Sotheby's latest Hong Kong preview drew an unexpected crowd during the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, bringing a record of nearly 85,000 visitors to Sotheby's Maison over twelve days. That highly anticipated Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Auction took place on 28 September, totalling HK$671 million (US$87.3 million).
The sale saw 46 of 52 lots find buyers, producing an 88% sell-through rate, with every work by a Japanese artist sold. Yoshitomo Nara took the evening’s top two prices, led by Present, which fetched HK$71.7 million (US$9.3 million), followed by the installation The Crated Room in Iceland / Drawing Room at HK$61.9 million.
Among the evening's most closely watched lots, Yayoi Kusama's Pumpkin (TWPOT) was the first major pumpkin painting to appear at auction since the artist's death in August. Estimated at HK$48 million, the golden-orange canvas drew at least three bidders before hammering at HK$49 million and selling for HK$60.7 million (US$7.9 million) with fees.
Yoshitomo Nara's Present was hammered at HK$58 million
Lot 107 | Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959) | Present, acrylic on canvas
Executed in 1994
180 x 150 cm
Provenance (Supplemented by The Value):
- Gallery d'Eendt, Amsterdam
- Sotheby's, New York, 9 November 2004, Lot 11 (Sold: US$209,600)
- Private Collection, Asia (acquired from the above)
- Christie's, Hong Kong, 30 November 2022, Lot 34 (Sold: HK$71,900,000)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$50,000,000 - 70,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$58,000,000
Sold: HK$71,660,000
Bidding for the lot opened at HK$50 million and drew six bids before hammering at HK$58 million to a client of Florence Ho, Head of Day and Online Sales, Contemporary Art.
Painted in 1994, Present is the earliest canvas in Nara’s oeuvre to show his defiant child in full figure. At 180 x 150 cm, it ranks among the two largest knife-bearing canvases made in the 1990s, the other being Nice to See You Again from 1996.
The knife had appeared in Nara's work as early as the 1980s, but it was during the following decade that it became one of the defining props of his rebellious children, alongside chainsaws, pistols, and clubs. The artist once said of his weapons, "Look at them, they are so small, like toys." In his hands, the language of innocence becomes a vehicle for rebellion against war and injustice.
Present anticipates what would become one of Nara’s most celebrated works: Knife Behind Back from 2000, where the weapon is concealed behind the girl’s back. By then, the overt weapons of the 1990s had largely disappeared from his canvases and appeared more often in works on paper. That later painting sold for HK$195 million (around US$25 million) at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in 2019, setting the artist’s auction record.
Florence Ho won the lot for her client, paddle 6616
Yoshitomo Nara, Nice to See You Again (1996), 180 x 150 cm | Sold: US$15,430,800, Sotheby’s New York, 2021
Yoshitomo Nara, Knife Behind Back (2000), 234 x 208 cm | Sold: HK$195,696,000, Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2019 (Auction record for the artist)
1994 was a pivotal year for Nara. With the support of Cologne-based gallerist Jörg Johnen, he moved from Düsseldorf, where he had studied under A.R. Penck at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, to a converted factory building on the outskirts of Cologne. The new studio gave him the space to work on a larger scale, allowing him to channel intimate feelings of solitude and nostalgia into increasingly ambitious canvases.
Nara had left Japan in 1988 to study in Germany. What began as a six-year period of training became a twelve-year stay, during which he developed the child protagonists that would define his mature work. Away from Japan, he later wrote, he recovered a “sense of true self,” free from the feeling of “being watched by other people.”
Present's large format and stark, confrontational figure reflect the intensity of his Cologne years. "I worked tirelessly to fix onto canvas all the visions that welled up in my head," Nara later recalled. The following year, he held a solo exhibition at SCAI the Bathhouse in Tokyo, an event that catapulted him to the international art scene.
The present lot is one of the two largest knife-bearing canvases made in the 1990s
Lot 120 | Yoshitomo Nara (b. 1959) | The Crated Room in Iceland / Drawing Room, mixed media, acrylic on wood, 97 drawings on paper, CD player, two small chairs, a paper cup, an extension cord, a pair of light bulb and cord
Executed in 2009
Overall: 206 x 229 x 207 cm
Provenance:
- Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$45,000,000 - 65,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$50,000,000
Sold: HK$61,900,000
The second Nara work of the evening, The Crated Room in Iceland / Drawing Room, opened at HK$38 million before hammering at HK$50 million and selling for HK$61.9 million (US$8.1 million) with fees.
