Southeast Asian art is part of the strong lineup of works going under the hammer at Sotheby’s 40th anniversary series of auctions in Hong Kong, with works by modern masters Walter Spies, Chen Wen Hsi and Juan Luna taking the lead.
There will be two sales to bid for these artworks. The first is 40th Anniversary Evening Sale on October 5, in which 18 works from the region will go under the hammer, together with 20th Century Chinese art and contemporary Asian art.
The second event is the Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings Day Sale on October 6, with more than 200 regional works on offer.
Most of the modern heavyweights are going into the October 5 evening sale. A highlight is the Balinese landscape “Blick von Der Höhe (A View from the Heights)” (1934) by Spies, an expat painter based in Indonesia in the 1920s and 1930s. A key figure in Indonesia’s modern art movement, he died aged 46, leaving only a handful of oil paintings with his celebrated island motifs. “Blick von Der Höhe” depicts a farmer overlooking rice fields with dramatic lighting. Its pre-sale estimate is available upon request.
Another star lot is an abstract piece by “Pasar (Market)” (circa 1950s) by Singapore pioneer artist Chen Wen Hsi, which is one of the largest oil-on-board pieces that has surfaced at an auction, revealing the artist’s play of angles and shapes in the development of his modernist vocabulary. It has a pre-sale estimate of HK$4 — 6 million (US$515,000 — 6 million).
Filipino modern master Juan Luna’s “España y Filipinas (Spain and Philippines)” (1884) is a historically significant work — a piece commissioned by Pedro Paterno, the first prime minister of the first Philippine Republic in 1899. A lyrical painting showing the back view of two women, this is one of three existing versions of this work and has a pre-sale estimate of HK$3.5 – 5.5 million (US$451,000 – 709,000). The other two versions are housed in museums.
In the October 6 day sale, Indonesian masters reign supreme. Highlights include Affandi’s oil-on-canvas “Pasar Festival (Festival Market)” (1977), with an estimate of HK$1.2 – 1.8 million (US$155,000 – 233,000), as well as a rustic panorama by Lee Man Fong’s “Kampung (Village)” and S. Sudjojono’s dreamy landscape “The Ruins and the Piano” (1956). Estimates for the latter two are available on request.
Mok Kim Chuan, head of Southeast Asian art in Sotheby’s, says that there has been “solid, persistent growth” in the market in the past few years. “The sales total for Sotheby’s Modern & Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings has increased from HK$167 million in 2008 — the year when we moved this category from Singapore to Hong Kong — to HK$217 million in 2012,” he says. “The strong results not only reflect wider recognition of the Southeast Asian artists’ hard work and artistic talents, but also shows global acceptance of Southeast Asian art.”
As for collecting patterns, Mok notes that there has been more cross-buying from other parts of Asia as well as from the West after Sotheby’s consolidated the Southeast Asian art sale in Singapore into the bi-annual sale series in Hong Kong in 2008.
He says, “Buyers from the Southeast Asian region have always played a major role in buying Southeast Asian art, in particular private collectors and dealers from Singapore and Indonesia. In the early days, Southeast Asian art buyers of one country tend to focus on buying art from its own region because of cultural familiarity and also cultural prestige.”
After 2008, Mok says that Southeast Asian art has been growing into a “more internationalized category, with lots of positive feedback from international buyers worldwide.”
Sotheby’s Hong Kong 40th Anniversary Evening Sale Anniversary will be held on October 5, 7pm.
Modern and Contemporary Southeast Asian Paintings Day Sale will be held on October 6, 10am.
Both auctions will be held at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre.
Click on the slideshow to see the top 10 auction highlights selected by Mok Kim Chuan, head of Southeast Asian art in Sotheby's.
