Sotheby's held a three-part marathon of contemporary art auctions in New York on Thursday evening, totaling $186.1 million with fees across 68 lots. The evening included white-glove sales for the collections of legendary dealer Barbara Gladstone and veteran dealer Daniella Luxembourg, with the Gladstone offering exceeding its presale estimate. Top lots included Richard Prince's "Man Crazy Nurse" (2002–03), which sold for $3.96 million, and Lucio Fontana's "Concetto spaziale, La fine di Dio" (1963), which achieved $14.5 million. The main contemporary evening sale took in $127 million, while the overall result fell short of last May's equivalent sale of $234.6 million.
The results reflect a broader market theme of 'a new reality' for the art market, where demand was present but rarely robust. Even a prime example of Richard Prince's 'Nurse' painting from Gladstone's collection sold for a fraction of its past $10 million-plus prices, signaling a significant market correction. The sale demonstrated that works of great quality, priced correctly, can still perform well, but the overall cooling of the ultra-contemporary art market and cautious bidding patterns suggest a continued contraction in the art market.