New York, 11 May 2005, Lot 26 (consigned by the estate of John Bransten)
- European Private Collection (acquired from the above)
- Sotheby's, London, 30 June 2014, Lot 23
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$28,000,000 - 40,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$54,000,000
Sold: HK$66,780,000 (US$8.5 million)
Mark Rothko’s works are rarely offered at auction in Asia. The only other time a painting by the artist has come to the block was in 2024, when Sotheby’s Hong Kong sold a large‑scale yellow‑and‑blue colour‑field canvas from 1954 for HK$252.5 million (US$32.5 million), making it the fourth‑most‑expensive Western artwork sold in the region.
Estimated at HK$28 million, the present lot drew at least five phone bidders, mainly clients of Fusako Oshima (Specialist, Private Sales, Asia), Wendy Lin (Chairman of Asia), and Max Moore (Head of Sealed & Senior Private Sales Specialist, New York). After around 15 bids in HK$2 million increments, it was Moore’s client, paddle 6667, who placed the winning bid of HK$54 million.
This May’s New York auctions will also see Rothko as a major presence, with two works that could smash his US$87 million auction record.
Christie’s is offering No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe) (1964), from the collection of former Museum of Modern Art board chair Agnes Gund, with an estimate in the region of US$80 million. Sotheby’s will present Brown and Blacks in Reds (1957), estimated at US$70 million, from the collection of the late dealer and financier Robert Mnuchin.
Untitled (Yellow and Blue) (1954) | Sold: HK$252,500,000, Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2024 (Auction record for the artist in Asia)
No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe) (1964) | To be offered at Sotheby's with an estimate in the region of US$80 million
Brown and Blacks in Reds (1957) | To be offered at Sotheby's New York with an estimate of US$70 million
“I'm not an abstractionist. I'm not interested in the relationship of color or form or anything else. I'm interested only in expressing basic human emotions: tragedy, ecstasy, doom, and so on,” Rothko once said.
The 1940s marked a period of rapid change in Rothko’s work. Moving away from Surrealist and Symbolist imagery, he searched for a more universal way to paint human experience. Gradually he abandoned figuration altogether, aiming for “the elimination of all obstacles between the painter and the idea,” and arrived at the hovering planes of colour that would become his hallmark.
Painted in 1949, No. 10 comes from that brief hinge in the artist's career, the so‑called “Multiform” period, named for the loosely stacked zones of colour that organise these paintings. It was one of 12 canvases featured in Rothko’s January 1950 exhibition at Betty Parsons Gallery in New York, numbered 1 to 12 in the anti‑clockwise sequence he devised around the main room.
Of those twelve works, only three remain in private hands; the others are now in major American museums. Across Rothko’s output, only nine paintings from 1948-49 – including No. 10 – have ever appeared at auction.
Mark Rothko standing in his exhibition at the Betty Parsons Gallery in 1950; the present work is the third from the left
Close-up of the present lot
Lot 21 | Sanyu (1895-1966) | Beijing Circus, oil on Masonite
80.3 x 129.5 cm
Provenance:
- Dayton's Gallery 12, Minneapolis
- Locksley Shea Gallery, Minneapolis
- Gordon Locksley and George Shea Estate Sale, Minneapolis, 10-11 July 1976
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$28,000,000 - 40,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$38,000,000
Sold: HK$47,260,000 (US$6 million)
Recently resurfaced, Beijing Circus had been hidden in an American collection for five decades and was previously unknown among the 321 recorded oil paintings by the artist.
It is one of only three known oil paintings inscribed with the “Beijing Circus” theme, and the largest circus painting still in private hands, comparable in scale to Peking Circus in the National Museum of History, Taipei.
Opening at HK$28 million, the work attracted three bidders: one in the room and two on the phones with Wendy Lin and Joseph Yang (Senior Specialist, Hong Kong). In the end, it was Lin’s client, paddle 6693, who secured the painting at HK$38 million. With fees, the final price came to HK$47.3 million (US$6 million).
Animal subjects have long been popular with Sanyu collectors, with Goldfish setting his auction record for an animal painting at HK$170 million. Fittingly for the Year of the Horse, Christie’s also offered a major horse painting this season, which fetched HK$63.9 million two days ago.
Kneeling Horse on Carpet (1950s-1960s), 49 x 74.2 cm | Sold: HK$63,940,000, Christie's Hong Kong, 2026
Peking circus (1950/1960s), 82 x 121 cm | Collection of National Museum of History, Taiwan
Circus (1950s), 65 x 100 cm | Private Collection, Singapore
When Sanyu arrived in Paris from south‑western China in 1921, he quickly forged a distinctive blend of Chinese line and Western modernism. By the late 1940s, however, years of financial setbacks and wartime scarcity had left him struggling to paint.
