New York Auctions Put Blue-Chip Art Back at the Center — and Expose a Younger Market in Retreat
The spring auction season in New York offered a sharp portrait of where confidence still lives in the art market. Christie’s and Sotheby’s brought out a concentrated group of Modern and classic contemporary works with strong provenance, while works by younger artists appeared in strikingly limited supply.
Christie’s $450 million consignment from the estate of the late media magnate S.I. Newhouse set the tone. Two works from that group crossed into record territory: Jackson Pollock’s 1948 drip painting Number 7A sold for $181 million, and Constantin Brâncuși’s sculpture Danaïde, made around 1913, brought $108 million. Both totals include fees, and both established new auction records for the artists.
Sotheby’s added another major result when Mark Rothko’s 1957 canvas Brown and Blacks in Reds, from the estate of the late New York dealer Robert Mnuchin, sold for $85.7 million. Across the season, at least 20 lots by heavyweight 20th-century names — including Picasso, Mondrian, Twombly, De Kooning, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Basquiat, and Richter — carried estimates of $30 million or more.
The more revealing story, however, was what the evening sales did not contain. Sotheby’s 45-lot The Now & Contemporary auction included only two works by artists under 40. Christie’s comparable sale had just one. Phillips, once a favored venue for speculative resales of fashionable younger artists, also showed little depth in that segment. Its lone under-40 lot was Anna Weyant’s 2019 painting Dinner, which sold for $980,400.
That imbalance reflects a market that has become more selective and, in some areas, more cautious. London-based adviser Matthew Stephenson said cutting-edge works tend to suffer in a volatile economy and noted that auction houses are finding less material to sell. He also pointed to a market that has swung back toward blue-chip Modern and classic contemporary art, where the best examples still command intense competition.
The data support that reading. ArtTactic’s latest Contemporary Art Market Confidence Report for the US and Europe put confidence in the secondary market at 60 points out of 100, compared with 45 for the primary contemporary market and just 15 for general economic confidence. The firm said the gap reflects both the widening divide between asset-rich collectors and wage earners and the rise in auction resales of works made between 1950 and 2000, as demand for new gallery works softens.
Collector Alain Servais described the speculative froth as largely gone, except in a few pockets. Yet the primary market is not without life. Josh Lilley gallery, for example, sold 12 new paintings by Nick Goss in April at prices between £55,000 and £65,000, suggesting that disciplined pricing can still find buyers.
For now, the market looks increasingly split: auction houses are thriving on trophy works with deep histories, while galleries are being forced to prove value one sale at a time.
