The spring sales of modern and contemporary art often arrive in May with a steady drumroll of paintings whose estimates soar above $50 million — a sign of confidence in the industry’s roster of ultrawealthy collectors who trade them like financial assets.
Now that drumroll sounds like rain’s pitter-patter as the world’s leading auctioneers recalibrate for an art market rocked by economic uncertainty over the last three years and contend with new challenges, like tariffs.
Of the hundreds of artworks for sale this season (including pieces by Picasso, Basquiat, Magritte and Matisse) there are only a couple above the $50 million threshold: a 1955 Giacometti bust estimated in excess of $70 million, and a potentially record-setting work by Mondrian valued at about $50 million.
But without the spectacle of dinosaurs, bananas and cryptocurrencies in their big-name evening sales, the major auction houses are headed back to basics. It is a season of conventional offerings with very few headline-grabbing estates or deals at a time when these companies are suffering from layoffs; seeking outside investments; and weathering a 20 percent decline in sales within the industry’s broader downturn that has seen global sales fall to $57.5 billion.
“The upper reaches of the market over $5 million are very quiet right now,” said Jacob King, an art adviser in New York. “Material you would have seen in the day sale is now in the evening sale.”
Despite those challenges, the auction houses are still betting on themselves to raise mountains of money within a single week at Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips in New York. Their combined estimate is $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion.
“Last season was a tough one because we had to put together the sales brick by brick,” Lisa Dennison, a top executive at Sotheby’s, said of the November auctions. “Going into the May sales, we did feel the pipeline flowing a bit more.”
Drew Watson, head of art services at Bank of America Private Bank, pointed out that some of the largest consignments of the season were announced in April, after President Trump’s tariffs went into effect — giving some reason for optimism. “You would expect that if people were really bearish about the art market right now that a lot of those high-end lots would not be coming to the market,” he said.
But the market remains soft, and new ultrawealthy collectors scarce, increasing the pressure on auction houses to perform. Here are six bellwether artworks in the evening sales that may indicate the health of the art market.
Alberto Giacometti
“Grande tête mince (Grande tête de Diego)” (1955), in excess of $70 million, Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction, Tuesday
Giacometti was toward the end of his career when he created this bronze bust of his brother Diego, the artist’s studio assistant and muse. The sculpture has the highest estimate in New York’s spring sales and comes without a minimum financial guarantee from either Sotheby’s or a third party to ensure the artwork sells, as is typical with expensive lots. The seller, the Soloviev Foundation, a nonprofit founded by the real estate tycoon Sheldon Solow, stands to receive a bigger payout if the work sells for its estimate.
Solow, who died in 2020, acquired the work in 1980 from the Maeght family, which established the first private art foundation in France, the Fondation Maeght. The foundation is offloading the bust to support its philanthropies, which include the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Henry Street Settlement, according to its website.
“This one has always been the mother lode,” Simon Shaw, a Sotheby’s executive who helped arrange the sale, said of the Giacometti, which was cast during the artist’s lifetime. He described it as a “great sculpture in the season where it would be the most exciting thing available by some significant margin.”
Another cast of the artwork sold at Christie’s in 2010 for $53.3 million; adjusted for inflation, the price today would be $78.1 million, suggesting the artwork has appreciated very little in the last 15 years. Experts said the one being offered at Sotheby’s could sell for more because it is the only painted cast in the series.
Piet Mondrian
“Composition With Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue” (1922), about $50 million, Christie’s, Leonard & Louise Riggio: Collected Works, Monday
When the Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio died last year, he and his widow, Louise, had acquired an immense art collection, championing blue-chip minimalist art and donating to nonprofits like the Dia Foundation, as well as modern paintings by masters like Pablo Picasso, Rene Magritte and Fernand Léger that hung in their Park Avenue apartment.
Louise decided to sell the apartment and consign nearly 40 artworks to Christie’s, including a Mondrian painting that will be the auction house’s most expensive artwork this season, with an estimate around $50 million.
Mondrian is considered a pioneer of European abstraction, thanks to his early experiments in color and geometry in the 1920s. These days, the financial value of his paintings is tied to the proportion of red covering the canvas, making the Riggio example a potential record-breaker. (A previous benchmark was set in 2022 at Sotheby’s, when a similar artwork sold to an anonymous buyer for $51 million.)
But that Mondrian was sold during the market’s height, leading industry analysts to debate whether the prestige of the Riggio name can overcome the economic uncertainty at play today. The auction house has also taken a large risk in providing a guarantee for all artworks, meaning that Christie’s will need to buy in whatever fails to sell.
“They did a big house guarantee and are having trouble selling it off,” said King, the art adviser. “It’s good material, but these are big estimates and there is a lot of stuff to sell.”
