In the era of social media, commentary is everywhere – and in the art world, so too are self-styled “experts.”
Yet truly professional analysis – the kind relied on by major collectors and museums – often remains behind closed doors. Recognizing this gap, The Value has partnered with Art Intelligence Global (AIG), a leading international art advisory firm, to launch a quarterly editorial series exploring key trends and developments in the global art market.
In this inaugural edition, AIG’s Hong Kong-based Founder Yuki Terase and Associate Alexander Gardiner provide an in-depth analysis of New York’s marquee auctions this past November.
Editor's Note: If you are interested in learning more, please contact info@artintelligenceglobal.com.
AIG's Founder, Yuki Terase, and Associate Alexander Gardiner
Last week’s marquee auctions in New York delivered a stunning US$2.2 billion in sales, blowing past the pre-sale combined low estimate (US$1.68 billion) and becoming the highest total since November 2022.
That headline figure has helped restore confidence after two years of relative market malaise clouded by turbulent geopolitical events and an uncertain macroeconomic climate. Part of the shock is just how quickly the mood has changed in the art market, with Art Basel (Basel) widely considered a subdued affair just five months ago and a string of gallery closures since then weighing on appetite.
Yet, the fall season kicked off with Sotheby’s energetic sale of the Pauline Karpidas Collection, which preceded a stronger-than-expected Frieze week. Events in London offered momentum going into Art Basel Paris, where dealers brought choice artworks and prominent international collectors re-entered the fray with gusto, driving a buoyant atmosphere and a string of strong sales.
That renewed energy carried into the auctions last week, reinforced by the houses’ announcements of major collections replete with desirable, fresh-to-market property and compelling histories.
Further galvanizing interest from both the traditional collecting class and the broader New York public was Sotheby’s highly successful inauguration of the iconic Breuer building, which lent the proceedings a sense of novelty and historical weight – some queues and salon-hung day sale galleries were just kinks of a new space, and we expect to see improvement going forward.
Lower interest rates, a weaker US dollar, a general acclimatization to various international tariff regimes, and a marked improvement in the situation in the Middle East all contributed additional macro tailwinds and a renewed confidence among collectors.
Sotheby’s new Breuer saleroom during the Leonard A. Lauder, Collector Evening Sale
Even amid elevated expectations, the week’s remarkable outperformance dispelled any lingering nervousness about proceedings – and the level of risk assumed by Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips – leading up to the sales.
The consistently strong results for museum-quality blue-chip works underscored top-end buyers’ enduring firepower and the growing price delta between iconic masterpieces and the broader market.
Ultimately, against the stuttering performances of previous seasons, the depth of bidding for standout works by Gustav Klimt, Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo, Marc Chagall, Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse, and Alexander Calder, among others, reaffirmed the supply-side dynamics that govern the art market’s upper echelons: when masterworks appear for sale, buyers invariably turn out in force.
After a few years trading sideways, the top-end of the market is demonstrating directional leadership upwards and driving a broader uptick in sentiment.
Crucially, these works benefit from firmly established art historical and market credentials; coming out of a period of uncertainty, such masterpieces can confidently be viewed as stable, long-term stores of value for significant capital.
By comparison, the auctions’ weaker moments occurred around the less-proven (ultra-) contemporary segment. Two high-profile lots in Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Sale – Kerry James Marshall’s Untitled (2008) and Barkley Hendricks’s Arriving Soon (1973) – went unsold against the highest estimates assigned to each artist’s work to date.
Consignors of both lots had reportedly been offered irrevocable bids ahead of the sale; in hindsight, these cases suggest that at times, in the current market, the first offer may still be the best. In return for providing a floor, buyers offering a guarantee or irrevocable bid are increasingly expecting upside compensation and may not participate without.
While the top lots can somewhat be viewed to entertain a ‘masterpiece market’ of their own, the houses also demonstrated real discipline with consignors across price points, setting estimates that reflected the pricing realities of the last eighteen months.
This recalibration helped to drive high sell-through rates (the lowest of the evening sales being 94%) and restored a palpable sense of energy to the sale rooms, with multiple bidders chasing lots higher rather than the single-bid outcomes to guarantors that had become common in recent seasons.
Sensible estimates, a judicious use of guarantees, and fresh material instigated real, healthy competition.
The Chicago Residence of Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson
Beyond attractive pricing, the houses have clearly focused on strategies to maximize buyer engagement through compelling collection narratives and targeted marketing – efforts reflected in the prestigious collections that anchored the week’s evening sales.
Christie’s featured property from the Weis Family, Stefan Edlis and Gael Neeson, Elaine Wynn, the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, and Arnold and Joan Saltzman, while Sotheby’s brought the standout Leonard Lauder and Cindy Pritzker Collections, alongside the Surrealist grouping offered as Exquisite Corpus.
Each collection provided a cohesive, discursive framework that the houses amplified through bespoke installation views, custom catalogues, merchandise, and extensive social media exposure that emphasized the connoisseurship and passion behind their formation.
In doing so, the artworks were imbued with an added aura of historical validation and cultural heft that enhanced their appeal in the saleroom. Testament to the importance of major collection consignments, they contributed 63% (US$1.4 billion) of the week’s evening sale totals.
The residence of Cindy and Jay Pritzker
The dominant value share of collections over the course of the week meant that the houses had to provide significant ‘global’ guarantees in order to win property; only the Wynn Collection came to market without a pre-arranged minimum price, regardless of sale performance. As a result, the houses in many cases offset risk to third parties in order to limit their downside exposure.
