The sales included plenty of guarantees and several works by artists whose momentum has cooled amid higher interest rates, ongoing geopolitical conflict, and concerns over the upcoming US national election.

While Phillips’ spring evening sale in Hong Kong had only 24 lots, the auction house managed to ride the ongoing wave of demand for Jean-Michel Basquiat by selling Native Carrying Some Guns, Bibles, Amorites on Safari for HK$99 million or U$12.6 million, the highest amount for the season across all the auction houses and categories in Hong Kong. The work carried an estimate of HK$90 million to HK$120 million.

Phillips was also the only auction house to consign a work by Banksy. The popular street artist was absent from this past New York spring auction season but The Leopard and Lamb sold at Phillips Hong Kong on May 31 for HK$36.8 million or $4.7 million on an estimate of HK$18 million to $28 million.

Phillips said its Modern and Contemporary art spring sales in Hong were 22 percent higher compared to last season, with works by Zao Wou-Ki, Yoshitomo Nara, Yayoi Kusama, and Andy Warhol accounting for six out of the top ten lots.

Christie’s said in a press release that its Asia Spring auctions on May 28 and 29 generated a total of HK$963 million ($124 million), with “close to 90% sold by lot and by value and over 40% of lots sold over high estimate.” However, last year Christie’s spring auctions in Hong Kong generated HK$1.24 billion ($159 million), indicating a drop of 22 percent in sales including fees.

Other declines included the number of works which sold for above HK$10 million ($1.3 million) compared to last year (22 for 2024, versus 36 for 2023). There were also fewer lots (81 in 2024; 88 in 2023) in this year’s 20th and 21st Century evening sales compared to the 20th/21st Century and Post-Millennium evening sales, as well as more works that did not sell (14 in 2024; 12 in 2023).

A bright yellow acrylic and silkscreen Flowers painting from 1965 by Andy Warhol was the top lot, at HK$66.625 million with fees ($8.5million USD), on an estimate of (HK $62.8 million – HK $92.8 million). Other top sellers included Zao Wou-Ki’s 10.01.68 for HK $63.175 million, or approximately $8.13 million (estimate of HK$68 million to HK$ 98 million), Yayoi Kusama’s 83-inch tall sculpture Pumpkin (2012) for HK $48.775 million, or $6.28 million (estimate of HK$40 million to HK$60 million), and Rene Magritte’s 1944 painting of a rose L’Invitation au voyage for HK $42.725 million or just under $5.5 million (estimate of HK$28 million to HK$38 million).

Eight of the top ten lots across Christie’s four sales on May 28 and May 29 had guarantees, with the exception of Yoshitomo Nara’s Portrait of AE (2009) and Rock You! (2006).

It’s worth noting that Paul Cezanne’s La Montagne Sainte-Victoire vue des Lauves (circa 1902-1906) sold for HK$22.16 million or $4.5 million, on an estimate of HK$20 million to HK$30 million. That figure was a drop from when the consignor purchased the work in June 2014 from Christie’s in London for £3.55 million or about $6 million.

The selling price for Zao Wou-Ki’s 10.01.68 was also lower than when it previously appeared at auction at Sotheby’s Hong Kong in November 2018, when it sold for HK$68.9 million or $8.8 million, as the lead lot for a sale of Abstract artworks in the house’s Brushwork series.

Breakout results included a Salvo for HK$3.2 million (estimate HK$1 million to HK$1.5 million), a Marina Perez Simao painting for HK$2.1 million (estimate of HK$700,000 to HK$1.2 million), and a Ben Sledsen work for HK$1.6 million (estimate of HK$200,000 to HK$400,000). Works by Michaela Yearwood-Dan, Miriam Cahn, Lee Bae, Xia Yu, Katherine Bernhardt, and Sholto Blissett also sold above high estimates.

Christie’s said world auctions records were also set for Rhee Seundja, Nguyen Tu Nghiem, Skygolpe, Ay-o, Sholto Blissett, Jeong Young-do, Son Dong-Hyun, Daniel Correa Mejia, Jeon Hyun-Sun and Kim Su-Yeon.

