One of South Korea's biggest art auction houses is setting up shop in Hong Kong, in the hope of capturing a major slice of the city's lucrative market for contemporary art work. Seoul Auction, established 10 years ago, will feature more than 120 modern and contemporary art works valued at about HK$300 million at its inaugural auction in Hong Kong on October 7. Among the lots are a Roy Lichtenstein work, expected to fetch between HK$70 million and HK$78 million. Other highlights include a 1998 oil painting by mainland artist Zeng Fanzhi valued at between HK$12 million and HK$16 million. In May in Hong Kong, London-based auction house Christie's sold a Zeng painting of masked Red Guards from the Cultural Revolution era for a record HK$75.4 million. Marketing director Shim Mi-sung acknowledged that the amount of art work up for auction was 'quite aggressive' for a debut sale. But, she said, Hong Kong's art market was big. The auction house plans to open an office by the end of the year with between five and seven local staff to help arrange future auctions in Hong Kong. While Hong Kong has increasingly become the preferred hub for auctioning Asian contemporary art, Ms Shim said including work by artists such as Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol and Willem de Kooning made the sale the first time contemporary western art had been offered in the city. Sotheby's will halt auctions of Asian contemporary art in New York and reorganise sales of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Southeast Asian art in Hong Kong from next year. Christie's staged the region's first major evening sale of Asian contemporary art in Hong Kong in May. 'In a relatively short period of time, Hong Kong has become the third largest art market in the world, and has further great growth potential,' Yoon Chul-kyu, Seoul Auction's chief executive, said.