All posts tagged: Sotheby’s

Sotheby’s Private Auction of Arne Glimcher’s Jackson Pollock Appears to Fail

Sotheby’s Private Auction of Arne Glimcher’s Jackson Pollock Appears to Fail

Published by Jenni Sidey

For much of Tuesday, June 2,, the second floor of Sotheby’s headquarters at Manhattan’s Breuer Building was off limits. Security guards turned away employees hoping to access the floor, which, when not used as a traditional gallery, is where the auction house stages its biggest and most closely watched auctions—including the $236 million Gustav Klimt painting that last year broke the record for any work of modern art sold at auction. According to sources familiar with the matter, even senior staff were left wondering what exactly was going on upstairs. Related Articles The answer, it turns out, was a Jackson Pollock. According to multiple sources, Sotheby’s had quietly organized a private auction for Number 19, 1951, a monumental Pollock owned by Pace Gallery founder Arne Glimcher. Measuring nearly five feet tall and four feet wide, the muscular oil-and-enamel work is filled with thick ropes of black paint coiling around each other before colliding into bold abstractions. The asking price, I’m told, was $50 million. The sale was conducted with an unusual degree of secrecy. Oliver Barker, …

Follower of Hieronymus Bosch Painting Leads Strong Old Masters Week in New York

Follower of Hieronymus Bosch Painting Leads Strong Old Masters Week in New York

Published by Jenni Sidey

A small painting of hell by a follower of Hieronymus Bosch led a string of surprise results during this week’s Old Masters sales in New York, selling for $537,600 at Sotheby’s against an estimate of $30,000 to $50,000. (All prices include buyer’s premium unless otherwise noted.) The result came as Christie’s Old Masters and 19th Century Paintings sale brought in nearly $7 million with a sell-though rate of 89 percent, while the similarly titled sale at Sotheby’s sale totaled $6.4 million with a slightly higher sell-through rate of 92 percent. Together, the auctions offered another reminder that collectors will fight for the right picture, especially when it comes with strong scholarship, a fresh attribution, or a good story. Related Articles The Bosch follower panel, titled Hell, was packed with the strange creatures, demons, and punishments that made the artist famous. In the bottom right, a ferociously grotesque “hell mouth” holds a platter in one hand and a pitcher in the other, while human figures writhe and suffer on its wicked tongue. Angels appear to be fleeing in …

Sotheby’s Offers Art and Design From Estate of Dealer Barbara Gladstone

Sotheby’s Offers Art and Design From Estate of Dealer Barbara Gladstone

Published by Jenni Sidey

During its New York design week (June 5–11), auction house Sotheby’s will offer art and design from the estate of revered art dealer Barbara Gladstone, who died in 2024 at age 89. The 140 lots on offer include contemporary art, modern and contemporary design, prints, and photographs and are estimated to bring between $6.9 and $10 million. The sale takes place on Tuesday, June 9, with a public preview exhibition opening June 2 at the house’s Madison Avenue headquarters. The house previously sold a dozen contemporary artworks from Gladstone’s collection as part of a May 15 sale. Including pieces by Carroll Dunham, Sigmar Polke, Elizabeth Peyton, Richard Prince, Rudolf Stingel, and Andy Warhol, the group sold for $18.5 million (with fees) against a high estimate of $12 million (not including fees), with all finding buyers and 75 percent of them selling above their high estimate. Related Articles The art and design sale, in addition to works by artists such as Matthew Barney, Anish Kapoor, Alex Katz, Yayoi Kusama, Peyton, Prince, and Amy Sillman, includes significant …

Why Billionaires Are Buying Dinosaur Fossils as the Next Trophy Collectible

Why Billionaires Are Buying Dinosaur Fossils as the Next Trophy Collectible

Published by Jenni Sidey

For years, the trophy object of choice for the ultra-wealthy was relatively predictable: the Picasso, the Rothko, the rare Patek Philippe watch, maybe a Basquiat large enough to dominate the living room of a newly purchased penthouse, or, more recently, Air Jordans worn by the legend himself at a championship game. But lately, another kind of status symbol has been muscling its way into auction catalogs, gallery exhibitions, and billionaire wish lists: dinosaurs. This summer, Sotheby’s will offer “Gus,” a 67-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton estimated at $20 million to $30 million, the highest estimate ever placed on a dinosaur fossil. The specimen, excavated over several years in South Dakota, stretches roughly 38 feet long and stands more than 12 feet tall. Sotheby’s is billing it as one of the largest and most complete T. rex specimens ever discovered. Related Articles On its own, that might sound like another attention-grabbing auction headline in an art market that increasingly runs on spectacle. But “Gus” arrives on the crest of a much larger wave. Dinosaurs are no longer …

Bet on Basquiat and Monet with Kalshi

Bet on Basquiat and Monet with Kalshi

Published by Jenni Sidey

So-called prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket—sites for online gambling, though the companies say they are a form of derivatives trading—have gamified modern life to a previously unforeseen degree. Users can bet not only on events bettors have traditionally gambled on, like sports, but also on bizarrely trivial matters like whether US president Donald Trump will use the expressions “big beautiful bill” or “rigged election” at the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardon. They can take a position on other seemingly comical but potentially hugely consequential outcomes too, like whether the US government will confirm the existence of alien life by the year 2027. On a darker note, some successful bets on life-and-death events such as war in Iran and the abduction of former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro have raised questions about whether bettors are trading on insider knowledge. Related Articles Now Kalshi has launched a new category that will let users bet on phenomena like the prices of individual artworks at auction as well as total sales values at particular art auctions. “The markets give …

