After Sotheby's successful Hong Kong modern evening auction on
Wednesday, the contemporary evening sale held on July 9 brought in HKD 595 million
($76.8 million) with 39 lots out of 42 sold , leading
to a 94 percent sell-through rate.
David Hockney's 30 Sunflowers from
1996—one of two of his large-scale floral paintings—sold for $14.8 million,
exceeding its estimate of HKD 80 million ($10.3 million) and making it the
second most expensive work by a Western artist to sell at an auction in
Asia. Prior to its sale in a Phillips New York contemporary auction in
May 2011 for $2.5 million, the painting had had only one owner.