Notably, two works by Nicholas Party did not sell (one had an estimate of HK$22 million to HK$28 million, or $2.8 million to $3.6 million), as well as a Wayne Thiebaud (estimate of HK$30 million to HK$40 million, or $3.8 million to $5.1 million), which had the third highest estimate of the house’s 21st Century sale.

Christie’s also officially announced at the end of its sales that it would hold its inaugural auctions at its new Asia Pacific headquarters at The Henderson building in Central district on September 26 and September 27, starting with sales of 20th and 21st Century art.

That record follows the sale of Basquiat’s Untitled (ELMAR), also from 1982, at Phillips’s modern and contemporary art evening sale in New York earlier this month for $46.5 million. That work was the most expensive lot of the New York sales.

“These outstanding results confirm our unwavering dedication to Basquiat’s legacy and truly showed all of which we are capable,” Meiling Lee, Phillips’s head of modern and contemporary art in Asia, said in a press release. 

This spring, Phillips sold three early works by Basquiat. Untitled (Portrait of a Famous Ballplayer), from 1981, also sold at Phillips’s modern and contemporary art evening sale, bringing in $7.8 million. 

The Hong Kong sale brought in a total of $26.8 million with a sell-through rate of 96 percent, a 10 percent increase from the previous season, the house said. 

Additional highlights from the sale were Banksy’s Leopard and Lamb (2016), which sold for $4.7 million; Yayoi Kusama’s INFINITY NETS (ZGHEB) from 2007, which sold for $3.3 million; and another Kusama, Pumpkin (2000), which brought in $1.7 million.

One of the most startling things I saw happen during the first two days of art auctions in New York took place before any bids had been made.

A few minutes before Sotheby’s ultra-contemporary evening sale, “The Now,” was set to begin, a cameraman tripped over a stanchion and narrowly avoided putting an entire palm into a large, untitled work by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol. Several staffers were clearly shaken by the near-disaster involving this collaborative piece from 1984, which carried a low estimate of $15 million. 

Thankfully, Lot 105 remained undamaged. It sold for $19.4 million, a record for a Warhol-Basquiat collaboration, and the fourth-highest amount for the night.

Even with a crisis averted, the mood throughout the first two days of sales of the New York May sales was filled with anxiety among buyers and consignors. “It didn’t feel exciting in the room,” art adviser Dane Jensen told ARTnews.

A sense of narrowly avoided disaster characterized two sales at Christie’s the following night, held after several days of the auction house’s website being down due to a “technology security issue.” The de la Cruz collection and the 21st century evening sale still managed high sell-through rates; a YouTube livestream went on as planned, and online bidding continued through Christie’s Live, the house’s online platform for remote bidding. But several art advisers told ARTnews it would be hard to know how many people were deterred from jumping in on the action, especially for an estate that was so well-known. “Even one less bidder can make a huge impact on the performance of a work,” Jensen said. 

A high number of guarantees and irrevocable bids helped smooth things over and raise sell-through rates, but many lots by notable artists went for sums below their low estimates. Other lots were withdrawn, and still some others did not sell at all. At Phillips, Frank Stella’s Lettre sur les sourds et muets II (1974), from the private collection of gallerist Marianne Boesky, was estimated to sell for $5 million to $7 million. It failed to find a buyer. And despite being described by Christie’s as “considered the most important and ambitious painting” of Mark Tansey’s career, Mont Sainte-Victoire #1 (1987), estimated to sell for between $8 million–$12 million, also went unsold.

Incremental bids from several specialists in pursuit of a deal also pulled down the mood, with auctioneers like Sotheby’s European chairman Oliver Barker exclaiming, “It’s like extracting teeth, my goodness.”

As a result, several art advisers who spoke to ARTnews immediately after the start of the marquee sale week in New York also noted the unevenness of the initial results. 

On Monday night, art adviser Ivy Shapiro told ARTnews that, while there were a few sales that “went through the roof,” for the most part, Sotheby’s was subdued. “It’s cautious, but it’s steady. And if people want something, they want it.”

