Minjun Yue Auction Prices and Value Guide

Minjun Yue auction prices are tracked in Appraisily's artist market index, with source-directory coverage of 699 records. Use this page to review sold-lot activity, market context, and valuation factors before requesting a formal appraisal.

Minjun Yue auction prices: quick answer

Minjun Yue auction prices depend on medium, size, date, condition, provenance, edition details, attribution confidence, and recent comparable auction sales.

Artist
Minjun Yue
Source records
699
Market update
2026-02-16

Minjun Yue market snapshot

Minjun Yue shows deep auction liquidity with 467 tracked lots. Median realized sale is around $50,000. Category concentration is still broad or sparse. Last 12 months recorded 23 sales. Latest recorded sale: 2025-12-16.

Realized price distribution

  • Under $1,000 (7.0% · 23 sales)
  • $1,000 to $10,000 (31.3% · 103 sales)
  • $10,000+ (61.7% · 203 sales)
Median sale (last 12 months)
$1,400
Sales recorded (last 12 months)
23
Median shift vs prior year
+55.6%
Latest recorded sale
2025-12-16

Artist context

About Minjun Yue

Yue Minjun (born 1962, Daqing, China) is a Chinese contemporary artist working in Beijing. He is recognized internationally for oil paintings that depict his own face frozen in exaggerated, often unsettling laughter, a motif he has extended into sculpture, watercolour, and prints. Though frequently associated with the Cynical Realist movement that emerged in China around 1989, Yue has distanced himself from that label. His signature laughing self-portrait has become one of the most widely reproduced images in contemporary Chinese art, appearing in major museum exhibitions and private collections worldwide. Educated at Hebei Normal University of Science and Technology, Yue began exhibiting in the mid-1980s and rose to prominence during the boom in Chinese contemporary art in the 2000s. Collectors encounter his work across a range of media at auction and in gallery settings.

Cynical Realismoil paintingsculpturewatercolourprintsself-portraiturelaughter and smiling figures

Common works and media

Yue Minjun's most commonly encountered works at auction and appraisal include oil paintings on canvas featuring his repeated laughing self-portrait in varied compositions, often rendered in bold, saturated colour. Sculptural editions — typically bronze or painted fiberglass figures with the same laughing visage — also appear regularly. Collectors may also find watercolours, screen prints, and lithographic editions. Subject matter ranges from isolated self-portraits to multi-figure tableaux referencing art-historical and political imagery.

Market and appraisal context

Yue Minjun maintains a deep and liquid secondary market. Appraisily's auction index records 463 lots (325 with realised prices) spanning from June 2001 through December 2025, sold across at least ten auction houses including Christie's, Sotheby's, Phillips, Bonhams, Artcurial, and Cornette de Saint-Cyr. The price distribution is extremely wide — from $175 for smallattributed or style-of resin sculptures at regional houses to a recorded maximum of approximately $54.1 million at the top end, reflecting the gap between minor editioned works and landmark oils from his peak period. The median price sits at roughly $50,000, with the 25th percentile near $2,400 and the 75th percentile near $769,000, indicating that most lots cluster in the mid-five to low-six-figure range for authenticated oils and major sculptures, while prints and small works trade well below that. Liquidity has moderated: the most recent 12 months recorded 16 lots versus 28 in the prior 12-month window, suggesting somewhat reduced but still active turnover. Recent sales at Sotheby's (HKD 508,000 for an untitled oil) and Christie's (GBP 30,240 for a stainless-steel sculpture) confirm continued engagement from blue-chip houses.

Auction categories and appraisal factors

Common auction categories

  • oil painting
  • sculpture
  • prints
  • watercolour

Value drivers

  1. [object Object]

Appraisal caveats

  • No specific auction price data is available in the source pack; Appraisily should cross-reference with Invaluable and major auction-house records for realized prices.
  • Yue Minjun's auction volume is substantial (699 recorded lots in the source input), suggesting active secondary-market circulation across multiple media.
  • The recorded maximum price of approximately $54.1 million represents an extreme outlier; the median price of roughly $50,000 is far more representative of typical auction results.
  • Several recent lots are catalogued as 'attributed to' or 'style of' Yue Minjun, and some did not realise a price (bought-in). These should not be used as value proxies for authenticated works.

Evidence

Sources for artist context

This source-grounded artist context passed Appraisily's promotion threshold: high confidence, strong sources.

Source-grounded artist Markdown

Data basis

This page is built from Appraisily's public auction market index. Private transactions, incomplete sale feeds, and attribution changes may not be fully represented.

LLM-readable Markdown summary for Minjun Yue

LLM summary index · LLM full index

Artist value FAQ

How much is Minjun Yue worth?

Comparable public auction sales are the best starting point, but final value depends on the specific artwork, condition, size, medium, provenance, and attribution confidence.

Can Appraisily value my Minjun Yue artwork?

Yes. Appraisily can review photos, dimensions, signatures, condition, provenance, and comparable market data to prepare a current valuation.