Created with the Osaka-based design collective graf under the name YNG, the work belongs to a mature phase of Nara’s installation practice. Constructed from shipping crates, it houses ninety-seven drawings, some double-sided, everyday objects like chairs and a CD player, and a large billboard painting.
Rather than presenting drawings on a conventional wall, Nara invites the viewer to peer into a studio-like interior, transforming the act of viewing into an intimate encounter.
Appearing at auction for the first time, the installation had remained out of public view for more than fifteen years. It is one of three works from Nara’s Crated series conceived specifically for The Crated Rooms in Iceland: Yoshitomo Nara + YNG, held at the Reykjavik Art Museum in 2009.
Other works from Nara’s room-based installations have drawn strong prices at auction. In 2021, Berlin Barack, Room 1 sold for HK$120 million at Poly Auction Hong Kong, setting a record for an installation by the artist, while Not Everything but / Green House sold for HK$40.1 million at Poly Auction Hong Kong in 2019.
Yoshitomo Nara, Not Everything but / Green House | Sold: HK$40.1 million, Poly Auction Hong Kong, 2019
Yoshitomo Nara, Berlin Barack, Room 1 | Sold: HK$120 million, Poly Auction Hong Kong, 2021
Lot 126 | Yayoi Kusama (1929 - 2026) | PUMPKIN (TWPOT), acrylic on canvas
Executed in 2010
130 x 162.5 cm
Provenance:
- Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo
- Private Collection (acquired from the above)
- Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 1 April 2019, Lot 1138
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$48,000,000 - 68,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$49,000,000
Sold: HK$60,680,000
Measuring 130 by 162.5 cm, Pumpkin (TWPOT) is distinguished within Kusama’s pumpkin series by its rare golden-orange palette, in contrast to the more familiar yellow-and-black combination.
The work last appeared at auction in 2019, when it sold for HK$54.5 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong, then the highest price achieved for a Kusama pumpkin painting. It now ranks third in the category, behind Pumpkin (MBOK) and Pumpkin (LPASG).
The three highest prices for Kusama pumpkin paintings at auction are:
- Pumpkin (MBOK), 130 x 160 cm | Sold: KRW 12,331,000,000 (nearly HK$63.3 million), Seoul Auction, 2026
- PUMPKIN(LPASG), 130.3 x 130.3 cm | Sold: HK$62,540,000, Christie’s Hong Kong, 2021
- PUMPKIN (TWPOT), 130 x 162.5 cm | Sold: HK$60,680,000, Sotheby's Hong Kong, 2026
The present lot during Hong Kong preview
Yayoi Kusama, Pumpkin (MBOK), 130 x 160 cm | Sold: KRW 12,331,000,000, Seoul Auction, 2026
Yayoi Kusama, PUMPKIN (LPASG), 130.3 x 130.3 cm | Sold: HK$62,540,000, Christie’s Hong Kong, 2021
Kusama's relationship with the pumpkin began in childhood. Visiting a seed-harvesting nursery with her grandfather, she reached out to touch one lying among the yellow vines and later recalled it began speaking to her. During the war years, she ate pumpkin almost every day – to the point that the sight of it turned her stomach – yet she remained drawn to what she described as its "generous unpretentiousness."
After moving to New York in 1958 and establishing her reputation with the monumental Infinity Nets, Kusama returned to Japan in the early 1970s and entered a period of prolonged withdrawal. It was then that the pumpkin re-emerged as a source of solace: a humble, familiar form she could repeat across paintings, sculptures, and installations.
Executed in 2010, PUMPKIN (TWPOT) belongs to an especially fertile period in Kusama’s late career, just before her major 2011–12 retrospectives at Museo Reina Sofía and Tate Modern. It coincided with her participation in the inaugural Aichi Triennale in Nagoya, renewed institutional attention to landmark works such as Infinity Mirror Room – Phalli’s Field, and the beginning of her monumental My Eternal Soul series, which would later anchor several major international retrospectives.
Yayoi Kusama passed away in August
Other Highlight Lots
Beyond the top three lots, the evening sale produced several other notable results. Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s Paysage avec figures set a new auction record for the artist in Asia, selling for HK$52.14 million (US$6.78 million). Marc Chagall’s Les paysans also exceeded expectations, fetching HK$49.7 million (around US$6.5 million) against an estimate of HK$22 million. Both results point to continued appetite among Asian collectors for established European modern and Impressionist names.
