Jean-Michel Basquiat's 1981 painting *Crowns (Peso Neto)* will headline Sotheby's Contemporary Evening Sale this November, carrying an estimate of $35–45 million—the highest ever for a Basquiat work from that year. The painting, never before offered at auction, debuted at Annina Nosei Gallery in 1982 and was later shown at documenta 7. It will be publicly exhibited in London, Paris, and New York before the sale, which coincides with the opening of Sotheby's new global headquarters in the former Whitney Museum's Breuer Building.
The sale matters because it places a landmark early Basquiat at the center of a historic moment: the auction house's move into the Breuer Building, where the Whitney organized the artist's first retrospective in 1992. The work's high estimate and its journey from street to studio to institutional recognition underscore Basquiat's enduring market power and the continued demand for pivotal works from his breakthrough year.