Closing out a week-long marathon of evening marquee sales, Sotheby’s capped its final major May auction with a combined total of $186.1 million across three sales. After Tuesday’s disappointment, when the star Giacometti went unsold, the tone shifted notably. The night opened with strength: a tightly edited selection of twelve works from the personal art collection of legendary dealer Barbara Gladstone, defined as much by quality as by a distinctly dark aesthetic. The white-glove segment brought in $18.8 million, surpassing its presale estimate of $11.9-17.2 million.
The first lot—a tender, intimately scaled portrait by Elizabeth Peyton—quickly sold for $700,000 ($889,000 with fees), landing comfortably within its $600,000-800,000 estimate. A Thomas Schütte sculpture followed, attracting four bidders before settling at $550,000 ($698,000 with fees). On Kawara’s Aug. 8, 1975 came next, selling for $635,000. Interest grew more subdued with Rudolf Stingel’s introspective psychological self-portrait, which hammered at $1.4 million ($1.8 million with fees).
Then came Richard Prince’s iconic Man Crazy Nurse from his first show with Gladstone. Opening at $3 million, it sold almost immediately for $3.9 million—likely to a guarantor—falling just short of its $4 million low estimate and far from the $10 million works from the series commanded a decade ago. In contrast, Prince’s more conceptual, text-based work, Are You Kidding (1988), climbed swiftly to $2.6 million. Although auctioneer Oliver Barker initially rejected $50,000 increments, he eventually relented in the face of a stall, and the lot inched forward to a final hammer of $2.85 million ($3.5 million with fees).
Seven drawings by Raymond Pettibon opened at $40,000 and surged to $241,300, chased by at least five phone bidders. Next came the rare Black Flower, which began with “little interest” at $600,000—despite an absentee bid already placed at $1 million—with phone specialists audibly urging the action forward. Chased by four bidders, the rare black version ultimately achieved $3.8 million with fees.
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Closing the sale was a large, colorful embroidery by Alighiero Boetti, which opened with a conservative $200,000 bid and eventually hammered at $550,000 ($698,500 with fees), despite recent international momentum surrounding the Italian artist.
Daniella Luxembourg’s collection pointed to revived interest in Italian postwar works
“We have to start,” said a slightly impatient Oliver Barker, pushing into the next session, which featured works from the top-tier collection of visionary dealer Daniella Luxembourg. The selection captured a moment of essential rapture in the history of 21st-century art, in dialogue with evolving concepts of form, matter and space, and the sale closed white glove at $40.4 million, meeting its presale expectations and signaling a revived appetite for Italian postwar. Sixty percent of lots sold above their high estimates and, wrapping the session, Barker remarked, “What a lucky night,” thanking the dealer’s daughter for her collaboration.
The aforementioned appetite was evident from the first lot, as Lucio Fontana’s Concetto Spaziale climbed from a $40,000 opening to fetch $440,000, setting a new auction record for a sculptural work by the artist. Immediately after, the first of two Alexander Calders in the collection—The Beetle (1969), once lyrically suspended in the dealer’s living room—opened at $2.2 million, surged past its high estimate to sell for $4.2 million ($5.1 million with fees) to a lone phone bidder, five times its last auction result. Momentum carried into a later lot with the rare black Calder, Armada, made just after the war when he returned to metal sheets. It hammered at $5.4 million ($6.5 million with fees), despite a bidder attempting to enter after the hammer had already fallen.
Lively bidding followed for Michelangelo Pistoletto’s early mirror painting Maria Nuda (1969), depicting the Arte Povera master’s wife. Chased by eight bidders, it hammered at $2.75 million ($3.4 million with fees) to a phone bidder with Claudia Deck, after a tense sequence of $50,000 increments. A quintessential Arte Povera piece, Pino Pascali’s seminal work also surged, with recognition recently revived by a major survey at Fondazione Prada and a group show at Bourse de Commerce-Pinault Collection. It hammered at $13 million ($14.485 million with fees).