Southeast Asian art delivered a standout result with Vu Cao Dam’s Conversation d’élégantes au jardin, which sold for about HK$29 million (US$3.76 million) after 14 bids, far above estimate. The result set a new auction record for the artist and the highest auction price for any Vietnamese work. The silk painting, his largest multi-figure work in the medium, had headlined Sotheby’s 2008 sale An Important Collection Of Vietnamese Paintings Featuring The Philip Ng Collection.
Tetsuya Ishida's Can't Fly Anymore sold for HK$12.2 million (around US$1.6 million), surpassing the previous HK$10.01 million record set at Bonhams Hong Kong two years ago. The result underscored sustained interest in the late Japanese artist, whose unsettling images channel the absurdity and anxiety of Japan’s Lost Decade.
Notably, Mark Rothko's Untitled (Plum and Dark Brown), which carried the sale's highest estimate at HK$78 million, was withdrawn ahead of the auction.
Lot 134 | Zao Wou-Ki (1920 - 2013) | Bateaux sur fond bleu, oil on canvas
Executed in 1951
81 x 100 cm
Provenance:
- Galerie Pierre Loeb, Paris
- Private collection, Paris
- Versailles Encheres, Versailles, 11 December 2011, lot 52
- Private collection, Taipei (acquired from the above)
- Ravenel, Taipei, 2 December 2012, lot 661
- Private Collection, Asia
- China Guardian, Beijing, 21 November 2018, lot 1482
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$25,000,000 - 45,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$42,500,000
Sold: HK$52,750,000
Lot 129 | Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 - 1919) | Paysage avec figures, oil on canvas (Auction record for the artist in Asia)
Executed in 1890-93
46.5 x 55.5 cm
Provenance:
- Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the artist on 20 November 1893)
- Charles Harrison Tweed, New York (acquired from the above on 31 May 1905)
- Helen Minerva Tweed, New York (acquired by descent from the above in 1917)
- Mary Winthrop Chambers (nee Tweed), Columbia (acquired by descent from the above in circa 1928)
- Richard Palmer Kaleioku Smart, Honolulu
- Hirschl & Adler Galleries, Inc., New York (acquired from the above in 1983)
- Private collection, United States (acquired from the above in 1984)
- Sotheby's, New York, 3 May 2005, lot 55 (consigned by the above)
- Private Collection, Switzerland (acquired from the above)
- Christie's, New York, 5 November 2014, lot 9 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$15,500,000 - 25,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$42,000,000
Sold: HK$52,140,000
Lot 135 | Marc Chagall (1887 - 1985) | Les paysans, oil, tempera, colored ink and sawdust on canvas
Executed in 1971
115.5 x 81 cm
Provenance:
- Pierre Matisse Gallery, New York
- Private Collection (acquired from the above in March 1973)
- Private Collection, New York (acquired by descent from the above)
- Christie's, New York, 12 November 2018, lot 333 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$22,000,000 - 32,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$40,000,000
Sold: HK$49,700,000
Lot 132 | Zao Wou-Ki (1920 - 2013) | 07.05.59 - 01.02.71, oil on canvas
Executed in May 1959 to February 1971
162 x 100 cm
Provenance:
- Kootz Gallery, New York
- Private Collection, Paris
- Galerie de France, Paris
- Galerie Patrice Trigano, Paris
- Acquired by the present owner circa 1991
Estimate: HK$25,000,000 - 45,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$37,000,000
Sold: HK$46,040,000
Lot 117 | George Condo (b. 1957) | Figures in Motion, acrylic, charcoal and pastel on linen, in artist's frame
Executed in 2013
150.1 x 160.5 cm
Provenance:
- Skarstedt Gallery, New York
- Private Collection
- Private Collection (acquired from the above)
- Christie's London, 6 March 2018, Lot 34
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$24,000,000 - 40,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$26,000,000
Sold: HK$32,620,000
Lot 139 | Vu Cao Dam (1908 - 2000) | Conversation d'élégantes au jardin, ink and gouache on silk (Auction record for the artist and any Vietnamese work)
Executed in 1939
85.6 x 114.5 cm
Provenance:
- Philip Ng, Singapore,
- Sotheby's, Hong Kong, 8 April 2008, lot 708 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$8,000,000 - 19,600,000
Hammer Price: HK$23,000,000
Sold: HK$28,960,000
Lot 133 | Claude Monet (1840 - 1926) | Marine, oil on canvas
Executed in 1882
54.1 x 65.5 cm