Jensen said the spectacle of art auctions can blind people to noticing how long things haven’t been doing well in different areas of the art market, such as flat demand for established postwar artists. It’s commonly thought that artists’ prices rise once they die, but this isn’t always the case, as evidenced by Stella, who passed away on May 4. Ifafa I, a significant 1964 shaped canvas by him, came to auction at Sotheby’s with a $14 million low estimate and hammered only just a little above that. “It may be that there isn’t a reason” the painting didn’t sell, Jensen told ARTnews. “It’s just because the market has gone down.” 

There were still bright spots, especially for painting and sculptures by artists of color, queer artists, and women. At Christie’s, records were set for Ana Mendieta (twice over in the same sale), Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Reggie Burrows Hodges, and Diane Arbus. At Phillips, Kent Monkman tripled his record, bringing it to $381,000, for the 2020 painting The Storm. And at Sotheby’s, new records were established for Faith Ringgold, Justin Caguiat, and Lucy Bull, whose works all sold for more than $1 million. 

Sotheby’s extensive contemporary day sale on May 14 also saw several paintings far exceed their high estimates: Emmi Whitehorse’s #534 Untitled for $127,000 on an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000; Alex Katz’s May for $1.88 million on an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000; Salvo’s Senza Titolo for $406,400 on an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000; Olga de Amaral’s Pueblo X for $698,500 on an estimate of $250,000 to $350,000; and Antonio Obá’s Sankofa – Figura Com Alpargata for $228,600 on an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000. The works by Whitehorse and Salvo both did not have guarantees or irrevocable bids, and they sold for more than six times their high estimates. 

One of the most astute comments on the wobbly state of the art market came just as the week of sales was about to start. On the Nota Bene podcast, recorded last week and aired on Sunday, dealer Lock Kresler observed that we are seeing a very different scenario today than in the wake of the 2008 recession, when the art market made a pretty speedy recovery. “We haven’t seen a crash,” he said, “but we also haven’t seen anything resembling a window out.” 

Of the 30 lots that headed to sale, two ended up being withdrawn. One of those was a $12 million Picasso painting, one of the most expensive lots that was to be sold by Phillips this week.

The priciest lot was Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (ELMAR), from 1982, one of 13 lots that hit the block with a third-party guarantee. Phillips gave the painting a $60 million high estimate, putting it on track to become one of the most expensive Basquiat paintings ever sold at auction. That number was in part a reflection of its decorated provenance: it had been acquired from dealer Annina Nosei by anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi, a friend of Basquiat. Pellizzi then sold it to the current consignor.

Untitled (ELMAR) didn’t come close to that $60 million figure, ultimately hammering for just a hair above its low estimate, at $40.2 million. Even if that wasn’t an astounding number, it was good enough for people in the room, who greeted the sale with a round of applause. With fees, the final result was $46.5 million. (All sales listed here include buyer’s premium, unless noted otherwise.)

The action at this sale was slow, with few bidding wars. Most works sold for within their estimates. There was just one record set, for the painter Kent Monkman, and there were few surprises. On the whole, the Phillips auction was largely free of drama—which is perhaps the best thing the house could ask for, given that anxiety about a market slowdown has been pervasive. (Plus, Phillips has something one of its competitors does not: a working website. As Christie’s headed into its marquee sales this evening, its site remained offline following a cyberattack.)

Barkley L. Hendricks’s 1977 painting Vendetta, featuring a woman wearing a tank top emblazoned with the word “bitch,” was among the most closely watched lots ahead of tonight’s sale. The painting had come to auction from Richard D. Segal, a Whitney Museum trustee, and had been given a $3.5 million high estimate.

Hendricks’s $8.4 million record was set this past November at Sotheby’s in New York, and Vendetta didn’t eclipse that benchmark. This painting sold for $3.2 million—a respectable sum that put it within the house’s estimate, but one which may not have quite tracked with pre-sale anticipation.

Another buzzy lot was Untitled (Boy with Glasses), a 2010 painting by the late Noah Davis, whose art has gained some market momentum on the auction block in recent years. That energy has coincided with institutional attention for him: today brought the announcement that Davis will have a retrospective opening at collector Hasso Plattner’s Das Minsk museum in Potsdam, Germany, before the show travels in 2025 to London’s Barbican Centre and Los Angeles’s Hammer Museum.