Later in the sale, Fontana’s luminous gold Fine di Dio opened at $11 million and landed within its $12-18 million estimate, selling for $14.4 million with fees after several tense minutes of Barker coaxing a muted room and likely going to its guarantor. A later Teatrini work by Fontana saw little action and sold for $500,000. Held in Luxembourg’s collection for 25 years, another yellow canvas by the artist sold for $1.3 million, while a drawing achieved $400,000.
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Luciano Fabro’s iconic Italy silhouette was pursued by at least four bidders and beat its high estimate, selling for $1,079,500 with fees. Strong interest also met the museum-quality Soft Switchers by Claes Oldenburg, which sold in the room for $1.55 million, setting a new record for the artist’s Light Switch series. Next, Alberto Burri’s monumental black Cretto from 1966—comparable only to examples now in institutions like Centre Pompidou—attracted steady bidding and hammered at $2.6 million ($3.1 million with fees), landing squarely within its $2.5 million low estimate. Closing the curated offering, Joseph Kosuth’s neon hammered on the phone for $190,000 with fees, surpassing its $150,000 high estimate.
The night continued with the main sale, Sotheby’s The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, which began with strong interest in Danielle Mckinney’s emotional Stand Still, which was chased by multiple phone bidders and hammered at $220,000 ($279,400 with premium), setting the second-highest price ever for the artist. Fierce bidding also propelled Mohammed Sami’s work to $571,500, well above its high estimate but still shy of his record of $952,500.
A rare appearance at auction, Michael Armitage’s 2014 painting Mpeketoni sold on the phone for $2,368,000 after a drawn-out battle between two bidders, the final increment coaxed out by Barker. The new record coincides with Armitage’s debut show at David Zwirner, which recently announced the gallery’s representation of the artist.
Timed with his career survey now on view at the Guggenheim, Rashid Johnson’s mosaic Two Standing Broken Men quickly exceeded its $1.2 million high estimate, selling for $1.4 million ($1,758,000 with premium). Later in the sale, a work by Jack Whitten—whose major institutional show is currently at MoMA—achieved $1.1 million, also above its estimate.
From a $5 million opening, Ed Ruscha’s text-based sky painting That Was Then, This Is Now hammered at $7 million ($7,795,000 with premium). It was followed by a Laura Owens, fresh off a critically acclaimed show at Matthew Marks in New York, which sold with thin bidding for $952,500 to a woman in the room.
Momentum picked back up with Adrian Ghenie’s Alpine Retreat, which sold to a phone bidder in Hong Kong for $2.55 million ($3.2 million with premium). A new record was also set for a sentimental work by fast-rising Japanese painter Yu Nishimura, which soared to $406,400—doubling his previous high of $296,100.
The evening’s top lot was a five-foot Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, held in the same private collection since 1999, which sold for $13.7 million ($16,365,000 with fees). The vibrant work was pursued by four phone bidders in a prolonged six-minute battle that ended in applause, marking the artist’s second-highest result.
Strong results also came from a selection of works from Roy Lichtenstein’s collection, beginning with Nude in the Mirror, which sold for $2 million, and Woman. Sunlight. Moonlight., a sculpture that climbed from its $3 million opening to $4.9 million. Lichtenstein’s Stretcher Frame with Cross Bars III achieved $4.9 million with fees, well above its $3.5 million high estimate. Altogether, the nine Lichtenstein lots brought in $29 million, exceeding the $25 million high estimate.
As the marathon continued, fatigue set in with the lengthy list of Lichtenstein lots, and the pace slowed noticeably through the final twenty lots. Still, most sold within expectations. Notable exceptions included Tom Wesselmann’s iconic smoking-shaped canvas, which achieved $1.7 million, and François-Xavier Lalanne’s coveted sheep set, originally commissioned by Gunter Sachs, which sold for $2.3 million. The evening session concluded at $127.1 million, within its $101.4-146.6 million presale estimate, with 93 percent sold by lot.
Overall, Sotheby’s performance last night (May 16) reflected renewed energy in the contemporary and ultra-contemporary segments—and perhaps more importantly, robust activity in the sub-seven-figure range. That said, guarantees and irrevocable bids continue to play a decisive role, even in this more dynamic end of the market.
