Welcome back to Wall Power, Inner Circle edition. I’m Marion
Maneker.
I’ve downloaded all of the lots that will be on offer at Sotheby’s, Phillips, and Christie’s beginning next Thursday so I can examine the trends in the market. The good news is that the total presale estimate is up 11 percent from November and up 61 percent from a year ago. The better news is that high-value lots (estimated at $20 million or above) are back—big time—and that’s having a huge impact.
Up top, I visit Venice vicariously. Also, my partner
Lauren Sherman grades the art history references from the billionaire pajama party also known as the Met Gala.
Also mentioned in this issue: Pablo Picasso, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Constantin Brancusi, Roy Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter, Marian Goodman, Willem de Kooning, Lauren Sánchez
Bezos, and many more…
First, let’s check in on Venice… |
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Venice or bust: Among the endless art-world calculations is where to put your time and energy. Events that look exciting and appealing from afar, like the Venice Biennale, can prove tedious up close. The biennale’s opening has the added pressure of numerous ancillary and promotional events vying for attention. Many smart collectors I know combine a trip to Venice later in the summer or fall with another European obligation, a strategy I might soon try. Anyway, for now I skipped
the biennale and am stuck trying to assess the event through social media and the press.
So far, most of the coverage has focused on the political controversies. The Russians are back, the Iranians didn’t show up, and the jury resigned rather than judge artists from countries—including Israel—whose leaders are under investigation by the International Criminal Court. That gesture seems somewhat beside the point when the main exhibition set out to “refuse orchestral bombast and goose-step
military marches and come alive in the quiet tones, the lower frequencies.” Judging artists against one another also seems less than relevant.
By the time this issue has arrived in your inbox, the first reviews of In Minor Keys, the late Koyo Kouoh’s curatorial project, should be out. I’ve seen a number of posts featuring the Michael Armitage
show at François Pinault’s Palazzo Grassi, Jenny Saville’s show, Matthew Wong’s
Interiors, and a naked Florentina Holzinger becoming a human bell clapper before jet-skiing in a flooded Austrian pavilion for her Seaworld Venice show. Also, an intriguing Picasso,
Morandi, and Parmiggiani show that I hadn’t heard of outside of one Instagram post, and the Arthur Jafa/Richard Prince mashup that the Fondazione Prada is putting on. For those of you who made the trek, let me know if I missed anything.
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Now, my colleague Lauren Sherman on the Met Gala art history assignment… |
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| Lauren Sherman
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- Met Gala
aftermath: Forget about the hundreds of evocative water bottles that protestors snuck around the Costume Institute to protest Jeff Bezos’s patronage, or that Lauren Sánchez Bezos referred to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as “the gallery,” or that Blake Lively showed up in
the most atrocious gown ever made just hours after settling with Justin Baldoni. (I don’t want to even tell you the brand because, honestly, she deserves all the blame.) Anna Wintour & Co. raised $42 million this year; I guess that’s why you charge certain people $1 million a ticket?
Saint Laurent’s
co-sponsorship certainly paid off, with everyone from Madonna and Hailey Bieber to Connor Storrie and Zoë Kravitz dressed in some of the best-looking, most thoughtful interpretations of the nebulous “Fashion Is Art” theme. Nicole Kidman in Chanel and her daughter Sunday Rose in Dior showed how two megabrands can coexist. Also: Congrats to Thom Browne, who pulled Chase
Infiniti from Louis Vuitton contract hell. Rebecca Hall in Tom Ford was yet another win for the Zegna Group.
In terms of nailing the theme, I loved Anna Weyant in Marc Jacobs—the artist wearing the art. Hunter Schafer in Prada’s rendition of a Klimt painting was also pretty remarkable. Anyone who dresses Rihanna wins, and so Maison Margiela and Glenn Martens came out on top last
night. (I loved her partner, A$AP Rocky, in pink Chanel.) Kudos to eBay for commissioning ex-Marni designer Francesco Risso to create Paloma Elsesser’s dress from close to 30 other dresses. (I’ve never been a fan of Risso—it’s all too senior thesis for me—but this was magical. The stylist was Line Sheet star Carlos Nazario.) I also loved Chloe Malle’s Colleen Allen dress, inspired by Frederic
Leighton’s painting Flaming June. Anyone wearing Robert Wun—but especially Jordan Roth—was triumphant.
As for the tech takeover, it may have been overblown, or the execs just sat back knowing they may be pilloried. (Bezos skipped the red carpet; Sam Altman, whose OpenAI had a table, did not attend.) Sánchez Bezos, wearing a demure, pretty, and relatively uninventive Schiaparelli gown, was certainly the
evening’s star.
Lauren Santo Domingo, who skipped the gala for whatever reason, was probably the night’s biggest winner. Everyone is talking about her. Ian from Page Six crowned her the “Tom Brady of Fashion,” whatever that means. If she wants to succeed Wintour as the chair of the gala, she is
in prime position. I am sure she could convince the board that she would be able to make it way less tacky and just as financially successful. Well played.
