Spring sales of modern and contemporary art often arrive in May with stable drum rolls estimated at over $50 million.
The drum roll sounds like a rain pitter putter as the world's leading auctioneers are shaking by economic uncertainty over the past three years and fighting new challenges like tariffs.
Of the hundreds of artworks this season (including works by Picasso, Basquiat, Magritte and Mattis), only couples are above the $50 million threshold. The 1955 Giacometti Bust is estimated to exceed $70 million, a potentially record-breaking work with a large valuation of around $50 million.
But with the epic evening sales of dinosaurs, bananas and cryptocurrencies, the major auction houses are back to basics. This is a season of traditional offerings where there are few headline grabs and deals when these companies struggle with layoffs. We are looking for external investment. Also, sales fell by 20% amid the wider recession in the industry, where global sales fell to $57.5 billion.
“Right now, the upstream market is very quiet, with over $5 million,” said Jacob King, an art advisor in New York. “The material you'd seen at the day sale is now on the evening sale.”
Despite these challenges, the auction house is still betting on itself to raise money in Christie's, Sotheby's and Phillips in New York in less than a week. The total estimate is between $1.2 billion and $1.6 billion.
“Last season was tough because we had to put together bricks for sale,” Sotheby's top executive Lisa Dennison said of the November auction. “When we got into sales in May, it felt like the pipeline would flow a little more.”
Drew Watson, head of art services at Bank of America Private Bank, noted that after President Trump's tariffs came into effect, some of the season's biggest consignments were announced in April, giving reasons for optimism. “If people are really weakened about the art market right now, they're hoping that a lot of those high-end lots won't come to the market,” he said.
But the market remains soft, with new, super-fatal collectors shortages, putting pressure on auction houses. In the evening sales there are six previous artworks that could indicate the health of the art market.
Alberto Giacometti
“Grande Tête Mince (Grande Tête De Diego)” (1955), over $70 million, Sotheby's Modern Evening Auction, Tuesday
Giacometti was heading towards the end of his career when he created this bronze bust for the artist's studio assistant and muse brother Diego. This sculpture has the highest estimate for spring sales in New York and does not have minimal financial guarantees from Sotheby's or third parties. The seller, Solovieviv Foundation, is a nonprofit founded by real estate tycoon Sheldon Sorow, and will receive a larger payment if the labor sells for a quote.
After passing in 2020, Solow acquired work from the Maeght family, which in 1980 founded France's first private art foundation, Maeght. The foundation off-roads the Bust to support charities, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the settlement of Henry Street, according to its website.
“This has always been Mother Road,” Simon Shaw, a Sazaby executive who helped arrange the sales, said of Giacometti, who was cast in the artist's life. He described it as “a great sculpture of the season.”
Another cast of artwork that sold at Christie's in 2010 for $53.3 million. Adjusted for inflation, today's priced at $78.1 million, suggesting that the artwork has been barely valued over the past 15 years. Experts said what's on offer at Sotheby's is the only painted cast in the series, so they can sell for more.
Piet Mondrian
“The Big Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Blue Composition” (1922), Approximately $50 Million, Christie's, Leonard & Louise Rigio: Collections, Monday
When Barnes & Noble founder Leonard Riggio passed away last year, he and his widow Louise defended the Blue-chip Minimalist Art, donated to nonprofit organizations like the DIA Foundation, and modern paintings of masters like Fernando hanging from Pablo Picasso, Rene Magritte and Farnue Aprimmentment.
Louise has decided to sell the apartment and entrust Christie's with nearly 40 artwork, including Mondrian paintings, which will be the most expensive artwork at the auction house this season.
Mondrian is considered a pioneer of European abstraction thanks to early experiments in color and geometry in the 1920s. More recently, the financial value of his paintings is tied to the percentage of red that covers the canvas, making Riggio's example a potential record-breaker. (A previous benchmark was set up at Sotheby's in 2022. Similar artwork was sold to anonymous buyers for $51 million.)
However, Mondrian is sold at the height of the market, and industry analysts are leading the way to debate whether the riggio name fame can overcome today's economic uncertainty. Also, auction houses take a great risk when providing guarantees for all their artwork. This means Christie has to buy something that has failed to sell.
“They have a big house guarantee and have a hard time consuming it,” said art advisor King. “It's good materials, but these are big estimates and there's a lot to sell.”