Provision of guarantees also gave the houses greater control over estimates and reserve levels. This became particularly valuable for lots that attracted limited interest: aware of the risk of buying-in works onto their own books, specialists were able to manage the sales so that gains on outperforming lots offset losses incurred by substantially lowering reserves on others in order to secure a transaction.
In practice, this was evident in the sale of a Jean Arp sculpture from the Pritzker Collection (sold for US$469,900, 41% below the low estimate), among others. Strategic, adept sale management of this kind helped deliver confidence-boosting sell-through rates across the board.
“In an increasingly volatile socio-political economic environment, market participants need to stay attuned to psychological sentiment among clients, which must be understood as a driver of data, rather than as a response.”
– Amy Cappellazzo, Founding Partner of AIG
Alongside the weight of art that has just traded publicly, private-sale activity has also seen a notable uptick in recent months. Exhibitors were pleased that the momentum from auction week continued into the fair, with many recording a number of sales across the value spectrum, even if there were fewer collectors on the ground and lavish gallery events compared to previous years.
Although last week’s sterling results were driven in part by the exceptional caliber of material on offer, the divergence between seller and buyer expectations – a hurdle that has plagued dealmaking in recent times – appears to have narrowed.
As the market heads into a busy end-of-year period, this is an encouraging structural signal that supports the prospect of a longer-term market recovery heading into 2026.
Last week’s sales saw ten lots sell for over US$40 million. In addition to these headline works, a number of other lots revealed salient takeaways:
Agnes Martin | The Garden, 1964
Sotheby’s, Leonard A. Lauder, Collector
Estimate: US$10,000,000 - 15,000,000
Sold: US$17,630,000
As market strength for other art historical reassessments has cooled in recent years, results for twentieth-century female artists have held strong. Works by Agnes Martin, Georgia O’Keeffe, Joan Mitchell, and Ruth Asawa, together with Surrealists Leonora Carrington and Kay Sage, performed well throughout the week.
Martin’s hypnotic The Garden, a stellar, rare example from her most desirable period, achieved her third-highest price at auction. Three other canvases by the artist appeared over the course of the week, each landing above their high estimates.
Marc Chagall | Le songe du Roi David, 1966
Christie’s, 20th Century Evening Sale
Estimate: US$8,000,000 - 12,000,000
Sold: US$26,510,000
Narrowly missing out on the artist’s auction record, Marc Chagall’s luminous large-scale mural Le songe du Roi David inspired a spirited bidding war at Christie’s.
Having resided for over thirty-five years in the collection of the Kawamura Memorial DIC Museum of Art, this exceptional market opportunity underscored the power of the auction process for price discovery – the work ultimately achieved more than three times its presale low estimate.
John Singer Sargent | Capri, 1878
Christie’s, 20th Century Evening Sale
Estimate: US$4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold: US$11,445,000
In their 20th Century Evening Sale, Christie’s offered three works by John Singer Sargent, marking a rare entry into the marquee sales for the American Belle Époque painter.
Interest in Sargent’s work has been spurred by a flurry of recent museum shows at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Tate Britain, the National Portrait Gallery, London, and Musée d’Orsay, Paris. This institutional exposure has evidently helped the artist’s market: taken together, the trio achieved US$26.2 million, 118% over their combined low estimates. Capri was the standout, realizing US$11.4 million.
Cecily Brown | High Society, 1997-98
Sotheby’s, The Now & Contemporary Evening Sale
Estimate: US$4,000,000 - 6,000,000
Sold: US$9,810,000
This museum-quality Cecily Brown canvas set a new auction record for the artist by over US$3 million (previous US$6.8 million), more than doubling its low estimate at Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening sale.
Amidst volatility and caution in the wider contemporary segment (as evidenced by other high-profile passes in the same sale), Brown appears to have been anointed as a defining painter of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
At Christie’s, a triptych executed in 2022 passed on the same estimate. Of notably lower quality, the divergence between these two offerings suggests speculative money has been priced out of the top end of the market, and serious, connoisseur collectors are prepared to pay a premium for stellar examples of Brown’s work.
Christopher Wool | Untitled (RIOT), 1990
Christie’s, 21st Century Evening Sale
Estimate: US$15,000,000 - $20,000,000
Sold: US$19,840,000
Untitled (RIOT) became the most expensive painting by Christopher Wool to have been sold at auction since 2017, around the height of the artist’s market. An immediately comparable work – featuring the same wording and scale – set the artist’s auction record in May 2015.
Indicative of the drop-off in prices, this blue version sold for over US$10 million less than its sister painting. That being said, market watchers were encouraged that the painting garnered multiple bids over its third-party guarantee, suggesting that a steady revival in this beleaguered market may soon emerge.
Maurizio Cattelan | America, 2016
Sotheby’s, The Now & Contemporary Evening Sale
Estimate upon request
Sold: US$12,110,000
Sotheby’s sale of America, an 18-karat solid gold toilet by provocateur-in-chief, Maurizio Cattelan, sought to harness the momentum generated by the sale of the Comedian banana in November 2024. In this instance, enthusiasm was muted and the sculpture sold to ‘bizarre attraction’ company Ripley’s Believe It or Not! on a single bid.
However, Sotheby’s heavy marketing of the work reveals a strategy aimed at virality – although few members of the public will bid on an evening sale work, the house is evidently trying to freshen the auction format and draw new bidders through quirky, eye-catching highlights, including dinosaurs, that appeal to social media. Perhaps America’s sale to an entertainment brand is evidence of the social media strategy’s success.