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S otheby’s marquee auction week, The New York Sales, delivered a strong showing across categories, capped by excellent results in its Modern Evening Auction – including a new auction record for architect Frank Lloyd Wright – and an exceptional result for The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction. The sales drew global participation and underlined the market’s appetite for fresh-to-market works of art from celebrated artists and works assembled by visionary collectors.
The Modern Evening Auction led the week with a total of $186.4 million, with nearly half the works coming to auction for the first time. Strong results were driven by major names, including a commanding $15 million for Pablo Picasso’s Homme assis, among the most significant from his Musketeers and Matadors series. Georgia O’Keeffe’s Leaves of a Plant exceeded its presale estimate, selling for $13 million in its auction debut.
Other highlights included Paul Cézanne’s portrait of Hortense Fiquet, which led The Collection of Rolf & Margit Weinberg at $7.4 million, and Paul Signac’s Saint-Georges. Couchant (Venise), which sold for a record $8.1 million for a Venetian subject by the artist.
Bidding was particularly competitive for works of Orphist art, an abstract movement named by the Surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire. František Kupka’s Flux et reflux achieved $5.9 million and his Formes flasques reached $5.3 million, both from The Joseph H. Hazen Family Collection. Meanwhile Robert Delauney’s Nature morte realized $2 million – well above its $1.5 million high estimate.
Sculpture also performed well, notably Jean Arp’s Figure-germe dite l’après-midinette, which doubled its high estimate at $3.6 million. Meanwhile, Willem de Kooning’s Two Figures in Dunes fetched $3.2 million – nearly 15 times its 1993 sale price. A Van Gogh double-sided work from The Marina Picasso Collection also attracted bidding from Asia, selling for just under $1 million.
Among the most talked-about results is the $7.5 million sale of a Frank Lloyd Wright double-pedestal lamp, which set a new auction record for the architect and designer. The lamp, created for the Susan Lawrence Dana House in Springfield, IL, ignited an 11-minute bidding battle and more than doubled Wright’s previous auction record, set in 2023. Jodi Pollack, Sotheby’s Chairman and Co-Worldwide Head of 20th Century Design, described the work as “a beacon of the American pursuit of design, innovation and progress.” Its final price was nearly four times what it had achieved when it last sold in 2002.
The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction followed with similarly robust results, totaling $127.1 million – a 31% increase over last November’s edition. Combined with single-owner, white-glove auctions dedicated to collectors and gallerists Barbara Gladstone ($18.5 million) and Daniella Luxembourg ($40.4 million), the evening reached $186.1 in total sales. Competitive bidding was a hallmark of the evening, with 96% of lots sold and multiple works attracting five or more bidders.
Highlights include Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled, which sold for $16.4 million after a six-minute contest among four bidders – marking the second-highest auction price for a work on paper by the artist. Ed Ruscha’s That Was Then This Is Now achieved $7.8 million, while Andy Warhol’s Flowers more than tripled its low estimate, realizing $4.1 million after attracting five bidders.
Works from the Collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein were 100% sold, totaling $29 million – exceeding the group’s high estimate of $25 million. The top lot from the collection, Reflections: Art, reached $5.5 million, while Stretcher Frame with Cross Bars III sold to applause at $4.9 million, far above its $2.5-3.5 million estimate.
“I don’t take it for granted that people love my father’s work as much as I do,“ said Mitchell Lichtenstein, “so I was heartened by the depth of interest expressed in the success of these sales. And I was especially excited to see strong results for his various studies and for the lesser-known works of the 1940s and ’50s.”
A number of artists achieved auction records across the three-sale evening, including Michael Armitage, whose Mpektoni sold for $2.4 million, and Claes Oldenburg, whose Soft Switches realized $1.9 million – a record for a light switch work by the artist. Additional records were set for Carroll Dunham ($762,500) and Ernst Yohji Jäger ($190,500).
The combined sell-through rate for The Modern Day Auction and The Contemporary Day Auction was an impressive 85% – the highest since November 2021 – with more than half of the artworks in each auction selling above their high estimates
Im Spazio: The Collection of Daniella Luxembourg was led by Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio, which fetched $14.5 million. Michelangelo Pistoletto’s Maria nuda saw spirited bidding from eight participants before selling to a European collector for $3.4 million, five times its last auction price in 2004.
Selections from the Collection of Barbara Gladstone achieved $18.5 million, surpassing expectations with 100% of lots sold and 75% exceeding their high estimates. Leading the group was Richard Prince’s Man Crazy Nurse, which realized $4 million. Other standouts included Andy Warhol’s Flowers, which more than doubled its high estimate to sell for $3.8 million, and Thomas Schütte’s Roter Frauenkopf, which brought in $698,500, more than twice its high estimate. The results reflected the market’s strong appetite for works tied to Gladstone’s avant-garde legacy and discerning eye.
“Last night’s results were nothing short of extraordinary,” said Gabriela Palmieri, advisor for the collections of Daniella Luxembourg and Barbara Gladstone. “How could one not be thrilled to see these visionary collections from two trailblazing women receive the recognition they deserve?”
Several works from The New York Sales spoke directly to the moment, backed by major institutional attention. Among them: Rashid Johnson’s Two Standing Broken Men, which brought in $1.8 million ahead of a mid-career survey at the Guggenheim, and Jack Whitten’s Alpha Group III, which achieved $1.1 million ahead of a MoMA retrospective.
With global participation – from collectors in Asia acquiring works by Van Gogh, Matisse and Munch, to European collectors contributing almost a third of the total spend, to millennial collectors making up nearly a quarter of the value in the two curated evening sales – Sotheby’s May sales confirmed not just the vitality of the market, but also the enduring appeal of premier works across disciplines.
