Prices for works by contemporary and avant-garde Chinese artists hit record highs at Christie’s spring auctions in Hong Kong on Sunday, in a sign of sustained strong demand. Yue Minjun – known for his paintings of absurd, grinning faces – saw his “Portrait of the artist and his friends” fetch HK$20.48 million ($2.62 million), his highest price at auction.

In a packed Hong Kong auction hall, bursts of spirited bidding – including live online bids – sent works by other top artists to new highs.

Zao Wou-ki’s vivid coloured abstract “14.12.59″ named after the date it was painted, fetched HK$29.44 million ($3.8 million) – almost five times its pre-auction estimate.

A pair of bronze figures by Taiwan-born sculptor Ju Ming, called “Big Sparring”, made HK$14.88 million ($1.9 million) – also a new high for the artist’s work at auction.

“There’s been no letdown, the (Chinese art) market’s still going very strongly,” said Jonathan Stone, a Christie’s international business director for Asian Art.

Chinese art prices have boomed in recent years, fuelled by a robust global economy and nouveau-riche buyers from China drawn to their cultural heritage and who see art as a solid investment.

But one star lot – Xu Beihong’s “Portrait of a lady”, of a Singaporean woman seated in a flowing “cheongsam” dress fell short of its pre-auction hype – fetching HK$24.96 million ($3.2 million).

Another rare oil painting by Xu from a similar period had fetched $9.2 million at a Sotheby’s sale last month – making it the most expensive Chinese painting ever auctioned.

The new records came on the opening day of Christie’s spring auctions in Hong Kong, which run from May 27-31.

The day’s most expensive painting was “Scenery of Northern China” a snowy, meditative landscape by Wu Guanzhong, which sold for HK31.7 million ($4.05 million) in a hall conspicuous for its large contingent of mainland Chinese bidders and spectators.

Christie’s expects to sell HK$1.1 billion of paintings, ceramics, jewellery and watches in its current Hong Kong sales – significantly less than the HK$1.64 billion total sales tally at its previous Hong Kong auction series last autumn.

Andy Warhol’s acid-green painting of a gruesome car wreck sold for $71.7 million last night, as Christie’s International sped past rival Sotheby’s to chalk up the biggest-ever auction of postwar and contemporary art. The sale in New York raised $384.7 million, beating the previous high set on Tuesday at Sotheby’s by more than 50 percent, as the market confounded predictions of overheating and extended its position as one of the fastest-rising investments. Telephone bids poured in from around the world, 22 artist records tumbled and presale estimates were meaningless.

“It’s heated and rising,” said New York dealer Ann Freedman of Knoedler & Co. “Sales are raking in records consistently. There’s a great of deal of money competing for select works of art.”

A roomful of pinstriped dealers, millionaires and billionaires, including Teddy Forstmann and Michael Ovitz, watched artist records tumble one after another: Warhol, Damien Hirst, Jasper Johns, Cindy Sherman and the roll call went on. All but four of the 78 lots sold, with 56 selling for more than $1 million.

The price for Warhol’s 1963 “Green Car Crash (Green Burning Car I)” was the highest ever for the Pop Art star and just $1.1 million shy of the $72.8 million postwar record set at Sotheby’s on Tuesday by a Mark Rothko painting. Last night’s sale was second only to Christie’s $491.5 million auction of Impressionist and modern art last November, which was swollen by Nazi-restituted works.

Mao Eclipsed

“Each year, people who are old hands say ‘I wonder if this can hold?”’ said collector and Museum of Modern Art trustee Barbara Jakobson, donning her signature bright yellow eyeglasses as she exited the salesroom. “It just seems to be a rising market.”

As in Sotheby’s Tuesday’s sale, there was little regard for price precedents. Warhol’s previous record, set in November, was $17.4 million for a 1972 portrait of China’s former chairman Mao Zedong. “Green Car Crash,” which had a top estimate of $35 million, last appeared at auction in 1978, when it fetched about 36,000 pounds ($69,000) at Christie’s in London.

The Warhol was sold to an anonymous phone bidder, speaking with a Hong Kong-based Christie’s representative, leading dealers to speculate the buyer was Asian.

Warhol was huge in the evening’s tally. Ten Warhols added $136.7 million to the total.

“Lemon Marilyn,” a portrait of doomed starlet Marilyn Monroe with a purple face on a yellow background, was estimated to fetch up to $18 million and sold for $28 million. It was acquired by the seller for a few hundred dollars in 1962, the year it was painted.

Rockefeller Rothko

The week’s affection for Rothko also continued. A 1954 painting by the brooding Abstract Expressionist sold by dealer Robert Mnuchin fetched $26.9 million and a plumy 1961 canvas went for $22.4 million. Dealers said Tuesday’s record price for a Rothko was helped by the fact that the seller was David Rockefeller Sr.

Prices include a commission of 20 percent of the hammer price up to $500,000 and 12 percent on the rest.

The geographic breakdown of buyers shows a global expansion in bidders for famous-name art. Christie’s said 47 percent of buyers last night were American, down from 82 percent in the fall of 2005. Asians represented 18 percent of buyers, up from 3 percent and close to the 19 percent from Europe and Russia.

Warhol painted the 7 1/2-foot “Green Car Crash” by repeating a photo of a bizarre accident published in Newsweek. During a police chase, a fleeing car crashed into a telephone pole, overturned and hurled the 24-year-old driver against a spike in the pole. The multiple images show him limp and impaled. The work is part of the artist’s “Death and Disaster” series, which included electric chairs and suicides.

