Auction introduction: This January, Sotheby’s returns to Singapore during Singapore Art Week with a landmark auction of Modern and Contemporary art from Asia and beyond. Led by museum-quality masterpieces by early Southeast Asian pioneers Walter Spies and Raden Saleh, the sale offers collectors a rare opportunity to acquire exceptional works spanning the 19th and 20th centuries. Highlights include international icons such as Takashi Murakami, David Hockney, Yue Minjun, Pablo Picasso, and Lee Ufan, alongside modernist and School of Paris figures Marc Chagall, Foujita, and Vietnamese masters Le Pho and Mai Thu. With abstraction as one of the main themes and defining threads of the sale, masterworks by Zao Wou-Ki, Chu Teh-Chun, Lalan, and Fernando Zóbel are presented in dialogue with celebrated Southeast Asian abstract artists. Leading Southeast Asian names including Fernando Amorsolo, Hendra Gunawan, Willem Gerard Hofker, and Adrien-Jean Le Mayeur de Merpres showcase the diversity of approaches in capturing the culture, people, and rich visual traditions of the region.