After years of retrenchment in the art market, the industry is preparing for what could be a blockbuster spring auction season starting this Thursday and ending a week later. The signs are there: The stock market has been rising, the families of dead billionaires are selling their art, and plenty of living billionaires want a piece of history. Yes, there are wars in the Middle East and Ukraine; inflation continues to climb. But the mood in the luxury art industry feels bullish again, for the first time in years.
Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips aim to sell more than $2.6 billion of art over the next two weeks. That is still well below the $3.2 billion they sold at comparable auctions in November 2022, the market’s recent peak, but more than 60 percent higher than the $1.6 billion high estimate of last May’s sales.
Driving expectations is a cache of trophy artworks larger and richer than the auction houses have had in some time. Eleven lots are expected to sell for $50 million or more this month, compared with only two in May 2025.
This season’s priciest works were made by instantly recognizable artists including Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko — the equivalent of safe harbor in a market that has weathered nearly four years of rough seas. The artworks also come from the estates of some of the most storied patrons of modern and contemporary art, including the publishing magnate S.I. Newhouse, the philanthropist Agnes Gund and the dealers Marian Goodman and Robert Mnuchin.
“This is a moment where the art market and art history intersect,” said Betsy Bickar, the head of art advisory at Citi Wealth. “You can’t invent better provenance for some of these pieces.”
By contrast, the last several major New York auctions were built partly around imperfect headliners — such as a would-be $70 million Alberto Giacometti bust that faceplanted without a buyer — and lots that generated memes as much as sales. These included a $6.2 million banana, a juvenile Triceratops skeleton and a functional golden toilet titled “America.”
“Over the last five years it’s gotten a little baroque,” said Robert Manley, chairman and worldwide head of modern and contemporary art at Phillips (which sold the Triceratops). “When you have an overabundance of great things in your wheelhouse, you just see less of that.”
Alongside record-setting sales for Gustav Klimt, Frida Kahlo and others last November, experts say that the market’s cautious optimism also stems from a reset of expectations. Sellers are more willing to part with treasures for less than they might have at the market’s apex.
Canonical works by dead white men are headlining this season, upsetting a recent trend that saw female, living artists and artists of color achieve new benchmarks. The number of works by ultracontemporary artists — those born in 1975 or later — has fallen by nearly three-quarters compared with four years ago, and their $5.3 million combined estimate this May is almost one-tenth of what it was then.
Some industry veterans said the shift indicates a drop in speculative bidding rather than a wholesale change in taste.
Could broader economic anxiety dampen the enthusiasm? Against the backdrop of “a world that feels very fragile, for all the obvious reasons — whether that is conflict, politics, input prices or the impact of A.I. — art feels like a very good store of value,” said Charles Stewart, chief executive of Sotheby’s.
With the bidding opening Thursday, here are five bellwether works that will help determine if buyers agree.
Jackson Pollock
“Number 7A, 1948” (1948), about $100 million, Christie’s Masterpieces: The Private Collection of S.I. Newhouse, Monday, May 18
The two priciest works on offer this month — estimated to sell for about nine figures each — come from the Newhouse estate. But enthusiasm over Constantin Brancusi’s bronze-and-gold-leaf mythological bust, “Danaïde,” pales in comparison to Pollock’s “Number 7A, 1948,” the likely star of the group. In total, the fourth tranche of works from Newhouse’s collection to be auctioned since his death in 2017 is estimated to total more than $450 million.
“Number 7A, 1948” is the first of Pollock’s large-scale drip paintings to be auctioned since 1961, according to Christie’s, and a rare early example of his signature innovation: drizzling oil and enamel across a canvas on the floor.
Alex Rotter, Christie’s global president, called 1948 “the year where Pollock added another layer to art history, where abstraction turns into a rhythm and a dance.”
The last major Pollock work sold at auction was a 1951 enamel from the divorcing couple Harry and Linda Macklowe’s collection in November 2021. That piece, which Sotheby’s sold for $61.2 million, measured about five feet by five feet — modest compared with Newhouse’s nearly-11-foot-long trophy.
Two other 1948 drip paintings by Pollock have sold for prices above $100 million privately, according to experts: “Number 5,” for $140 million in 2006; and “Number 17A,” for about $200 million in 2015. (Both were reportedly sold by the record executive David Geffen.) The raw canvas, limited color palette and sparser composition make Newhouse’s work more historically significant.
“No one I’ve talked to thinks the low estimate is expensive,” said David Schrader, former chairman and global head of private sales at Sotheby’s, and a founder of Pace Di Donna Schrader Galleries, a secondary market dealership. “It could make anything if the right two or three people want it.”
Donald Judd
“Untitled” (1969), $10 to $15 million, Christie’s Defined Space: The Collection of Henry S. McNeil, Jr., Wednesday, May 20
About a decade ago, cool, sharp-edged sculptures by minimalist artists like Donald Judd and Dan Flavin were all the rage, with sales like the 2023 auction of a wood, iron and aluminum wall piece by Judd soaring to a record $14.2 million. “Now, I feel like I have no one for this type of work,” said Saara Pritchard, an art adviser and partner at Fair Warning, an auction platform.
