A new auction record for Chinese-born painter Li Hei Di was set at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on Sunday evening, with the work *There Was One Summer Returning Over and Over; There Was One Dawn I Grew Old Watching* (2023) selling for HK$2.67 million ($342,824). The price represents a 91-percent increase from the artist’s previous record set just six months ago, after a five-minute bidding battle that more than doubled the presale high estimate. Li, born in 1997 in Shenyang and based in London, is the youngest artist on Pace Gallery’s roster and opened their first solo exhibition with Pace in Hong Kong this summer.
The record underscores the rapid ascent of a young contemporary artist in the secondary market, with prices nearly doubling in half a year. Li’s work, which draws on Hong Kong cinema and explores themes of desire and submersion, signals strong collector appetite for emerging painters from Asia, particularly those represented by top-tier international galleries. The sale also highlights Sotheby’s Hong Kong as a key venue for setting new benchmarks in the modern and contemporary art market.