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Despite the fraught and unpleasant geopolitical climate, the May sales
are extremely top-heavy—with 22 lots estimated at $20 million-plus, nearly triple the May 2025 inventory. So, yes, the world is on fire, and the art market is really heating up, too. |
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As the property-gathering season proceeded over the past few months, one could’ve easily imagined
sellers going into hibernation. Why take the risk of consigning when each week seemed to bring a new destabilizing event, including the Minneapolis standoff with ICE, tariff gridlock, an unexpected war, and market sell-offs? Yet the property nevertheless came in—mostly from estates that presumably have to address tax obligations. But there have also been some very important discretionary sales, including the $462 million consignment from the Newhouse family that I
wrote about yesterday. Suddenly, the very top of the art market is back in a very big way.
All of it has amounted to more high-value lots than we’ve seen in the past few seasons. This May, 22 lots are being offered with estimates at $20 million or above. There were only 12 lots in that upper echelon last November—which actually
represented a solid improvement from the previous May, when only eight lots were estimated at $20 million or above. |
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Put another way: In May 2025, those eight lots accounted for $285 million of the $1.15 billion
presale estimate, or 25 percent of the value on offer. During the November season, the dozen top lots represented $625 million in value, or 37 percent of the $1.67 billion presale estimate. This season, the 22 lots in the highest estimate range make up 49 percent of the $1.86 billion on offer—$905 million in presale value, or a nearly 45 percent jump in the value of lots being offered at $20 million or above. |
This year’s presale list of the top lots by value has Pablo Picasso just
slightly above Mark Rothko, with both artists around $180 million in total presale value. Jackson Pollock comes in third, with almost $110 million in value. Andy Warhol is slightly behind, at nearly $108 million. Constantin Brancusi has $100 million, almost all of it from a single lot. Roy Lichtenstein and Gerhard Richter are further back, both at around $70 million.
Willem de Kooning and Henri Matisse come next, with $58 million and $57 million, respectively. And Jean-Michel Basquiat rounds out the top of the list, with $50 million in presale value.
Of the 18 Lichtenstein lots, six are estimated at $1.8 million or above, one is pegged at $10 million, and Anxious Girl, at Christie’s, is estimated at $40 million. These are the kinds of lots
that are driving this season. Eight works by Gerhard Richter come from Marian Goodman’s collection, including one estimated at $35 million and another at $14 million. Nearly half of the 13 de Kooning works are priced above $3 million, with two at $9 million and one at $25 million. Finally, Matisse makes it back into the top 10, with 18 lots bolstered by one estimated at $20 million and another at $30 million.
A year ago, the top 10 list was fairly similar—though
Alberto Giacometti, René Magritte, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, and Alexander Calder were represented in place of Pollock, Brancusi, Richter, de Kooning, and Matisse. |
Picasso also tops the list of artists ranked by the number of works on offer. Next comes Warhol,
George Condo, Keith Haring, Marc Chagall, Henry Moore, Richter, Lichtenstein, Matisse, and Joan Miró. Three of the 49 Picassos in the sales are priced at the $35 million–$40 million level. There are 37 lots by Warhol, including two priced at $20 million–$25 million and two at $14 million–$15 million. Only one of the 31 lots by George Condo is estimated in the
seven figures, at $2 million. Of the 26 Keith Haring works, three are estimated above $1.5 million, with one at $4 million and another at $3 million. Twenty works by Marc Chagall are in the sales. Two are priced above six figures, one at $1.5 million and the other at $2 million. |
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Last May, Joan Mitchell, Richard Prince,
Alexander Calder, and Ed Ruscha were on that list. And even if they didn’t make the top 10 this season, they still have a substantial number of lots on offer. There are eight works by Mitchell in these sales, including three with estimates above $4 million and one estimated at $10 million. Prince has 11 works on offer, including two nurse paintings, his most-valued series of works. Phillips has a smaller one estimated at $2 million, and
Christie’s has one from the collection of Marian Goodman, who got it directly from the artist. The latter is estimated at $4 million.
Thirteen Calders are in the sales, three of them estimated above $2.5 million. There are also 14 works by Ed Ruscha, with two priced in the seven figures, at $3.5 million and $4 million. |
One of the defining features of this season has been Christie’s aggressiveness in winning
collections: They pretty much swept the board, with 58 percent of the total presale value, or $1.08 billion. Sotheby’s assembled art with a total presale estimate of two-thirds of a billion dollars, or $665 million. In market share terms, Sotheby’s has 36 percent before anyone gets in the room, sees what sells, and adds on the buyer’s premium. Phillips has just under 6 percent, with a total presale estimate of $108 million.
I should hasten to add that presale estimates do not determine what will actually transpire over the next few weeks. As you know, winning market share is not the same as driving revenue and making a profit. Christie’s is obviously betting heavily on a market upswing that will drive the results higher than the 11 percent increase in presale value. Although the broader mood of the financial markets is surprisingly less stressed than one might have feared given the geopolitical situation, there’s still no telling how the next few weeks will play out,
which will make it all very interesting to watch. |
That’s all for today. See you again on Friday. There are a lot of shows opening in New York this
week. I’m hoping to cover some of them for you.
M |
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Ace media reporter Dylan Byers brings readers into the C-suite as he chronicles the biggest stories in the industry:
the future of cable news in the streaming era, the transformation of legacy publishers, the tech giants remaking the market, and all the egos involved. |
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