This spring’s auctions come at a pivotal moment in the art market, and they pose a crucial question: Can we regain our mojo? A couple of different factors—including an early Memorial Day weekend and, possibly, the size of the Breuer Building—also seem to have conspired to create the slightly odd auction calendar this month. Sotheby’s will hold its contemporary art sales this Thursday and Friday instead of alternating days with Christie’s, as is customary. The remainder of the season’s lots at Sotheby’s, and all of the lots at Christie’s and Phillips, will be sold next week.

As a result, whatever happens this week will be dissected, discussed, and debated all weekend before the sales begin again on Monday. Whether the bidding is hot and heavy or cautious and spare, clients will receive calls, consignors will consider adjusting reserves or accepting third-party guarantees, and buyers will recalibrate their strategies with their advisors.

Some art advisors have speculated to me that Sotheby’s had scheduled its sales earlier in hopes of preempting the freight train of property on offer at Christie’s. As I have previously pointed out, the combined presale estimate at Christie’s is $1.08 billion versus $665 million at Sotheby’s—the latter house will put 60 percent of that value on offer in the next few days, with the remainder going on the block next week.

Even though that timing was clearly intentional, it probably could not have worked out better for Christie’s. Sotheby’s will get the market to focus on the Robert Mnuchin lots and a number of very appealing discretionary sales while bidders contemplate their considerable remaining dry powder for the days afterward. If the first sales reveal animal spirits in the art market, Christie’s will benefit from bidders being forced to upgrade their expectations. But even if Sotheby’s sales unexpectedly disappoint, Christie’s will have the advantage of several days’ worth of breathing room to work the phones in response.

The least talked-about but possibly most important lot at Sotheby’s tomorrow night will be the Jean-Michel Basquiat painting Museum Security (Broadway Meltdown), estimated at $45 million and being sold by John Sayegh-Belchatowski, a French art trader. The Basquiat market has been on fire lately: Private sales are finally living up to the hype that began a decade ago, when Yusaku Maezawa started buying at the very top of the Basquiat market. In this case, it’s a good sign that Sotheby’s doesn’t have the symbol for an irrevocable bid on the site.

Greed is healthy, as Ivan Boesky once said, and that’s at least true of the art market. Sayegh-Belchatowski is a very experienced art trader, and if he had taken an I.B. out of caution, it would be a sign of market weakness. Instead, he’s letting it all ride on a painting he bought for $14.5 million more than a dozen years ago. Another Basquiat painting he bought for even more than that, in 2018, was sold to fractionalizer Masterworks in 2023, grossing Sayegh-Belchatowski less than $10 million over five years. But one advisor deep in the Basquiat market told me that he expected Museum Security to sell for $60 million—if that happens, Sayegh-Belchatowski will have made a profit four times his original investment over 13 years. That would give us the best possible measure of the strength of the Basquiat market.

Another benchmark work to watch in Sotheby’s various-owners evening sale is Willem de Kooning’s Untitled III, from 1975, which has never been to auction before. It is estimated at $25 million and backed by an irrevocable bid. Abstracts from the late 1970s are some of de Kooning’s most sought-after works—Untitled XXV, from 1977, more than doubled in value in the decade between 2006 and 2016, from $27 million to $66 million. But the de Kooning market has been slow since 2022, when $194 million worth of the artist’s work was auctioned—last year, the artist’s auction volume had fallen by more than 90 percent from that peak. Thursday night will be a big market moment for de Kooning, the artist that Mnuchin called “chairman of the board,” with three of his works estimated at more than $3 million in the Mnuchin sale, and another three estimated above that mark in subsequent sales around town.

Andy Warhol’s stunning Brigitte Bardot is estimated at $14 million and being sold by the heirs of Gunter Sachs, who commissioned the work. This one lacks an irrevocable bid, which is a good sign. The painting looks stunning and should sell for a price above the estimate. A number of other works covered by I.B.s look no less appealing. The de Gunzburgs’ purple Rothko and their Lucio Fontana painting seem ripe for bidding even with their estimates of $10 million, a price point that was previously a danger zone in this market. The sleeper of the sale might be the Roy Lichtenstein painting Half Face with Collar, from 1963, which looks like a steal at $10 million compared to the $40 million for the admittedly sexier Anxious Girl across town.

Also, pay attention to Alma Thomas’s Pinks of Cherry Blossoms. That one’s estimated at $2.5 million, and it comes to market after a similar Thomas sold for a solid $3.8 million at Sotheby’s in February. And though we may not see a new record for Helen Frankenthaler—her top price is nearly $8 million, but her best works sell for more privately—the flaming red-and-orange Cape Orange, estimated at $3.5 million and backed by an I.B., seems poised to inject a ton of confidence into buyers with many other options next week.

One more thing worth noting at Sotheby’s: The day sale lots have a relatively new early bidding feature. I would not put too much stock in this as a barometer of final performance, but there is already some very interesting activity there. Works by Andy Warhol, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Francis, and Lee Krasner have all seen early movement. Two hand-drawn studies for Lichtenstein paintings, including the Half Face with Collar discussed above, already seem to have placeholder bids. Works by Gerhard Richter and Romare Bearden appear to have been bid up to the low estimates already, with the next suggested bid well within the estimate range. And one work that showed exceptionally well at the previews was Antonio López García’s trompe l’oeil painting of a bathroom, from the Adele and Enrico Donati collection, which also seems to have bids to the low estimate.

Does this portend a freewheeling season of reckless bidding? I don’t really know. But it does make me want to pay close attention.

That’s it for today. If you see me during the sales or fairs—or at the Puck Airstream—please say hello. I really appreciate your feedback, and don’t be afraid to tell me what I got wrong. I promise you cannot offend me.

M