Aryn Drake-Lee, the ex-wife of actor Jesse Williams, had consigned the piece to auction, where it came with a $200,000 high estimate. The painting, which is based on a photograph of the rapper Lil John, ended up outpacing that figure, selling for $279,400. That’s a good outcome, albeit one that can’t quite match the frenzy that surrounded a Davis painting at Phillips’s New York auction last May, when a canvas by Davis sold for $990,600, more than nine times its $100,000 estimate. (The artist’s auction record stands at $1.5 million, set at Christie’s in 2022.)

Helen Frankenthaler’s Acres (1959), a soak-and-stain painting from this Abstract Expressionist’s heyday, was one of the few works that managed to incite a bona fide battle. Over the course of several minutes, two phone bidders duked it out, pushing the work far beyond its $2.5 million high estimate. In the end, it sold for $3.69 million—hardly a record for Frankenthaler, whose most expensive work at auction sold for $7.8 million at an online Sotheby’s sale in 2021, but a good result no less.

But the Frankenthaler was an exception during an auction in which buyers seemed cautious about bidding on work by established artists. A $5 million painting by Frank Stella, who died earlier this month, failed to sell altogether. Likewise works by Pierre Bonnard and Robert Mangold.

When it came to less established artists at auction, the young painter Jadé Fadojutimi continued to shine. The Pour (2022), a purplish abstraction, made its way to Phillips just two years after it was purchased by the consignor from London’s Pippy Houldsworth Gallery. It shot beyond its $600,000 high estimate, selling for $1.08 million. Derek Fordjour’s painting Numbers (2018) also performed well, going for $889,000 on a $600,000 high estimate.

One star faltered: María Berrío, whose 2015 portrait The Lovers 2, depicting a woman whose face is hidden beneath a feathered veil, returned to Phillips tonight, less than two years after it sold for $1 million at a Hong Kong auction. On Tuesday, it came to auction with a $350,000 high estimate—and failed to find a buyer.

Following the hour-long auction’s conclusion, some said it was tough to speak in grand pronouncements about the results. “We’re seeing a mixed, artist-specific market at Phillips tonight,” art adviser David Shapiro told ARTnews. But he said there were some positives: the sell-through rate was 92 percent, which he noted was solid, “notwithstanding some tepid results.”

Karen K. Ho contributed reporting.

The annual May auction sales in New York are always an important indicator of the market’s health, and next month’s sales appear all the more notable after a year most art dealers would rather forget. And you can add to that more than a little pearl-clutching that the art market is all but ready to collapse.

Even so, auction performance almost always comes down to the material, and this May’s sales are conspicuously lacking in major estates, apart from the Rosa de la Cruz collection, which goes on offer at Christie’s on May 14 before its general 20th/21st Century Art sale. Perusing the provenance of the major evening sales indicates that a great many of the works are fresh to market or close to it, with quite a few having spent a fair amount of time within one collection after having been bought from a gallery, estate, or directly from the artist. The general composition of the lots suggests hard work on the part of the specialists, who no doubt had to comb through their Rolodexes for novel material that could get collectors excited in an iffy market—after all, that freshness may be just the salve the market needs.

At Phillips, the Modern and Contemporary evening sale on May 14 is full of works being sold by the descendants of deceased collectors. There are, of course, the two early Jean-Michel Basquiat paintings that were in the collection of anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi, who bought them from Basquiat’s first dealer, Annina Nosei, in the early ’80s. The most valuable among them—with an estimate of $40 million–$60 million—is Untitled (ELMAR), a monumental 1982 painting that Pellizzi sold to another collector who is now selling it at Phillips. But Untitled (Portrait of Famous Ballplayer), a 1981 painting estimated at $6.5 million to $8.5 million, comes directly from the Pellizzi family. 

