The May 2026 New York auctions at Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips will feature 20 high-value lots priced at $30 million or more, including works by Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Pablo Picasso, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, and others. The sales are staggered around the Venice Biennale and Frieze New York, with Sotheby’s holding its contemporary evening auction on May 14 and Christie’s its 20th-century sale on May 18. Notable consignments come from the estates of S.I. Newhouse, former MoMA board president Agnes Gund, and dealer Marian Goodman.
This season’s auctions serve as a key test of the high-end art market’s strength after mixed results in 2025: the May sales underperformed with a cumulative hammer total of $837.5 million, while November rebounded to $2.2 billion with fees. The concentration of blue-chip male artists and stellar provenance highlights the market’s reliance on trophy works from established estates. The outcome will signal whether collector confidence and spending power have recovered, especially as the sales compete with major art events like the Venice Biennale and Frieze New York.