Christie’s Spring Auction: Modernism’s Greats on the Block
Christie's spring offensive arrives this month, deploying a stacked line-up of blue-chip masterworks across three-days of live auctions at Rockefeller Center. The battleground: a global art market still negotiating its post-pandemic identity crisis while juggling seismic wealth redistribution and institutional recalibration.
Following their staggering $689 million haul last November, Christie's May 12-15 sequence—beginning with public preview on May 3—presents a high-stakes referendum on market resilience amid economic crosscurrents. The offerings read like a canonical playlist of modernism's greatest hits, though the curatorial subtext reveals more complex market calculations.
Here are some of the names, alphabetized for objectivity: Basquiat, Calder, Chagall, De Kooning, Dubuffet, Frankenthaler, Haring, Hockney, Indiana, Kandinsky, Katz, Franz Kline, Yves Klein, Kusama, Lautrec, Leger, Lichtenstein, Magritte, Matisse, Mitchell, Miro, Monet, Mondrian, Motherwell, Picasso, Rauschenberg, Richter, Rothko, Ruscha, Stella, Van Gogh, Warhol.
And here is an unobjective look at a few highlights:
Mark Rothko (1903-1970), No. 4 (Two Dominants) [Orange, Plum, Black], 1950-1951. Oil on canvas. 67 x 54¾ in (170.2 x 139.1 cm).
Mark Rothko's No. 4 (Two Dominants) [Orange, Plum, Black] (1950-51), a luminous meditation on chromatic tension, was completed during what scholar David Anfam termed Rothko's "annus mirabilis." The canvas vibrates between the spectral dominance of deep plum and impenetrable black, surrounded by that characteristic Rothko halo—a luminous orange periphery that seems to respire on the canvas. Its "estimate on request" designation signals eight-figure expectations for this fresh-to-market treasure, unseen publicly since its 1980 acquisition by the Bass family.
"Standing in front of this painting is an experience; your eyes move across the surface and emotions pour forth in a way that doesn't happen with other works of art," notes Rachael White Young, Senior Specialist in Post-War and Contemporary Art, who reveals that only four of the eighteen paintings Rothko produced in 1951 remain outside institutional collections.
Andy Warhol's Big Electric Chair (1967-68), a monumental reimagining of his earlier "Death and Disaster" series icon. The chair—instrument of state execution transformed into existential still life—offers Warhol's definitive commentary on American violence, consumer culture, and mechanical reproduction. Alex Rotter, Chairman of 20th and 21st Century Art, frames it as "a transformative object of ending...the most poignant of all still lifes."
The work's rarity (most of the fourteen "Big Electric Chair" canvases reside in major museums like Centre Pompidou and the Art Institute of Chicago) positions this auction appearance as a watershed market event, particularly as collectors increasingly gravitate toward historically significant works with institutional imprimatur.
Jean-Michel Basquiat (1960-1988), Baby Boom, 1982. Acrylic, oilstick and paper collage on canvas mounted on tied wood supports. 49 x 84 in (125. x 213.5 cm).
Among the sale's most emotionally resonant offerings is Jean-Michel Basquiat's Baby Boom (1982), a raw family portrait executed during his legendary Fun Gallery show—widely considered his breakthrough moment. The triptych-like composition presents Basquiat with his parents, each figure adorned with halos that simultaneously reference Renaissance religious iconography and graffiti crown motifs. The sacred-profane tension—Basquiat's signature dialectic—manifests here in deeply personal terms. The piece is expected to fetch between $20 million and $30 million.
"Basquiat did many stretcher-bar paintings, but the subject of this makes it a real rarity," Rotter explains. "It's particularly personal, showing Basquiat with his mother and father. Portraiture is so important within his oeuvre, and he tended to paint his heroes. In rendering his family, he lends the image unique importance."
Claude Monet (1840-1926), Peupliers au bord de l’Epte, crépuscule, 1891. Oil on canvas. 39⅜ x 25⅝ in (100 x 65.1 cm).
Equally significant in provenance if radically different in execution is Claude Monet's Peupliers au bord de l'Epte, crépuscule (1891), a vertically-oriented jewel from his limited Poplars series, which produced only 23 canvases. Its spectacular palette—emerald, sapphire, amethyst and rose—captures that liminal moment between dusk and darkness when atmospheric conditions alter visual perception.
"Monet was a master of atmosphere, capturing the most elusive quality of nature—he could paint the very air in all its permutations," observes Imogen Kerr, Senior Specialist and Co-Head of 20th Century Evening Sale. The painting's distinguished provenance (half its existence in legendary dealer Paul Durand-Ruel's collection) underpins Christie's $30-50 million estimate.
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Femme à la coiffe d'Arlésienne sur fond vert (Lee Miller), 1937. Oil and Ripolin on canvas. 31⅞ x 25⅝ in (81 x 65.1 cm).
Picasso's Femme à la coiffe d'Arlésienne sur fond vert (Lee Miller) (1937) offers an intellectually fascinating counterpoint—a portrait of photographer/war correspondent/muse Lee Miller completed during that famous summer in Mougins when Surrealists including Man Ray, Paul Eluard, Roland Penrose and Miller found creative refuge from Europe's darkening political climate. Look to spend between $20 million and $30 million to take this one home.
"The energy of Picasso's brushstrokes embodies the exuberant vitality and vivid beauty of his sitter, undoubtedly her but with none of the conventional attributes of a portrait," notes Vanessa Fusco, Head of Impressionist and Modern Art. The portrait's appearance from the Leonard & Louise Riggio collection represents a significant market test for figurative Picassos from this critical pre-war period.
Ed Ruscha's Blast Curtain (1999), a quintessential example of his mountain series, carries a relatively accessible $4-6 million estimate. Isabella Lauria, Senior Specialist and Head of 21st Century Evening Sale, emphasizes that "unlike most of his mountain paintings, here the landscape is a visual metaphor for the words," creating a conceptual resonance between text and image that exemplifies Ruscha's most sophisticated practice.
Christie's curated presentation arrives as the global art market experiences what the Art Basel UBS Global Art Market Report 2025 characterizes as "rebalancing mechanisms across collecting categories." Post-pandemic patterns reveal increasingly selective acquisition strategies focused on historical significance, impeccable provenance, and institutional validation—precisely the metrics Christie's has prioritized in their May selection.
The auctions' most compelling subtext may be their rejection of market orthodoxies that have privileged certain artists and periods. By juxtaposing diverse aesthetics and historical moments—from Monet's atmospheric investigations to Warhol's mechanized memento mori—Christie's implicitly challenges conventional market hierarchies while reinforcing canonical status.
Most significantly, these sales arrive at a pivotal moment when institutional collection strategies increasingly prioritize previously marginalized voices, creating complex market recalibrations. Christie's selection acknowledges this tension by emphasizing works that have fundamentally altered art historical narratives—whether Basquiat's radical reinvention of figurative expression or Rothko's transcendent abstraction.
The results will provide crucial market intelligence as collectors navigate an increasingly bifurcated landscape where blue-chip works with impeccable provenance operate in a parallel economy to broader market sectors. Christie's experts appear confident that their selection—personal, historically significant, and institutionally validated—represents precisely what today's most sophisticated collectors desire: not merely objects of extraordinary financial value, but cultural artifacts that embody transformative historical moments.
This auction series begins with a public exhibition at Christie's Rockefeller Center galleries on May 3rd, with evening sales scheduled for May 12-14.