Then there are two works, Henri Matisse’s Portrait de femme (1917) and Marc Chagall’s Fleurs chez Bella (1935-1938), being sold by the descendants of Ruth Mae Morris Bakwin and Harry Bakwin, two New York–based pediatricians, who died decades ago. Their sons, Edward Morris and Michael Bakwin both died in 2019. The descendants of Jeanne and Joseph Sullivan, founders of the chemical company Vigoro and noted Chicago philanthropists, are selling Jean Dubuffet’s 1957 work Paysage à la vache (Le rendez-vous)—estimate $700,000–$1 million—while the descendants of the late Los Angeles doctor Jacob Terner and his wife, Sandra, have put up Jules Olitski’s Boyar Time (The Small Painting), a 1962 work with a $400,000–$600,000 estimate. (A longtime trustee of LACMA, Sandra received the title of Lifetime Trustee.)

But while those consignors were known by a glance at the provenance, ARTnews had to dig through the listings to reveal some others.

First up is the Noah Davis 2010 painting Untitled (Boy with Glasses), which is being sold by Aryn Drake-Lee, the ex-wife of Grey’s Anatomy star and rising collector Jesse Williams. While the painting was listed as in the couple’s collection when it was last exhibited at Seattle’s Frye Art Museum in 2016, a spokesperson for Williams told ARTnews that it went into Drake-Lee’s possession after their divorce in late 2020. The Davis work will hit the block at the Phillips May 14 sale (est. $150,000–$200,000).

Williams has become a notable young collector of art from the African diaspora, holding 250 works, many of them by emerging artists. Of Davis, Williams once told ARTnews, “He was my brother—a very good friend of mine … Being able to live with his work and have it right by my doorway when everybody comes in and out—and gets washed over by it—is critical for me.”

Barkley Hendricks’s Vendetta, a 1977 oil and acrylic painting of a Black woman in a tank top that reads BITCH, is set for the same Phillips Modern and Contemporary Evening Sale on May 14. That work carries a $2.5 million to $3.5 million estimate; it was last seen in the landmark 2008 exhibition, “Barkley Hendricks: Birth of the Cool” at Duke University’s Nasher Museum of Art. The seller is Richard D. Segal, CEO of Seavest Investment Group and a trustee at the Whitney Museum; the work is currently held in Segal’s eponymous Seavest Collection.

It appears that dealer Marianne Boesky is selling Frank Stella’s Lettre sur les sourds et muets II, a painting of concentric squares nearly 12 by 12 feet in size that carries an estimate of $5 million to $7 million. The provenance for the May 14 Phillips sale says it was acquired directly from the artist in 2017. The piece was featured in an exhibition of Stella’s work at the Charles Riva Collection in Brussels throughout 2017, where it was cited as Private Collection Marianne Boesky. Boesky declined to comment.

Tracey Emin’s 2018 But you never wanted me is consigned by Stuart and Gina Peterson at the Sotheby’s “The Now” Evening Auction May 13 after being exhibited at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in its 2022 exhibition “Women Painting Women.” Stuart is a venture capitalist who is most famously an early investor in YouTube, while Gina is president of the Peterson Family Foundation and a trustee of SFMOMA and the Met in New York, among other museum affiliations.

The Petersons aren’t the only high-finance collectors who appear to be doing some spring cleaning. ARTnews Top 200 collectors Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman appear to be selling Julie Mehretu’s Fever graph (algorithm for serendipity), from 2013. The work has been sold only once, by Marian Goodman Gallery, and the Baltimore Museum of Art listed the couple as lending the work for its 2019 show “Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art Now.” Fuhrman declined to comment on the sale.

Artnet News reported this past March that Richard Schlagman, the enigmatic former owner of Phaidon Press, is selling the Brice Marden diptych Event (est. $30 million–$50 million), also at the Christie’s 20th/21st Century Art sale. And the listings suggest that may be far from the only work Schlagman is putting up: could he be the consignor of several “Abstract Masterworks from a Distinguished Private Collection” in that sale? The works with that appellation include: Web #10 (2006) by Vija Celmins (est. $2.5 million–$3.5 million); Uke (2012) by German-born, London-based artist Tomma Abts (est. $200,000–$300,000); and Robert Mangold’s 1999 work  Four Figures II (A & B & C & D) (est. $700,000–$1 million). Christie’s did not immediately return a request for comment.

Schlagman has been described as “one of the more mysterious figures in the publishing industry,” whom staff at Phaidon referred to as a “Bond villain” type; he lives alone with his housekeeper between London and a Marcel Breuer–designed villa on Lake Maggiore in the Swiss Alps. Schlagman holds a seat on the board of the Judd Foundation and has a reputation for collecting Minimalist art.

