HONG KONG—The art market may still feel uncertain, but one thing seemed clear after today’s Sotheby’s auctions in Hong Kong: Aficionados of 20th-century and contemporary Chinese paintings from all over the world are still paying top prices for big, obvious works by big-name artists.

Sotheby’s designed their “Contemporary Asian Art” sale, one of several sessions taking place this week, as a motley mix of painting, photography, and sculpture from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan. The grueling but lively session of 194 lots started at 5 p.m. and ended more than four and a half hours later, with iconic pieces by some of the most famous mainland artists bringing in the highest bids.

Although some lots went for as low as HK$20,000 before auction house charges, the sale brought in a total of HK$115.80 million (U.S. $14.85 million), handily surpassing pre-sale estimates of HK$97–127 million (U.S. $12–16 million), for sold rates of 77 percent by lot and 82 percent by value.

The top lot, Zhang Xiaogang’s 2005 oil-on-canvas diptych Comrade, fetched HK$7.10 million (HK$8.54 million with commission), surpassing the pre-sale high estimate of HK$5.40 million (before commission). The piece features the typical black-and-white figures for which Zhang has become known, here a male and a female. Last year, the pair of canvases, each measuring 51 1/4 by 43 1/2 inches, was exhibited in London, at the Saatchi Gallery show “The Revolution Continues: New Chinese Art.”

Hats Series — The Lovers, a 2005 work by international favorite Yue Minjun, went under the hammer for HK$6.38 million. The 70-by-55-inch painting of two men rendered in Yue’s signature toothy, pink-faced style had a top estimate of HK$3.5 million.

And Zeng Fanzhi’s Tiananmen, a painting of Mao Zedong’s face looming over the façade of the famous former imperial palace gate, sold for HK$6.26 million, well over its high estimate of HK$4 million. Dated 2004, it was done in eye-catching, bright colors in his typical swirly brushstrokes, evoking a style of Chinese calligraphy.

What didn’t sell as well were high-priced works with more adventurous formats. Among these was Xu Bing’s complex but conceptually brilliant Silkworm Series — The Foolish Old Man Who Tried to Remove the Mountain. The mixed-media installation of six 68-by-38-inch panels had been expected to bring in at least HK$5 million, carrying the highest pre-sale estimate of the category.

Popular artist Zhang Huan’s large Ash Head sculpture and his amusing taxidermied donkey installation, both of which had been expected to attract a bit of collector interest, also did not find buyers.

While a Cai Guo Qiang gunpowder-on-paper work measuring 118 by 157 inches, Drawing for Spider Web — Project for the British Museum 250th Anniversary 2003, was purchased at HK$2.60 million before buyer’s commission (low estimate was HK$2.50 million), the larger Money Net No. 2 — Project for Royal Academy of Art, London, measuring 157 by 236 inches and estimated at HK$4.70 to 5.50 million, did not sell.

Several lots from Japanese artists, predominantly in the cartoonish anime style, also failed to find buyers. And a 2008 12-foot-long acrylic-on-wood painting, It’s Everything, by the very popular Yoshitomo Nara — the largest work by the artist to appear at auction — went for HK$3.30 million before charges, under the HK$3.50 million low estimate.

20th-Century Chinese Painting

Two significant sales were also made in the morning “20th-Century Chinese Painting” session, a genre populated by work typically created in the postwar years by artists often influenced by Western styles, presaging the kinds of contemporary works coming out of China in the last couple of decades.

Zao Wou-ki’s 7.4.61, which exhibits a strong Abstract Expressionist influence, went for HK$15.78 million to an anonymous buyer who bid in the room, while a Chinese buyer, participating by phone, outbid five others from around the region to buy Lotus et Poissons Rouges by the late artist Sanyu, who married Chinese calligraphy with Impressionism, for HK$36.50 million. It was the second-highest price for a work by the late painter, and the most ever achieved at auction for one of his landscapes. Sanyu, also known as Chang Yu, has reigned as a Hong Kong auction star in recent years. On Wednesday, another of his works, Flowers in a White Vase, will be featured as one of the premium lots at South Korean auction house Seoul Auction’s Hong Kong sale. The oil-on-canvas from the 1930s is estimated at HK$11 to 16 million.