Provenance:
- Michel Monet, Giverny
- Leicester Galleries, London
- Collection of the late Dame Miriam Rothschild, United Kingdom (acquired by 1965)
- Thence by descent to the present owner
Estimate: HK$8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$19,000,000
Sold: HK$24,080,000
Lot 143 | Henri Matisse (1869 - 1954) | Femme nue, oil on canvas (Auction record for the artist in Asia)
Executed circa 1915
65.3 x 54.5 cm
Provenance:
- Walter Pach, New York (acquired directly from the artist in Summer 1926)
- Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 6 January 1949, lot 57 (consigned by the above)
- Joseph Peters, New York
- Parke-Bernet Galleries, New York, 19 March 1958, lot 48 (consigned by the above)
- Dina Vierny, Paris (acquired by 1970)
- Waddington Galleries, London (acquired from the above in 1974)
- Mr and Mrs Allan Frumkin (acquired from the above on 10 July 1974)
- Christie's, London, 18 June 2019, lot 32 (consigned by the above)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$17,000,000 - 25,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$16,500,000
Sold: HK$21,030,000
Lot 142 | Sanyu (1895 - 1966) | Five Horses in a Green Landscape, oil on canvas
Executed in 1931
45 x 81 cm
Provenance:
- Henri-Pierre Roché, Paris (inventory number 87)
- Jacques Boussières, Paris
- Private Collection, Paris
- Richard Bédot Auction, Paris, 16 October 2010, lot 3
- Private Collection, Hong Kong
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$20,000,000 - 45,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$16,000,000
Sold: HK$20,420,000
Lot 111 | Yayoi Kusama (1929 - 2026) | Infinity-Nets (LHLUJ), acrylic on canvas
Executed in 2017
130.5 x 130.3 cm
Provenance:
- Ota Fine Arts, Japan
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$12,000,000
Sold: HK$15,360,000
Lot 104 | Hao Liang (b. 1983) | Fisherman Recluse on the Autumn River, ink and colour on silk
Executed in 2019
139.6 x 376.6 cm
Provenance:
- Vitamin Creative Space, Guangzhou
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$11,000,000 - 16,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$12,000,000
Sold: HK$15,360,000
Lot 147 | Alexander Calder (1898 - 1976) | Untitled, sheet metal, wire and paint
Executed in 1953
56 x 106 cm
Provenance:
- William Sambur, Great Neck (commissioned from the artist)
- Frances Sambur, Great Neck (acquired from the above circa 1960)
- Private Collection, Colorado (acquired from the above circa 1979)
- Christie’s Private Sales, New York (consigned from the above in 2013)
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$13,200,000 - 25,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$11,000,000
Sold: HK$14,080,000
Lot 136 | Rudolf Bonnet (1895 - 1978) | Bali Life, charcoal and pastel on paper (Auction record for a work on paper by the artist)
Executed in 1950
77 x 145 cm
Provenance:
- Collection of Johannes Martinus (Han) Groenewegen
- Christie's, Hong Kong, 25 November 2007, lot 82
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Subject to Irrevocable Bids
Estimate: HK$8,000,000 - 10,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$9,800,000
Sold: HK$12,544,000
Lot 106 | Tetsuya Ishida (1973 - 2005) | Can't Fly Anymore, acrylic on board (Auction record for the artist)
Executed in 1996
103 x 145 cm
Provenance:
- Private Collection
- Christie's, Hong Kong, 25 May 2008, Lot 413
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$6,000,000 - 8,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$9,500,000
Sold: HK$12,160,000
Lot 110 | Zeng Fanzhi (b. 1964) | Mask Series 2001 no. 6, oil on canvas
Executed in 2001
178.9 x 198.6 cm
Provenance:
- ShanghART Gallery, Shanghai
- Acquired from the above by the present owner in 2004
Estimate: HK$10,000,000 - 15,000,000
Hammer Price: HK$8,500,000
Sold: HK$10,880,000
Lot 105 | Li Hei Di (b. 1997) | The Heaviest of Burdens Crushes Us, We Sink Beneath It, It Pins Us to the Ground, oil on canvas (Auction record for the artist)
Executed in 2023
180.2 x 150.2 cm
Provenance:
- Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London
- Acquired from the above by the present owner
Estimate: HK$800,000 - 1,200,000
Hammer Price: HK$2,600,000
Sold: HK$3,328,000
Auction Details:
Auction House: Sotheby's Hong Kong
Sale: Modern and Contemporary Evening Auction
Date: 28 September 2026
Number of Lots: 52
Sold: 46
Unsold: 6
Sale Rate: 88%
Sale Total: HK$671,330,400 (US$87.3 million)