In 1948, he travelled to New York, hoping his invention “ping‑tennis” might lift him out of poverty. Although he claimed to have lost interest in painting, he brought 29 works with him and showed them in a joint exhibition, East Meets West, at the Passedoit Gallery in 1950.
During the visit, he stayed in the studio of Swiss-American photographer and filmmaker Robert Frank and encountered the Abstract Expressionism then in vogue. But when neither the paintings nor ping‑tennis found an audience, he returned to Paris later that year, leaving the works with Frank in gratitude for his kindness.
The consignor acquired Beijing Circus at the 1976 estate sale of Minneapolis’s Locksley Shea Gallery. New to Sanyu’s work, she bought the painting on instinct and later became an artist and collector herself.
Lot 5 | Zao Wou-Ki (1920 - 2013) | Nuage, oil on canvas
Executed in January to May 1956
130 x 97 cm
Provenance:
- Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner
Estimate: HK$30,000,000 - 50,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$32,500,000
Sold: HK$40,550,000
The buyer of Beijing Circus also picked up Zao Wou‑Ki’s Nuage, paying HK$40.6 million with fees. Painted in 1956, Nuage dates from the height of Zao’s celebrated “Oracle Bone” period (1954–58).
Works from this series are relatively few, and those that reach the market tend to be small to medium in scale. Measuring 130 x 97 cm, Nuage has been widely exhibited across Europe and Asia since the 1960s, including in a major show at the Petit Palais in Paris in 2000.
Long held in a European private collection, it was chosen by Zao for the present owner and has never been auctioned before.
Other Highlight Lots:
Lot 29 | Yayoi Kusama (b. 1929) | Pumpkin, urethane paint on fiberglass reinforced plastic
Executed in 2015, this work is unique
210 x 196 x 196 cm
Provenance:
- David Zwirner, New York
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$40,000,000 - 60,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$40,000,000
Sold: HK$49,700,000
Lot 9 | Zao Wou-Ki (1920 - 2013) | Terre rouge – 16.01.2005, oil on canvas
Dated 16 January 2005
130 x 195 cm
Provenance:
- Acquired directly from the artist in 2006
Estimate: HK$20,000,000 - 40,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$25,500,000
Sold: HK$32,010,000
Lot 41 | Wu Guanzhong (1919-2010) | Red lotus flowers, oil on board
Executed in 2003
59.8 x 49.8 cm
Provenance:
- Private Collection, Asia
Estimate: HK$2,400,000 - 6,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$13,500,000
Sold: HK$17,280,000
Lot 51 | Keith Haring (1958-1990) | Untitled, baked enamel on metal
Executed in 1982
109.3 x 109.3 cm
Provenance:
- Tony Shafrazi Gallery, New York
- Christie's, New York, 17 May 2007, Lot 409
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$14,000,000 - 20,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$11,000,000
Sold: HK$14,080,000
Lot 10 | Lucy Bull (b. 1990) | 22:14, oil on linen
Executed in 2022
234.1 x 96.8 cm
Provenance:
- David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2022
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$3,500,000 - 5,500,000
Hammer Price: HK$9,500,000
Sold: HK$12,160,000
Lot 42 | Henri Matisse (1869-1954) | Jeune fille en noir, oil on canvasboard
Executed in 1919
40.7 x 32.7 cm
Provenance:
- Alphonse Kann, Saint Germain-en-Laye
- Confiscated from the above by the Einsatzstab Reichleiter Rosenberg (ERR)
- Gustav Rochlitz, Paris (received in exchange with the Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg (ERR) on 9th July 1941)
- Klein, Mlle Levy, Paul Pètrides, & Isidor Rosner, Paris (possibly acquired from Rochlitz)
- Christian Zervos, Paris (acquired from Paul Pètrides)
- Returned to Alphonse Kann by Christian Zervos through a private agreement in 1945
- Palais Galliéra, Paris, 16th June 1961, lot 50
- Galerie Motte, Geneva, 12th May 1962, lot 164
- Jacques Dubourg, Paris
- Stephen Hahn (acquired from the above by 1969)
- Private Collection, Italy
- Milan, Galleria Brerarte
- Private Collection (acquired from the above by the family in 1981)
- Sotheby's, London, 22 June 2016, Lot 166
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$7,000,000 - 9,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$6,500,000
