Bonhams Hong Kong has scheduled its second Prints, Photographs and Works on Paper Sale on May 22 and it will offer works by Yoshitomo Nara, Frog King, and artists from the Gutai group, with an overal pre-sale estimate of $800,000-$1.15 million. Nearly 80 percent of the works on sale are by Asian artists.Leading the sale are 11 works on paper by Japan’s Yoshitomo Nara. Drawn variously in black pencil, colored pencil, and acrylic in a signature style of the artist, the creations combine childlike figures with often dark, surreal or subversive subject matters — the series comes with an estimate of $260,000-$390,000. Other works by Nara featuring in the sale include a woodcut, two lithographs, two small sculptures and a wristwatch designed by the artist.In contrast, Hong Kong’s Frog King (Kwok Mang Ho) has a single work in the sale — an ink painting by the artist from the mid-1980s. Although “Frog Tree” (1985) is a simpler piece than the more maximalist work the artist is best known for, the creation nevertheless features a number of stylized frogs that are the artist’s trademark. Its estimate is $6,400-49,000.Other ink paintings in the sale come from eight members of the Gutai group, Japan’s first avant-garde art group. Principal among these 15 works is one of Jiro Yoshihara’s signature circles in ink, estimated at $26,000-$39,000. Other Gutai works on offer come from artists including Kazuo Shiraga, Shozo Shimamoto and Takesada Matsutani.Among the other Asian artists that make up four-fifths of the auction are Yayoi Kusama, Takashi Murakami and Ho Fan, whose sale record was broken in the last edition of his sale at Bonhams. Western artists featuring in the sale include Gerhard Richter, Damien Hirst, and Peter Blake.“Prints, Photographs and Works on Paper Sale” runs May 22 at Bonhams Hong Kong
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