Olga de Amaral
“Imagen perdida 27 (Lost Image 27)” (1996), $300,000 to $500,000, Phillips Modern and Contemporary Art evening auction, Tuesday
A tapestry by the 93-year-old Colombian artist Olga de Amaral marks her first appearance in a major New York evening auction — the latest symbol that yet another under-known female artist has moved from the fringes of the marketplace to its upper echelon.
“She’s really a rediscovery, and finally coming out of the pigeonhole,” said Jean-Paul Engelen, a Phillips executive. “She’s no longer a craft artist or a Latin artist. She’s just an artist.”
Many of the other female artists featured this season are either bona fide auction stars whose work reliably sells for millions of dollars (like Agnes Martin, Georgia O’Keeffe and Cecily Brown), or rising talents with low estimates of $100,000 or less (like Danielle Mckinney, Emma McIntyre and Ilana Savdie). De Amaral stands somewhere between them, as an established artist whose value is still climbing after the opening of her first major European museum survey at the Fondation Cartier in Paris last October.
The seller of the tapestry bought the artwork directly from de Amaral in 1996. The artist has woven grids of linen covered in gold leaf to create shimmering abstractions. Three more of her artworks are in New York’s crowded day sales, including the 2006 tapestry “Imagen Paisaje I (Landscape Image I),” which has a high estimate of $1.5 million at Sotheby’s.
That Phillips has chosen a lower-priced work for its evening sales is a sign that the auction house struggled this season to pull significant consignments from sellers, according to experts. The company’s total estimate for the evening sales is far below its competitors and its top lot — a 1984 Basquiat painting with a high estimate of $6.5 million — is almost 90 percent less than the top lot offered in last year’s equivalent sale.
“In this market, what we have, we feel we can sell well,” Engelen said.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
“Baby Boom” (1982), $20 to $30 million, Christie’s 21st Century evening auction, Wednesday
Andy Warhol
“Big Electric Chair” (1967-68), about $30 million, Christie’s 20th Century evening auction, Monday
In 1985, posters promoting a show of collaborative paintings by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat featured the artists posing in boxing gear, as if squaring off instead of teaming up. Four decades later, Basquiat has knocked out all competitors — including the former champion Warhol — to become a bellwether in the art market, according to Christie’s global president Alex Rotter.
“If you asked me to name one artist, it’s Basquiat,” Rotter said. “Over the past five years, he has the broadest attraction to people at different price levels.”
After a prolonged buying frenzy for Warhol paintings, most prime examples now reside in museums and private collections that are reluctant to sell. His absence in the market allowed Basquiat to become a standard-bearer because his paintings and drawings still frequently circulate.
The appearance of Warhol’s “Big Electric Chair” will test if the ultrawealthy’s appetite for the artist has shifted. It is the lone Warhol piece estimated to sell for more than $10 million this season and shows Warhol’s fascination with America’s dark underbelly. “Big Electric Chair” was featured in the artist’s first European and U.S. museum surveys. In 2019, a multicolored version of the piece sold at a Christie’s auction just above its low estimate at $19 million.
The screen print is also competing in the same price range as Basquiat’s “Baby Boom” painting — one of the artist’s most accessible works from 1982, widely considered the best year of his career. The painting is an art historical sendup of religious iconography, reinterpreting the holy family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as the artist and his parents.
Rotter said the Basquiat painting showed the evolution of the artist’s style. “It’s ’81 where the radical Basquiat comes out. It’s ’82 where he has confidence with the radicality.”
Carroll Dunham
“Bathers Seventeen (Black Hole)” (2011-12), $250,000 to $350,000, Collection of Barbara Gladstone, Sotheby’s, Thursday
Sotheby’s is holding dedicated auctions of artwork owned by two respected gallerists on the same night, a collection from the London gallerist Daniella Luxembourg with a high estimate of $41.1 million and a more modest group once held by Barbara Gladstone, with a high estimate of $17.2 million.
Gladstone, who died last year at 89, was a generational force in the art world responsible for boosting artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring and Elizabeth Murray into the limelight. Her namesake gallery has continued after her death, with four remaining partners running six locations around the world.
There are only two artists in the dozen lots offered at Sotheby’s that are still represented by the gallery: Alighiero Boetti and Richard Prince.
Another artist, Carroll Dunham, disappeared from the gallery’s website only a few weeks ago. Gladstone had held more than a dozen exhibitions of Dunham’s artwork since 2004. (A spokesperson for Gladstone Gallery did not reply to requests for comment.)
That subtle change has brought some intrigue to the sale of his painting “Bathers Seventeen (Black Hole).” Although the work is estimated below his auction record of $591,000 in 2017 for “Integrated Painting Seven,” Gladstone’s personal ownership of “Bathers” could provide a boost.
“Works from her collection coming up for sale are iconic examples of each artist’s work, and each is a vital piece of contemporary art history,” said Molly Epstein, a senior partner at the advisory firm Goodman Taft. Gladstone choosing to live with these works “gives them even greater meaning,” Epstein added.
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