Last October, Sothebys’ Hong Kong sold Lee Man Fong’s Fortune and Longevity for an impressive $4.4 million, setting the auction world record for a Southeast Asian painting at auction. For its April 6th sales of South East Asian Paintings in Hong Kong, Sotheby’s will offer another large painting by the late master, Bali Life, with a pre-sale estimate of $451,000 – $709,000.
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| Nyoman Masriadi |
Representing a mix of humble customs, ethnic culture, and exotic women, the painting illustrates Bali’s essential ethnology of the time and showcases the artist’s elegant fusion of Eastern subjects and Western painting style.
Other modern highlights include another Balinese-themed work, Adrien Jean Le Mayeur de Merprès’ Woman in the Garden Preparing Offerings, which is executed in the artist’s well known impasto style, and a rare abstract work by Cheong Soo Pieng, Twilight. Although Cheong is better known for his earlier representative Nanyang style of painting, he moved toward abstraction after a visit to Europe in the 1960s and started cultivating this artistic style, along with his Nanyang painting in his later years.
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| Adrian Jean Le Mayeur de Merpres |
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| Ronald Ventura |
Ahead of the auction, a travelling exhibition will be shown in Singapore (Mar 16-17) and Taipei (Mar 23-24) before the lots are exhibited in Hong Kong (April 3-5).
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| Chen Wen Hsi |
AS first published on SEA.ARTINFO.COM