Sold: HK$8,320,000
Lot 19 | Giorgio Morandi (1890-1964) | Natura morta, oil on canvas
Executed in 1942-43
25 x 35.2 cm
Provenance:
- C. Carabelli, Florence
- E. Jesi, Milan
- Galleria dell'Annunciata, Milan
- Private Collection, Milan (acquired from the above in the 1960s)
- Private Collection, Milan (acquired by descent from the above)
- Sotheby's, Milan, 25 May 2011, lot 20 (consigned by the above)
- Tornabuoni Arte, Florence
- Private Collection (acquired from the above in 2012)
- Sotheby's, New York, 8 May 2013, lot 267 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$2,500,000 - 4,500,000
Hammer Price: HK$6,500,000
Sold: HK$8,320,000
Lot 39 | Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) | Rochers, oil on canvas
Executed circa 1867-70
54 x 65 cm
Provenance:
- Private Collection, Switzerland
- Schüller, Zurich, 21 March 1997, lot 4396A
- Private Collection, Zurich (acquired from the above)
- Acquired in 2016 by the present owner
Estimate: HK$3,000,000 - 5,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$6,000,000
Sold: HK$7,680,000
Lot 45 | Mai Trung Thu (1906 - 1980) | La jeune femme de Hué, oil on canvas
Executed in 1937
73.5 x 60.5 cm
Provenance:
- Private Collection, France (acquired directly from the artist in 1937-1939)
- Private Collection, France
- Aguttes, Paris, 27 June 2011, lot 75
- Collection of Jean-Marc Lefèvre, Paris
- Christie's, Hong Kong, 3 December 2020, lot 206 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$3,000,000 - 4,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$5,500,000
Sold: HK$7,040,000
Lot 18 | An Amamori kohiki vase
Joseon dynasty, 15th-16th century
Height: 18.7 cm
Provenance:
- Collection of Shigeru Kōyama (1929-2017), Kyoto
Estimate: HK$2,800,000 - 4,800,000
Hammer Price: HK$4,700,000
Sold: HK$6,016,000
Lot 22 | Eugène Carrière (1849 - 1906) | Caresse, oil on canvas (Auction record for the artist)
Executed circa 1894
46 x 55 cm
Porvenance:
- Atelier Eugène Carrière
- Nelly Carrière
- Jeannie Dumesnil
- Estate of the artist
- Mennour, Paris
Estimate: HK$1,000,000 - 1,400,000
Hammer Price: HK$2,800,000
Sold: HK$3,584,000
Lot 55 | Yu Nishimura (b. 1982) | bug, oil on canvas
Executed in 2021
227.3 x 162 cm
Provenance:
- KAYOKOYUKI, Tokyo
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$500,000 - 700,000
Hammer Price: HK$2,200,000
Sold: HK$2,816,000
Lot 57 | Li Hei Di (b. 1997) | The Reservoir of Understanding, oil on linen
Executed in 2022
145 x 130 cm
Provenance:
- Public Gallery, London
- Private Collection, Nanjing
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$500,000 - 700,000
Hammer Price: HK$1,500,000
Sold: HK$1,920,000
Lot 2 | Kim Lim (1936-1997) | Relief Sculpture, portland stone (Auction record for the artist)
Executed in 1995
37.8 x 47.8 x 10 cm
Provenance:
- Acquired directly from the artist's studio by the present owner
Estimate: HK$1,000,000 - 1,500,000
Hammer Price: HK$1,400,000
Sold: HK$1,792,000
Lot 3 | A large 'Lingbi' scholar's rock
Ming - Qing dynasty
Length: 45.5 cm
Provenance:
- A private collection, Kansai
- A Japanese collection
Estimate: HK$900,000 - 1,200,000
Hammer Price: HK$900,000
Sold: HK$1,152,000
Lot 4 | Tracery Section from the Nave of York Minster, England, York, York Minster, limestone
Executed circa 1280-91
71 x 40 x 32 cm
Provenance:
- York Minster until its removal in 2020 and sale thereafter (numbered Chn5-08)
- Private Collection, York
Estimate: HK$500,000 - 700,000
Hammer Price: HK$470,000
Sold: HK$601,600
Lot 26 | A Fragmentary Roman Marble Portrait Head of a Youth
1st/2nd Century A.D.
Height: 22 cm
Provenance:
- European private collection, circa 17th Century (based on restoration techniques)
- French private collection, Vaucluse, acquired locally in the 1970s/1980s
- Alexandre Landre, Semur-sur-Auxois, Vente aux enchères de l'entier contenu d'une demeure dans le Vaucluse, February 13th, 2022, lot 200, illus. (as part of a bust)
- acquired by the present owner at the above sale
Estimate: HK$250,000 - 350,000
Hammer Price: HK$190,000
Sold: HK$243,200
Auction Details:
Auction House: Sotheby's Hong Kong
Sale: Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction
Date: 29 March 2026
Number of Lots: 54
Sold: 54
Sale Rate: 100%
Sale Total: HK$548,421,200 (US$70 million)