Can the collection of the late Tylenol heir Henry S. McNeil Jr. give the minimalism market the medicine it needs? Christie’s is betting on it. McNeil assembled what experts say is the most important minimalist trove to come to auction in 20 years.
Christie’s will pay McNeil’s children — who grew up with wall drawings by Sol LeWitt in their bedrooms — a guaranteed (but undisclosed) sum regardless of how the works perform. The auction, which could generate up to $30 million, is headlined by Judd’s copper and red Plexiglas “stack” sculpture from 1969, which stretches from floor to ceiling and casts a rosy glow; and Flavin’s first fluorescent tube light sculpture, from 1963 (estimated at $1.5 to $2 million).
Experts offer various explanations for minimalism’s dulled appeal. In a market dominated by easy-on-the-eyes painting, minimalism looks uninspiring on Instagram, and its industrial materials can feel devoid of emotion. “In the last few years, it’s been almost a put-down —‘Oh, this work is intellectual,’” said the dealer David Zwirner, who represents Flavin’s estate. “I think the tide will turn.”
Mark Rothko
“Brown and Blacks in Reds” (1957), $70 to $100 million, Sotheby’s Robert Mnuchin: Collector at Heart evening auction, Thursday, May 14
This season will test how many works the market can absorb by the Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko: The evening sales include five examples by this Latvian American artist, whose auction record was set in 2012 for a dreamy orange painting from 1961. The number to beat is $87 million, or $125 million in today’s dollars. And there are two paintings that may come within range.
Experts say that the appeal of a particular Rothko is tied to how the colors resonate with the individual. He is “one of the few artists you can’t compare apples to apples, almost ever,” Pritchard said.
Sotheby’s is up first on May 14 with this canvas from the estate of Robert Mnuchin, founder of the prominent Mnuchin Gallery. The painting, featuring three blocks of dark color against a blood red background, carries a pre-sale guarantee ensuring it will sell — but not necessarily set a record.
Four days later, Christie’s will follow with “No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe)” from 1964, one of three works from the estate of Gund, who died last September. The enveloping abstract painting in forest green, indigo, black and cherry red — an atypical palette for Rothko — is estimated to sell for at least $80 million.
Christie’s took longer than Sotheby’s to secure a third-party guarantee — a bidder’s pledge of a minimum price in advance — suggesting the air may be thinning atop Rothko’s market. In the past five years, six Rothkos have sold for more than $40 million at auction. “How many new buyers are coming in at $80 million?” Pritchard said.
Gerhard Richter
“Kerze (Candle)” (1982), $35 to $50 million, Christie’s Marian’s Richters & 21st Century evening auction, Wednesday, May 20
While Mnuchin was a dogged presence in the auction room, Marian Goodman kept the secondary market at a remove. “Marian’s allegiance was to the artist,” said the art adviser Wendy Cromwell.
Goodman was known for bringing sophisticated, sometimes challenging work by European artists to American audiences. Christie’s is selling a group of works by her most famous find: the German artist Gerhard Richter. Is the important dealer’s imprimatur worth paying a premium for?
The top lot is this moody candle painting from 1982. Richter, who bounced between abstraction and figuration, created it by painting his own photograph of a candle, then slightly blurring the image with a dry brush. When the series debuted in the early 1980s, none sold — but Goodman recognized the significance and bought this one shortly after she began representing Richter. Now, the works are among his most coveted.
The sale doubles as a test of Richter’s auction market, which has declined 80 percent from its 2014 peak, according to the art and collectibles intelligence platform ARTDAI. One reason for the decline has been a dearth of high-value works at auction, according to the data.
Only 28 paintings from this series exist, according to Christie’s “If you wanted a Richter candle painting, you’d probably have to wait close to 15 years,” said Bickar, of Citi Wealth.
Willem de Kooning
“Milkmaid” (1984), $10 to $15 million, Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Saturday, May 16
An alternative way to buy and sell art is elbowing into the marquee sale season: the private auction. These invitation-only events often offer a single lot, making it (and its seller) the center of attention.
The gallery Lévy Gorvy Dayan is holding a private auction of this de Kooning painting, once owned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It will be offered in a livestream accessible only by vetted clients, all bidding confidentially by phone.
“There’s a desire from both the buyer and seller to go toward this model,” said Brett Gorvy, a founder of the gallery and Christie’s former chairman and international head of postwar and contemporary art, when asked what motivated the new initiative (called LGD Hammer). Its draws, he added, include nimbler scheduling, less public exposure and lower fees. Gorvy said that the buyer will pay a 16 percent fee, compared with about 20 percent at a major auction house.
The approach was popularized by Fair Warning, the app-based auction platform started in 2020 by Loïc Gouzer, who was Gorvy’s successor at Christie’s before he left to found the business. Fair Warning will stage its own private auction on May 20, of the 2012 Banksy painting “Girl and Balloon on Found Landscape.” The auction will be at Tiffany & Company’s Madison Avenue flagship, and the work’s $13 to $18 million estimate is the loftiest ever given to a Banksy piece at auction.
“I do think the big auction house model is flawed and the fees are too high when you have people with just as much expertise offering these alternatives,” Meredith Darrow, an art adviser, said of Fair Warning and LGD Hammer.
Over the next two weeks, viewers will see just how robust the traditional auction market really is.
