The art market, that erratic and often irrational beast, has apparently decided to sober up. Sotheby’s marathon May marquee sales in New York—combining the collection of the legendary dealer Robert Mnuchin and the house’s “The Now & Contemporary” evening auction—yielded a sturdy, choreographed $433.1 million. For those keeping track, that is a healthy rebound from the recent post-pandemic dip, reflecting a 133 percent jump from last May’s contemporary sales. The feverish speculation of recent years seems to have burned off; in its place, we find a rehearsed, highly guaranteed, and fundamentally confident stability.
Here are the highlights from a night where pragmatic calculation met undeniable masterpieces:
The Mnuchin Collection’s Blue-Chip Triumph
The undeniable centerpiece of the Mnuchin white-glove (which is to say, entirely sold-out) offering was Mark Rothko’s monumental 1957 canvas, Brown and Blacks in Reds. Hammering at $85.8 million with fees, it fell shy of its ambitious $100 million estimate and didn’t touch the artist’s 2012 record. Yet, one can hardly scoff at nearly ninety million dollars for a painting Mnuchin acquired in 2003 for a mere $6.7 million. It remains an extraordinary, brooding masterwork from a pivotal year, radiating a tragic, luminous heat that money can buy but never truly contain.
Elsewhere in the Mnuchin trove, Willem de Kooning’s Untitled XLII (1983) sailed to $12.4 million, its sweeping ribbons of pink, violet, and blue finding eager Asian buyers and confirming a robust, enduring appetite for late-period de Kooning.
Basquiat at the Apex
The contemporary leg of the evening moved to a more electric beat, crowned by . It is a canvas from the absolute apex of the young artist’s violently brilliant, terribly brief trajectory. Bolstered by irrevocable bids—the safety nets of the modern auction house—it sold for $52.7 million. Basquiat’s market continues to defy gravity, functioning less as a fleeting trend and more as an established, iron-clad asset class.
Pop and Post-War Durability
Among the mid-century stalwarts, Helen Frankenthaler’s resplendent 1964 stain painting, Cape Orange, commanded a well-deserved $7.3 million, the second-highest price ever achieved for the artist. Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale, Il cielo di Venezia, set a new series record at $16.4 million. And Andy Warhol, ever the reliable currency, proved his durability when his 1974 portrait of Brigitte Bardot—commissioned by her then-husband Gunter Sachs—sparked a bidding war that ended at a record-breaking $24.8 million.
The Ultra-Contemporary Youth Quake
Sotheby’s “The Now” segment proved that the ultra-contemporary market, while undergoing a necessary correction, is far from dead. Bidders chased fresh paint with renewed fervor. Ding Shilun shattered his record at $358,400 with Three Princess, and the meditative, quietly powerful canvases of Yu Nishimura reached nearly a million dollars. Joseph Yaeger and Florian Krewer also set new auction records. These prices for emerging artists often feel slightly untethered from reality, but the demand remains insatiable.
The Verdict
What to make of it all? The wild, unscripted bidding wars of the past have largely been replaced by a tightly managed ballet of third-party guarantees and irrevocable bids. The Asian market is visibly back in the room, snapping up everything from Rothko to emerging stars. The reckless frenzy has cooled into a pragmatic march, but if these numbers are any indication, the appetite for great art remains as voracious as ever.