Auction Analysis Spotlight: New York’s May Auctions
Victoria Kleiner, Head of Art Due Diligence and Digital Art Expertise
The total achieved by Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Phillips for the May Marquee auctions this year was 837.5 million USD, which was 10.6 % less than the equivalent sales in May 2024.
The sell through rate was a fairly healthy 92%, although there were some high-profile last-minute withdrawals, such as the Andy Warhol ‘Big Electric Chair’ at Christie’s, which was estimated in the region of 30 million USD. This was clearly considered too high in terms of price point in current market conditions despite being from a prestigious collection and extremely fresh to the market. The owners are reputed to have received an offer several years ago in the region of 50 million USD but chose not to sell, so have presumably decided to hold until the return of more advantageous market conditions.
Guarantee levels remained almost unchanged since May 2024, with 165 lots guaranteed for total value of 685.6 million USD.
Several single-owner collections rescued the season and ensured a solid performance overall.
Most notable of these in terms of value was the Riggio collection, which totalled 271,943,100 USD at Christie’s, and included the top-selling lot of the week, Piet Mondrian’s ‘Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue, which sold for 47,560,000 USD.
Sotheby’s included 2 single owner sales of highly distinguished provenance, from Barbara Gladstone and Daniella Luxembourg, both of which were ‘white-glove’ sales with no unsold lots. One of the highlights of the Gladstone auction was a rare Warhol black flower painting, of which there are only 4 examples, which sold for 3,832,000 USD against an estimate of 1-1.5 million USD. The top lot of the Luxembourg sale, which had a strong Italian focus, was Lucio Fontana’s ‘Fine di Dio’ which sold for 14,485,000 USD against an estimate of 12-18 million USD. However, this was only the 8th highest price for an example from this series, which has traditionally been highly sought after, and for which the record price stands at approx. 21 million USD in 2013.
Sotheby’s also included a group of Roy Lichtenstein works consigned directly from the Lichtenstein Foundation, following their successful sale of a smaller group from the same consigner in November 2024. These overall performed strongly, showing the continuing strength of Lichtenstein’s market. Of the 34 works that kicked off the Contemporary Day Sale, all but 6 achieved over their high estimate with premium price, and of the 5 works offered in the Contemporary Evening Sale, 3 sold above their high estimate with premium.
Christie’s saw the strongest performance overall, achieving 9 of the top 10 hammer prices for the week and seeing an 11% rise from their performance in May 2024, with an average hammer price of 4.53 million USD. Christie’s also set a new record for a living female artist with the sale of ‘Miss January’ by Marlene Dumas for 13.6 million USD, beating the previous record for Jenny Saville that had stood since 2018.
Sotheby’s saw a weaker performance, with an average hammer price of 2.66 million USD per lot and a high profile BI in the Alberto Giacometti bronze which, at 70 million USD without a guarantee, was just at too high a price point for the current market.
Phillips also struggled, despite its smaller sale and withdrawing 4 lots, with an average hammer price of 1.3 million USD per lot. However, they still managed to set records for Grace Hartigan, Olga De Amaral and Ilana Savdie.
Works by female Surrealist artists continued the strong performance streak which has been seen over the past few seasons, with prices well in excess of their estimates achieved for works by Bridget Bate Tichenor and Gertrude Abercrombie and a record price achieved for a work by Dorothea Tanning.
Ultimately this is still very much a buyer’s market which is highly price sensitive, as evidenced with the BI of the Giacometti and the withdrawal of the Warhol. Although the slightly mixed results do not yet signal a return to a more ‘bullish’ market, given the overall economic uncertainty around tariffs that had prevailed in the weeks leading up to the auctions, these results are overall more solid than might have been expected.