Big Names Back Sotheby’s $186.1m Evening Sale Hitting Near Top of Estimate

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There was plenty of action in the room on Thursday evening as Sotheby’s spring New York sales took place, with all lots from the collections of dealers Barbara Gladstone and Daniella Luxembourg finding a home and the majority selling above expectations.

Solid bidding saw the three sales gross at the high end of estimates with $186.1 million (all figures USD and with fees). The main event, Sotheby’s Now and Contemporary sale, yielded $127 million across 41 works offered, with 93 percent of lots sold. 

Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled painting from 1981 led the sale, closing toward its high estimate at $16.4 million after a steady back and forth between four buyers.

Nine works from the collection of Dorothy and Roy Lichtenstein further brought in a combined $29 million, accounting for around a quarter of the main sale’s proceeds.

Top lots included Lichtenstein’s Bonsai Tree (1993), which sold to a phone bidder for double its estimate at $4.2 million, and applause was heard as the painting Stretcher Frame with Cross Bars II (1968) yielded $4.9 million (estimate: $2.5–$3.5 million). 

Meanwhile, bidders grappled for two Warhol Flowers from 1964, which tripled their estimates (both: $1–$1.5 million). A black Flower from the Gladstone collection sold for $3.8 million to a phone bidder; five paddles vied for a $4 million coloured Flowers painting at the main sale.

Also from the Gladstone collection, Richard Prince’s portrait Man Crazy Nurse (2003) and Joke (1988) painting came first and third in terms of price achieved ($3.9 and $3.5 million, respectively). The 12 lots from the New York dealer’s homes brought in $18.5 million, with most works selling above estimate.

New highs were reached for American painter Carroll Dunham, whose landscape Bathers Seventeen (Black Hole) (2011–2012) tripled its estimate at $762,500, alongside Michael Armitage, Claes Oldenburg, and Ernst Yohji Jäger.

Coveted lots further included Nobel Prize nominee and Arte Povera artist Michaelangelo Pistoletto’s painting Maria nuda (1969), which sold for double its estimate at $3.4 million and five times the price it went for last time it was up for auction in 2004.

Rashid Johnson’s painting Two Standing Broken Men (estimate: $800,000–$1.2 million) also outperformed, selling for $1.8 million.

The remaining seven-figure lots—including works by Frank Stella, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Sigmar Polke, and more—mostly found buyers at the lower end of their range.

And despite a careful market, rising artists Danielle Mckinney and Yu Nishimura kept their momentum, outperforming at sales throughout the week.

Six paddles rose to wrestle for Nishimura’s portrait across the palace (2023), which soared to over six times its estimate before selling to a phone bidder for $406,400. Mckinney’s portrait Stand Still (2023) likewise hammered at five times its estimate for $279,000. —[O]

Main image: Sotheby's Now and Contemporary Evening Sale, New York (15 May 2025). Courtesy Sotheby's.