Over the weekend, Hong Kong’s major auction houses staged their autumn sales, and while there were no disasters—no $70 million Giacometti flops, at least—the results pointed more to a cautious new normal than to the market rebound some may have hoped for, especially with big-ticket consignments on deck for New York in November. There were strong results for some of the most established names—Pablo Picasso, Yayoi Kusama, Yoshitomo Nara, Marc Chagall—and weaker ones for the “ultra-contemporary” artists who just a few years ago were setting records, often in Hong Kong.Together, Christie’s, Phillips, and Sotheby’s generated $136.3 million across this weekend’s evening sales, well below the $208.6 million tallied at the equivalent sales last fall. That latter number, however, was boosted by Christie’s inaugural auction at its swanky new Hong Kong headquarters in The Henderson, which alone brought in $134 million on 43 lots. By contrast, this year’s 20th/21st century sale at Christie’s, which opened the weekend on Friday, achieved $72.7 million on 38 lots—a 46 percent drop—and fell more in line with the equivalent March sale, which totaled $73.3 million. (All prices are in US dollars and include buyer’s premium unless otherwise noted.)Christie’s sale on Friday opened strongly. The first lot—Salvo’s 2007 landscape Mattino di primavera (Spring Morning)—sold for more than three times its high estimate, at just over $650,000. Only three of the 38 lots failed to sell, among them Adrian Ghenie’s Self-Portrait in Villa Borghese (2023) and David Hockney’s Table With Conversation (1988), which went unsold at lots 5 and 9, respectively.Sandwiched between them was the evening’s biggest firework: Pablo Picasso’s Buste de femme (1944), which nearly doubled its $13.6 million high estimate to reach $25.3 million—a new auction record for the artist in Asia. Another Picasso, Nu assis appuyé sur des coussins (1964), also outperformed expectations, selling for $4.14 million against a high estimate of $3.85 million. Both works were backed by third-party guarantees.Pablo Picasso, Buste de femme, 1944. Courtesy Christie'sIn a sign of the times, Lucy Bull’s 8:50 (2020)—which set her then-auction record at $1.46 million at Phillips Hong Kong in 2022—sold for around $604,000, just shy of its $643,000 high estimate. (Bull’s current record stands at $2.38 million, set at Christie’s Hong Kong in September last year.)Among the other notable results was Untitled 09-1-5 (2008) by Zeng Fanzhi, which achieved $1.16 million on a $643,000 high estimate. Another of his works, Mask Series 1999 No. 2, sold at Phillips on Saturday for $1.32 million—right around its low estimate.Despite the relatively muted headline total, works were clearly priced to sell: 14 of 38 lots exceeded their high estimates, while another seven landed near the top end of expectations. Only three lots sold below estimate—works by Dana Schutz, Chen Fei, and Issy Wood.Phillips followed on Saturday with its modern and contemporary evening sale, totaling $20.6 million on 20 lots. That marks a modest 6.5 percent drop from the equivalent sale in November 2024, which brought in $22 million on the same number of works.That sale, too, started with momentum. Firenze Lai’s Basic Knot (2016) more than doubled its $25,600 high estimate, landing at $61,000. Miriam Cahn’s flüchtling, 17/18′ 12’02 (2002) followed, selling just above estimate for $166,000.Phillips Asia chairman and auctioneer Jonathan Crockett selling lot 11, Yoshitomo Nara’s Pinky at Phillips modern and contemporary evening sale on Saturday.Courtesy PhillipsHeadlining the night was Yoshitomo Nara’s Pinky (2000), which brought in $7.28 million—just above its high estimate. Other top performers included blue-chip names like Andy Warhol and Picasso, as well as a standout by Japanese artist Izumi Kato, who also saw strong results at Christie’s in March.Javier Calleja’s 2017 hexaptych Six Works was offered without reserve, and the strategy didn’t pan out: the work fetched just $50,000 against an estimate of $154,000–$282,000. Most other lots landed squarely within estimate territory.In a post-sale statement, Danielle So and Rebecca Hu, Phillips’s Hong Kong head of auctions and head of sale for modern and contemporary art, respectively, pointed to an “encouraging” debut for the auction house’s new priority bidding system. Announced in July, the system offers lower buyer’s premiums for collectors who place written bids 48 hours before a sale. According to Phillips, 54 percent of the lots sold across the weekend’s evening and day sales benefited from priority bids.Sotheby’s closed out the weekend on Sunday with its modern and contemporary evening sale, held one year after the auction house inaugurated its new headquarters at Landmark Chater. The sale brought in $43 million across 38 lots—down 17 percent from last fall’s $52.6 million on 27 lots, but up 13 percent from the equivalent spring sale, which totaled $38.3 million on 42 lots. Two works failed to sell and four were withdrawn.As throughout the weekend, estimates were pitched to move material, with more than a third of works surpassing their high estimates. The overall total landed squarely within its pre-sale expectation of $31 million to $47 million.Like Phillips, the evening’s top lot went to Yoshitomo Nara, whose work Can’t Wait ’til the Night Comes sold for $10.3 million, just shy of its $11 million high estimate. Another Nara, Sprout the Ambassador, soared past its $1.93 million high estimate to achieve $2.37 million after a five-minute bidding war among four contenders.A new record was set for Chinese artist Li Hei Di, a recent addition to Pace Gallery’s roster, whose There Was One Summer Returning Over and Over; There Was One Dawn I Grew Old Watching realized $343,000, more than doubling its $130,000 high estimate.As has been the case in recent seasons, works from the collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein provided ballast. All five lots sold, bringing a combined $5.9 million against expectations of $4.7 million to $6.2 million. That brings the cumulative total for the couple’s collection across sales in London, New York, and now Hong Kong to $122.3 million on a combined estimate of $64.8 million–$93.6 million.Jasmine Prasetio, Sotheby’s interim head of modern and contemporary art in Asia, told ARTnews that bidding was led by Greater China, where collectors acquired seven of the evening’s top 10 lots by value. She also cited strong participation from Southeast Asia, where buyers were active on many of the top works.