Olga de Amaral
“Imagen Perdida 27 (Lost Image 27)” (1996), $300,000 to $500,000, Philips Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Auction, Tuesday
The tapestry by 93-year-old Colombian artist Olga de Amaral marks her first appearance at a major evening auction in New York.
“She's truly a rediscovery and finally comes out of the pigeon hole,” said Phillips executive Jean Paul Engellen. “She's no longer a craft artist or a Latin artist. She's just an artist.”
Many other female artists this season are either authentic auction stars whose work is definitely on sale for millions of dollars (such as Agnes Martin, Georgia O'Keefe, Cecily Brown), or rising talent with low estimates of less than $100,000. de Amaral stands somewhere between them as an established artist whose value is still rising after he began researching the first major European museums at the Fondation Cartier in Paris last October.
Tapestry sellers purchased artwork directly from De Amaral in 1996. The artist weaves a grid of linen covered in golden leaves to create sparkling abstractions. Three of her artworks are available for sale on busy days in New York, including the 2006 tapestry, Imagen Paisaje I (Landscape Image I).
Experts say that Phillips' choice of low-cost jobs for sale in the evening is a sign that this season's auction house struggled to pull a big commission from sellers. The company's total estimate for evening sales is far below its competitors, with its top lot (a 1984 Basquiat painting worth $6.5 million) almost 90% less than the top lot offered at comparable sales last year.
“In this market, we feel we sell well, with what we have,” Engellen said.
Jean Michel Basquiat
“Baby Boom” (1982), $20-30 million, Christie's 21st Century Night Auction, Wednesday
Andy Warhol
“Big Electric Chair” (1967-68), about $30 million, Christie's 20th Century Night Auction, Monday
In 1985, the poster promoted a show of joint paintings by Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat, featuring artists posing in boxing gear like a square instead of teaming up. Four decades later, Basquiat pioneered the art market by knocking out all his competitors, including former champion Warhol, according to Christie's global president Alex Rotter.
“If you ask one artist to name it, it's Basquiat,” Rotter said. “In the last five years, he has the broadest appeal to people of different price levels.”
After long buying Frenzy for Warhol's paintings, most major examples are now found in museums and private collections that are reluctant to sell. His absence in the market allowed Basquiat to become a standard rep, as paintings and paintings still circulate frequently.
The arrival of Warhol's “Big Electric Chair” tests whether UltraWealth's appetite for artists has changed. This is the only Warhol production estimated to be sold for over $10 million this season, showing Warhol's appeal to America's dark abdomen. “Big Electric Chair” was featured in the artist's first European and American museum survey. In 2019, the multi-color version of the work sold at Christie's auction surpassed the low $19 million estimate.
Screenprint competes at the same price range as Basquiat's “Baby Boom” painting, one of the artist's most accessible works of 1982. The painting is an artistic historical transport of religious iconography, reinterpreting the holy families of Jesus, Mary and Joseph as artists and his parents.
Rotter said Basquiat's paintings showed an evolution of the artist's style. “It's '81 when the radical Basquiat comes out. It's '82 when he's confident in radicalism.”
Carol Dunham
“Bathers Seventeen” (2011-12), $250,000 to $350,000, Barbara Gladstone Collection, Sotheby's, Thursday
Sotheby's is holding an auction of dedicated artwork owned by two respected gallerists on the same night. This is the collection of London gallerist Daniella Luxembourg, with a higher estimate of $41.1 million and a more modest group held by Barbara Gladstone, with a higher estimate of $107.2 million.
Gladstone, who passed away last year at the age of 89, was a generational force in the art world responsible for bringing artists like Robert Rauschenberg, Keith Haring and Elizabeth Murray into the spotlight. Her gallery of the same name continues after her death, with the remaining four partners running six locations around the world.
In the dozen lots offered at Sotheby's, there are still only two artists represented in the gallery: Alighiero Betty and Richard Prince.
Another artist, Carol Dunham, disappeared from the gallery website a few weeks ago. Gladstone has held more than dozens of exhibitions of Dunham artwork since 2004 (a spokesman for Gladstone Gallery did not reply to requests for comment).
That subtle change led to several plots on the sale of his painting “Bathers Seventeen (black hole).” The work falls below the 2017 $591,000 auction record for “Integrated Painting Seven,” but private ownership of Gladstone's “Bathers” could provide a boost.
“The work in her collection is an iconic example of each artist's work, each one being an important part of contemporary art history,” says Molly Epstein, a senior partner at Goodman Taft, an advisory firm. Gladstone, who chose to live with these works, “gives even more meaning,” Epstein added.