Taiwanese Pop Star Is the Buyer of M. Matisse Painting at Sotheby’s

Taiwanese Pop Star Is the Buyer of $20 M. Matisse Painting at Sotheby’s

Published by Jenni Sidey

While we wait for the buyer of S. I. Newhouse’s $181.2 million Jackson Pollock painting to reveal him- or herself, at least one buyer at the May marquee evening sales has stepped forward: Jay Chou. The Taiwanese pop star posted on Instagram last week that he was winning bidder for the 1924 Henri Matisse painting, La Séance du Matin, offered at Sotheby’s modern art evening sale last Tuesday. The Matisse sold for exactly $20 million before fees, ultimately reaching $21.2 million with fees. It carried a $20 million to $30 million estimate. Related Articles That sale didn’t generate the biggest fireworks. In fact, it was another Matisse in that same auction—La Chaise lorraine (ca. 1919), buyer still unknown—that sold for $48.4 million on a $25 million estimate. The bidding battle for that work stretched to over ten minutes. Chou, however, won his Matisse by guaranteeing the work, according to the New York Times, which got him a $800,000 rebate on the purchase price. Chou often writes about art, or posts photos of art, on his …

Morning Links for May 20, 2026

Morning Links for May 20, 2026

Published by José Betancourt

To receive Morning Links in your inbox every weekday, sign up for our Breakfast with ARTnews newsletter. The Headlines AUCTION ACTION. Sotheby’s in New York sold $303.9 million-worth of modern art yesterday evening, while Phillips netted $115.2 million from their modern and contemporary sale held just beforehand. But as ARTnews’ Daniel Cassady reports, there is still a sense of caution from buyers who are showing demand for exceptional works, but are sensitive to price. At Sotheby’s, that meant solid results, led by a $48.4 million Matisse, but noticeable pauses between bids suggested a cautious market mood. “Competition is very tempered,” one New York advisor said. Earlier at Phillip’s, on the other hand, the auction house’s team “appeared joyous,” writes Julie Brener Davich for ARTnews. The presale estimate of $84.2 million was the highest since 2022, and the sales average lot value of $2.9 million is more than double the $1.4 million average last May. Nevertheless, several works sold below their low estimates. Ultimately, Phillips did best at “selling works by living artists on the secondary market, unattainable on the primary market, said Brener Davich. Cue the frenzied bidding for Joseph Yaeger’s 2021 watercolor, There …

Sotheby’s Modern Evening Sale Totals 3.9 M. Led by Matisse

Sotheby’s Modern Evening Sale Totals $303.9 M. Led by Matisse

Published by Jenni Sidey

A few minutes into Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction on Tuesday night, the pauses between bids began telling their own story. Collectors still showed up for the museum-quality material, particularly blue-chip works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Alberto Giacometti, and Vincent van Gogh, but the atmosphere inside the Breuer building often felt cautious rather than euphoric, as buyers weighed estimates carefully and bidding wars appeared only intermittently. By the end of the evening, Sotheby’s had achieved a total of $303.9 million, with 98 percent of lots finding buyers. While the sale brought in 63 percent more than the equivalent sale last year—marked by the infamous Giacometti flop—the total came in below the presale high estimate of $320.2 million. Overall, the sale’s results reinforced a growing reality across the art market this season: demand remains strong for exceptional works, but conviction still comes with conditions. Related Articles As one New York advisor, who asked not to be named, texted me more than halfway through the sale, the evening was “solid financially, but also lacking in energy,” adding …

Hispanic Society and Sotheby’s Present Sorolla Exhibition in New York

Hispanic Society and Sotheby’s Present Sorolla Exhibition in New York

Published by José Betancourt

When Sotheby’s moved into the Breuer building last year, the auction house inherited more than just a famous slab of Marcel Breuer modernism on Madison Avenue. It also inherited the ghost of a museum. Now, Sotheby’s is leaning into that history in earnest, and with more than its usual blockbuster, star-studded evening sales.  The auction house announced this week that it will launch a new exhibition initiative called “In Residence.” The first of these will be presentation of three paintings by Spanish master Joaquín Sorolla from the collection of the Hispanic Society Museum & Library. The show, titled “In Residence: The Hispanic Society Sorollas,” opened Monday and runs through June 1 at the Breuer building.  Related Articles The collaboration marks the first partnership between Sotheby’s and the Hispanic Society and serves as the inaugural edition of a broader program that will invite museums to stage focused exhibitions inside the Breuer building, formerly home to the Whitney Museum and later an outpost of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, called the Met Breuer. (The Frick Collection took up a three-year residency, …

Sotheby’s 9.3 M. Contemporary Art Sale Led by .8 M. Rothko

Sotheby’s $389.3 M. Contemporary Art Sale Led by $85.8 M. Rothko

Published by José Betancourt

At its Madison Avenue headquarters, Sotheby’s kicked off the May auction season early, smack in the middle of the opening of art fairs all around Manhattan, with a solid if unexciting $433.1 million sale of modern and contemporary art, led by an $85.8 million canvas by Mark Rothko. Major auctions at Christie’s and Phillips will follow next week. The equivalent sale last year tallied just $186.1 million. “The sale was robust, and it felt authentic,” said New York adviser Laura Paulson as she exited the sale room partway through the evening.  Related Articles “It was a good sale,” said adviser Jacob King after unsuccessfully bidding on a Warhol. “Not particularly exciting, but good.” The sale opened with 11 works from the estate of legendary New York dealer Robert Mnuchin, who died last year at 92, and his wife Adriana. The group was estimated to sell for in excess of $130 million. The house guaranteed the seller an undisclosed price for the group of works, which included pieces by Rothko, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Pablo …