Stories

One of the most recognizable, reproduced, and parodied images of American history comes to the block at Christie’s this spring. The auction house announced today that Emanuel Leutze’s Washington Crossing the Delaware will be featured in the 20th Century Evening Sale.

The market for works by Claude Monet entered a dramatic new phase during the pandemic. Works that had been priced at auction between $27 and $36.5 million before the pandemic began seem to be trading at prices from $48 million to $70 million.

Sotheby’s has been sending art advisors around the world an image of Francis Bacon’s Study for Red Pope, 1962, second version 1971 with an estimate around $40 million.

It’s a small painting on masonite board fewer than three feet by two feet but a Jackson Pollock from 1949 packs a market wallop. Christie’s announced Number 31 will be sold in May with a whisper number of $45 million. The work has been included in several prominent Pollock shows, most notably the retrospectives held at

This week the block will see hundreds of lots courtesy of three prints and multiples sales. The highest value lots in these sales are largely portfolios of prints by the usual suspects, Andy Warhol and Keith Haring. 

A cityscape by Wayne Thiebaud that was commissioned for the bio-medical research organization the Gladstone Institute’s building in San Francisco will be sold at Christie’s on May 12th to fund dedicated programs in scientific training and mentoring. The triptych, City Views is estimated at $10 million, is one of the la

Sotheby’s Hong Kong is eager to capitalize on demand for Picasso in Asia. “Interest in Picasso has been surging among Asian collectors,” says Felix Kwok, Head of Modern Art for Sotheby’s in Asia.

Claude Monet’s most prized works in the market these days are the ones that come from a series that depicts a landmark or view with different effects from the changing light and weather. Grainstacks, Venetian views, Britain’s House of Parliament, or poplar trees lining a road.

Sotheby’s is launching the viewing of its just-announced Kerry James Marshall painting that will be featured in the May 17th The Now sale in Los Angeles because the painting comes from Loma Lina University’s Institute for Genetics and Translational Genomics.

Indiana-born, Brooklyn-based artist Robert Nava has seen steady momentum on the secondary market since his mid-pandemic auction debut in July of 2020. Collectors love his imaginative mixed-media creatures. The fantasy animals first showed up at NADA Miami and at the Dallas Art Fair displayed at Los Angeles’s Night Gallery.

As the spring season approaches, regionally specific Modern and Contemporary sales warm up the block.

Christie's has announced the sale of a 1928 cast of Auguste Rodin’s “The Thinker” which is the centerpiece of a sale of works from a Parisian apartment designed by Alberto Pinto.