At Sotheby’s May 13 Modern evening sale, Swiss art trading firm Diane SA is selling René Magritte’s oil painting La Main heureuse with an estimate of $3.5 million to $5.5 million. Dallas-based oil and gas baron Barron U. Kidd is selling his Paul Cézanne Les Bastides Lou Deven et Barbaroux with an estimate of $700,000 to $900,000. The watercolor and graphite artwork was most recently included in a 2021 exhibition of the artist’s drawings at MoMA.

At the Sotheby’s Contemporary sale on the same day, Alice Neel’s 1969 portrait of Gerard Malanga, the Andy Warhol confidant and studio assistant who arguably made more Warhols than Warhol did, will be on offer with an estimate of $1.5 million to $2 million. The artwork went directly from the artist’s estate to Locks Gallery in Philadelphia, from which the current owner acquired it in 2005; it was last shown at the Munch Museum in Oslo in the 2023 show “Alice Neel: Every Person Is a New Universe,” which listed it as coming from the collection of the Locks Foundation.

Lastly, two works in that Sotheby’s sale, Agnes Martin’s 1959 canvas Earth II (est. $3 million–$4 million) and Andy Warhol’s 1961 Carat (est. $5 million–$7 million), are being sold by the Daros Collection, the private collection of Swiss industrialist, financier, and former ARTnews Top 200 collector Stephan Schmidheiny.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story listed Jesse Williams as a co-consignor of the Noah Davis painting. He is not. ARTnews regrets the error.

The small 10-inch by 10-inch figurative portrait was included in an exhibition of work by Davis and his older brother, artist and filmmaker Kahlil Joseph called “Young Blood” at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, WA in 2016. In installation photos of the exhibition, a photo credit line for Untitled (Boy with Glasses) reads “Collection of Aryn Drakelee-Williams and Jesse Williams“.

Williams and Drake-Lee began collecting art in 2009, separated in 2017 and officially divorced in 2020. After the divorce, the painting went into the possession of Drake-Lee, a spokesperson for Williams told ARTnews.

Before Davis died at the age of 32 in 2015, the Seattle-born artist was known for his large figurative paintings of surreal, post-racial images, as well as founding The Underground Museum cultural space in Los Angeles.

In 2021, Williams spoke to ARTnews about his approach to collecting art from the African diaspora, what he learned from artist Cheryl R. Riley about how to be a patron, and his relationship with Davis.

“He was my brother—a very good friend of mine,” Williams told ARTnews. “Being able to live with his work and have it right by my doorway when everybody comes in and out—and gets washed over by it—is critical for me.”

When ARTnews emailed Phillips for confirmation about this consignment, a spokesperson said “I’m afraid we cannot comment on or confirm client identities.”

The auction house has given Untitled (Boy with Glasses) a price estimate of $150,000 to 200,000.

Editor’s Note: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified Williams as a co-consignor of the Davis painting. He does not currently own the painting, according to a spokesperson. ARTnews regrets the error.

The work, which is estimated to achieve around $30 million, is part of a series of works featuring tied-together wooden supports, onto which a canvas has been mounted. Nearly every inch of the 60-inch square canvas is peppered with figures, numbers, shapes, and crossed-out words. There are three of Basquiat’s distinctive crowns, as well as references to sports, comic books, and, in the form of a skullcap-less head and a severed foot, the human anatomy.

“This 1982 painting shows Basquiat at his absolute best—deftly mixing symbols, text and portraiture,” said Alex Rotter, Christie’s chairman of 20th and 21st century art. “The composition is frenzied and plentiful, drawing inspiration from so many of his iconic influences through history, sports and contemporary media. You could enjoy a lifetime untangling everything here.”

Both Sotheby’s and Phillips also have expensive Basquiats in their May sales, a testament to how strong the artist’s brand remains even in a market that is considerably weaker than in recent years.

At Sotheby’s, an untitled Basquiat-Warhol collaboration from 1984 that starred in the Fondation Louis Vuitton show last year is expected to sell for around $18 million.