Marilyn Appeal

The success of “Green Car Crash” surprised some dealers who said the artist’s sultry portraits of Monroe typically had more appeal for collectors. The second- and third-most-expensive Warhols sold at auction before last night were Marilyns.

“New buyers want some sort of classy trophy,” New York private dealer Nancy Whyte said. “For that, Marilyn is perfect.”

The prices paid in the past two weeks are likely to renew predictions by some dealers and collectors that contemporary art has become overvalued.

“The rich are getting poorer,” joked private New York dealer Franck Giraud, leaving the salesroom. “They have made a lot, to spend this much in one night. It’s over the top.”

Sotheby’s spring evening sale of Impressionist and Modern Art in New York brought an outstanding total of $278,548,000, the second highest total for an auction in Sotheby’s 263-year history. The top price achieved this evening was for one of the most important watercolors by Paul Cézanne remaining in private hands, Nature morte au melon vert, which sold for $25,520,000, above the high estimate of $18 million and a record for a work on paper by the artist at auction. That price was closely followed by the record price of $23,280,000 realized by Lyonel Feininger’s spectacular Jesuiten III, the cover lot of this evening’s sale which was the subject of an intense bidding battle before selling to a round of applause (est. $7/9 million). Additional auction records were established for Marino Marini and Theo van Doesburg and for works on paper by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Giacomo Balla. The sale was over 90% sold by lot and value with 36 works selling for more than $1 million.

David Norman, a Chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Department Worldwide, said, “We are ecstatic about the results of tonight’s sale, which were second only to the all-time record for an auction at Sotheby’s achieved back in May of 1990. There is a hunger in the marketplace for great works of art, whatever the medium or period. Tonight we saw remarkable prices for works on paper with the Cézanne still-life and Rose period Picasso; an extraordinary result for the German Expressionist work by Feininger, for rare works by artists such as Balla and van Doesburg, and fierce competition for sculpture by Giacometti and Marini. There was great depth in the bidding with numerous new buyers participating in addition to many of our long-time clients. What is particularly notable is the ever-widening geographical diversity of the buying pool. ”

Highlighting this evening’s sale was Nature morte au melon vert by Paul Cézanne from the private collection of Giuseppe Eskenazi, which sold for $25,520,000, above the pre-sale estimate of $14/18 million. That price far eclipses the previous record for a work on paper by the artist at auction set by the same work at the legendary The British Rail Pension Fund sale held at Sotheby’s London in 1989.

As many as five bidders competed for a painting from the height of Lyonel Feininger’s Expressionist period, Jesuiten III, driving the final price to $23,280,000, more than double the high estimate of $9 million and a record for the artist at auction. Bidding was also fierce for Fernand Léger’s superb Les Usines, from 1918, which was sought-after by as many as six different bidders driving the final price to $14,320,000. The painting, which is a brilliant example of the artist’s fascination with the rapidly evolving urban environment, had been estimated to sell for $5/7 million.

This evening’s sale included an outstanding offering of paintings and sculpture spanning the career of Pablo Picasso – from important Rose period works to a powerful painting from 1965 that ranks among the artist’s finest Post-War canvases. Tête d’arlequin, one in a series of eight portraits of an anonymous adolescent boy (including the masterful Garçon à la pipe sold by Sotheby’s in 2004 for a record $104.2 million) sold for $15,160,000. A stunning work on paper, Famille d’arlequin, consigned by the family of renowned American collector, Joan Whitney Payson, surpassed a high estimate of $8 million to sell for $9,840,000. Another work by the artist, Les Amants from 1932, a rare dual-portrait of the artist watching his young lover Marie-Thérèse Walter as she sleeps, sold for $14,600,000.

Le Grand Cirque by Marc Chagall was also among the top lots for this evening’s sale selling for $13,760,000. One of the artist’s largest renditions of the circus theme (159.5 x 308.5 cm) and arguably one of the finest works of its kind to ever appear on the auction market, the painting had been estimated to sell for $8/12 million. Joan Miró’s extraordinary Peinture (Le Cheval de cirque), from a series of supremely abstracted depictions of a circus horse painted at the height of his involvement with the Surrealists, brought $8,440,000 (est. $8/10 million).

Among the sculpture offered this evening was Alberto Giacometti’s Homme Traversant une place par un matin soleil, the artist’s proof from an edition of six casts which brought $7,432,000. The sculpture, which five different bidders competed for, had been estimated to sell for $4/6 million. A rare, unique and monumental sculpture by Marino Marini, L’Idea del Cavaliere, sold for $7,040,000. The sculpture, a painted wood version of a work that that was originally conceived in 1955 in plaster and cast in bronze in an edition of four, was estimated at $6/8 million.

For the third time, Sotheby’s had the privilege of offering works from the Neumann Family Collection, one of the most important collections of 20th century art in private hands. Giacomo Balla’s Velocità d’automobile + luci, which belongs to a seminal group of works exploring the ultimate concepts of Futurism: dynamism, speed and light, sold for $3,960,000, a record for a work on paper by the artist at auction, and Contra-Composition VII, a rare work by Theo van Doesburg, a leading member of the De Stijl movement brought $4,184,000, a record for the artist at auction.