Sanyu 常玉 | Beijing Circus 北京馬戲
Sanyu's "Beijing Circus" exemplifies the artist's distinctive modernist style that synthesizes Cubist fragmentation with Chinese aesthetic sensibilities. Executed in oil on Masonite, the composition captures the dynamic energy and spectacle of the circus through bold, interlocking forms and a vibrant palette that reflects the artist's time in Paris during the early twentieth century avant garde movement. The work demonstrates Sanyu's innovative approach to depicting movement and performance, translating the chaos and excitement of the circus ring into an abstracted visual language that bridges Eastern and Western artistic traditions.
- Medium
- oil on Masonite
- Signed
- Yes
- Location
- Sotheby's, New York, NY
- Spotted At
- Auction House · Sotheby'sView on map
🔨 Auction Lot
Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction
March 29, 2026
Estimate: $28,000,000 to $40,000,000
Lot 21
Artists in conversation
Fernand Léger
French · b. 1881
Léger similarly depicted circus performers and acrobats using bold Cubist fragmentation and interlocking geometric forms, with a vibrant palette that captures the dynamic energy of performance spectacle in early 20th century modernist style.
Marc Chagall
Russian/French · b. 1887
Chagall's celebrated circus paintings share the same whimsical aesthetic, vibrant color palette, and figurative expressionist approach to capturing the fantastical energy of circus performance as seen in this Sanyu work.
Tsuguharu Foujita
Japanese/French · b. 1886
As a fellow Asian artist working in the Parisian avant garde milieu of the same era, Foujita synthesized Western modernist styles with Eastern sensibilities and similarly depicted figurative subjects with a distinctive decorative elegance and bold compositional energy.
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