This autumn is shaping up to be a big auction season, with a number of high-value collections hitting the block. Christie’s unveiled the Weis collection over the weekend, and more are set to follow, with early intel suggesting a season with more $10 million-and-above historical works than we have seen in recent years. Another harbinger for the health of the market has been the recent string of successes for an artist at a price point far below the trophy market: Roy Lichtenstein.

Since last November, Sotheby’s has moved 68 works from the Lichtenstein estate across three sales cycles totaling almost $90 million. All of the Lichtenstein estate material found buyers, the majority at prices above the estimates, demonstrating an abundant appetite for the artist’s works. And while no one but the estate—and, possibly, the auction houses—truly knows how much more art the family holds, the heirs seem to be selling strategically to avoid depressing the market.

On September 26, Sotheby’s New York will hold a single-owner midseason sale of works from the Lichtenstein estate, with a presale estimate of $14.5 million, and then sell a few additional lots in Hong Kong on September 28. Altogether, these will amount to an additional 96 lots from the family put on the market. If this sale continues the pattern of strong results, it will reinforce a clear message: Demand for Lichtenstein is deep and steady, and should be anchoring confidence in the broader market.

The timing could not be better. In part to commemorate a large gift of 400 works of studio material, made in 2018, that established the Roy Lichtenstein Study Collection, the Whitney is holding a retrospective of the pop artist’s work and career next year. Such shows don’t always drive artists’ markets, but when the material comes straight from the studio or the artist’s own holdings, collectors sit up and pay attention—especially in this single-owner sale, in which many of the lots are estimated at prices under $50,000.

And Sotheby’s hopes these lower estimates can entice younger buyers who might want something with real historical heft as well as contemporary cool. Pop art has been enjoying a slow-moving revival over the last decade, which gives Lichtenstein an appeal that’s both nostalgic and trendy. According to Sotheby’s, the number of under-30 buyers in the contemporary art sales has doubled in the first half of 2025 after exponential growth from 2019 to 2024. Naturally, the number of actual buyers we’re talking about remains unclear, but my guess is not huge. Still, new young buyers are a good thing, no matter how many there are.

In fact, the Lichtenstein market—and, perhaps, the broader art market—is being rebuilt from the ground up. The surge in lower-priced works—340 Lichtenstein lots sold in 2023, a record that could be eclipsed this year—suggests a broad base of activity. Stronger prices for works on paper and multiples should eventually ripple upwards, prompting a recalibration for more substantial sculptures and paintings.

Some of those higher-value works are already being tested. The star lot in the Hong Kong sale is a landscape painting from 1996, Vista with Bridge, which is estimated at HK$28 million or $3.5 million. That compares to a similar work from the same year that sold in 2019 for $6.5 million, and one in vertical format sold in 2016 for $4.5 million. Also on offer: Wimpy I, from 1988, is one of the first Reflections paintings that Lichtenstein made; its $1 million estimate is a fraction of the $10-million-plus prices that others from the series have achieved. In the May sale, Reflections: Art was offered at $4 million and sold for nearly $5.5 million.

Other highlights include Interior (Study) from 1991, a mock-up with taped images showing how Lichtenstein built his compositions, estimated at $700,000. A similar work depicting the Oval Office was estimated at $1 million in November, but sold for $4.2 million. Colored pencil sketches, another method the artist used to work out his ideas, are also on offer: Nude with Bust (Study), from 1995, is estimated at $400,000, and Slam, from 1989, at $100,000.

It would be foolish to extrapolate too much from the success of the Lichtenstein estate works. A large supply of lower-priced but decent-quality works from the estate of an artist with real global name recognition is hard to come by. We can’t look to replicate this success as a strategy for solving the market’s sense of woe. But, like the Chagall estate works being sold over time at Christie’s, the auction pops that these works can generate create a sense of market well-being that might further translate into interest and attention. Rebuilding a market takes time and happens in unexpected and out-of-the-way places—then it bursts out into the open. We’re not yet at the bursting stage. But we may be getting closer.