Coming to auction for the first time from a distinguished European collection, Untitled, offered in this season’s Day Sale, is a painting on canvas executed in oil, showcasing a playful and sketch-like quality, made all the more captivating with its simplified narrative configuration and pared-down use of colour. Executed in 1992 while the artist was still in Germany, the motif of a little ship in the foregrounded is a highly recognisable mark that registers intensely with the artist’s strong sense of nostalgia and yearning for his distant home in Japan. From 1991 to 1992, Nara repeatedly explored various expressions with the motif, rendering his characters as either holding, playing with or gazing silently at varying ships. These works form a significant corpus, acting as Nara's strongest and deepest emotional outlet at this moment in time.

Suika to Fork (Watermelon and Fork), offered in the Evening Sale, embodies Yayoi Kusama’s core concept of “Infinity Nets.” This piece also incorporates her iconic dots and organic shapes, combining two fundamental elements – nets and dots – to create an illusion of infinite repetition and multiplication. The background is adorned with a vast net of blue-outlined triangles, while the depiction of fruit reflects Kusama’s longstanding fascination with pumpkins as a personal motif. Through her use of repetition, the watermelon emerges as a significant symbol, akin to how pumpkins have provided her solace from anxiety, obsessive thoughts, and hallucinations.

The Encounter of Zao Wou-Ki and Pierre Soulages
Coming to auction for the first time, French master Pierre Soulages’s Peinture 202 x 143 cm, 25 septembre 1967, offered in the Evening Sale, presents a visual dichotomy, where the stark contrast between black and white engages in a harmonious dialogue rather than a clash. As one of the largest works by the artist ever offered at auction, the present work has been featured in several prestigious institutional exhibitions. The painting brilliantly captures Soulages’s remarkable ability to reflect light within the deep black hues he employs. The influence of Japanese aesthetics is evident in his minimalist approach, evoking a profound sense of balance throughout his work. Pierre Soulages is celebrated worldwide, with his pieces held in renowned collections such as the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Notably, he became only the third artist, after Pablo Picasso and Marc Chagall, to receive a retrospective at the Louvre during his lifetime in 2019.

In this November’s Day Sale, Phillips is pleased to offer a few exceptional works from the collection of Zao Wou-Ki's daughter, Sin-May Roy Zao. This collection includes Zao’s works that showcase the most experimental and innovative facet of his oeuvre, together with works by the artist’s contemporaries and friends, Pierre Soulages and Eduardo Chillida. Leading the collection is 27.6.70, which Zao signed not only with his artist’s signature but also endearingly inscribed "Pour Sin-May Papa (For Sin-May Papa). " This piece is a precious testament to the more intimate aspect of the artist’s work, revealing the profound care and love he infused into his brush. 27.6.70 is an embodiment of the many undercurrents that coincided and collided to reveal Zao’s multifaceted art and its constant search for new meanings. Following her first collaboration with Phillips Hong Kong in 2022, Sin-May once again shares memorable works with contemporary art lovers, bringing them to Hong Kong—her city of birth, which holds special significance for both her and her father.

Chinese Contemporary Pioneers
Offered at auction for the first time in the Evening Sale, Mondrian, Hello is an exceptional work that embodies the artistic vision of Chinese artist Liu Ye. The piece depicts a girl against a gradient background of blue and light yellow, gazing toward a mysterious light source. It pays homage to Piet Mondrian's iconic use of black lines and primary colour blocks, with yellow playing a prominent role. Liu Ye’s meticulous attention to detail is evident in the girl’s facial features and the geometric forms surrounding her. This work masterfully blends realism and abstraction, creating a captivating synthesis of Chinese and Western artistic traditions.

Another work by Liu Ye, H.C. Andersen, is highlighted in this season’s Day Sale, featuring the Danish author as a direct painterly subject. Lyricism, childlike innocence, and curiosity have always been at the heart of Liu’s creative outputs. In the present work, Liu Ye presents a playful, lively and infantilised rendition of Andersen, as imagined in his mind’s eye, by depicting the famed author with a tongue-out, rebellious and playful face. At once a possible self-reimagination in the artist's mind, H.C. Andersen subverts traditional painterly conventions and a new take on portraiture is revealed.

A graduate of Beijing’s prestigious Central Academy of Fine Arts, Wang Guangle is a key member of N12, a collective of young artists from the Academy. He is widely regarded as a pioneer of conceptual painting in China. Created as part of Wang Guangle’s graduating exhibition at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, 3pm to 5pm No. 3 presented in the Day Sale is a groundbreaking work from a small series of only five graduation pieces, that marked the artist’s early foray into the conceptual realm. The 3pm-5pm series exemplifies Wang’s initial interest in the concept of time, exploring how its intangible passage is manifested visually as streams of light projected onto the stone-tiled roof in his studio. Executed with oil on canvas, Wang boldly broke away with conventional aesthetic paradigms that emphasised tangibility, colour saturation and sense of volume.