At Phillips, Basquiat’s monumental 1982 picture Untitled (ELMAR) is expected to sell for between $40 million and $60 million. It is just one of three works that house will sell in May from the collection of the anthropologist Francesco Pellizzi. Philips will also sell the 1981 canvas Untitled (Portrait of a Famous Ballplayer), estimated at $6.5 million–$8.5 million, and, on May 31, in Hong Kong, Native Carrying Some Guns, Bibles, Amorites on Safari (1982), for an estimated $12 million–$18 million. Pellizzi bought all three works from Basquiat’s first dealer, Annina Nosei.

Leading the New York sale on May 14 is the monumental 1982 picture Untitled (ELMAR), a nearly eight-foot-wide canvas featuring a modern-day Icarus about to fall out of the heavens and an archer firing two arrows in his direction. Untitled (ELMAR) is expected to sell for between $40 million and $60 million.

Untitled (ELMAR) was included in an exhibition dedicated to Pellizzi’s collection at the New York’s Hofstra Museum in 1989. It was also on view at an exhibition commemorating the 10-year anniversary of Basquiat’s death at Gagosian Los Angeles in 1998 and featured on the cover of the accompanying catalogue. The picture was also shown at the artist’s retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris in 2018.

In New York, Philips will also sell the 1981 canvas Untitled (Portrait of a Famous Ballplayer). The painting will come with a $6.5 million–$8.5 million estimate. Two weeks later, on May 31, in Hong Kong, the house will sell Native Carrying Some Guns, Bibles, Amorites on Safari (1982) for an estimated $12 million–$18 million. 

Basquiat’s paintings have sold particularly well in Asia. In May 2022, an untitled 1982 painting from Japanese multimillionaire Yusaku Maezawa’s collection sold for $85 million. Just six years earlier, Maezawa had bought it at Christie’s for $57.3 million.

The artist’s work is a staple at New York evening sales. During last year’s May sales, Christie’s sold a 12-foot-wide 1983 triptych from the collection of the Italian fashion designer Valentino Garavani for just over $67 million, putting the painting among the most expensive Basquiat works ever auctioned.

“Basquiat’s relevance and fame has only continued to grow each year and he is one of the most sought-after artists of any century,” Robert Manley, deputy chairman and worldwide co-head 20th century and contemporary art at Philips, said in a statement. He referred to Gagosian’s current exhibition of Basquiat’s work in Los Angeles, and said, “From where I stand, the momentum seems to be picking up.”

The departure has led to Phillips to reorganize some of its executive staff. Amanda Lo Iacono, who for the past two years has overseen the houses’s 20th century and contemporary art departments across New York, London, and Shanghai, has been appointed to the newly created role of deputy chief executive officer. Cheyenne Westphal, who is based in London, will continue as the global chairwoman.

Dolman stepped down as the house’s CEO in 2021 and subsequently joined a corporate board that oversees decisions related to finance and operations. Having held executive positions at the Qatar Museums and Christie’s, he led Phillips, the smallest of the big three auction houses, through a period of intense growth that began in 2014. Notably, he raised the house’s profile, with its specialists increasing their focus on buzzy emerging painters.

The latest shift in leadership follows a string of challenges faced by Phillips in the past year as it navigated a more difficult economic climate. The house saw a 15 percent drop in global auction sales from 2022 to 2023.

In October, Phillips’s board decided against paying dividends to its holding company, the Russian-owned Mercury Group, after reporting revenue losses from UK sales in 2022.

Earlier this month, in a statement to ARTnews, Phillips representative attributed Brooks’s resignation to a “personal” matter that was unrelated to downtrending sales or financial losses.

Dolman praised Lo Iacono’s leadership, describing it as “instrumental” to recent growth the company has seen. Dolman claimed that the upcoming year presents more opportunities for Phillips to expand its footprint even further. Lo Iacono echoed the sentiment, expressing confidence about the house’s future.

According to a statement from a Phillips representative, Brooks’ resignation is unrelated to a downturn in sales in the last year. Brooks officially resigned in December for “personal reasons,” according to a statement provided to ARTnews by Phillips executive chairman Ed Dolman, who served as CEO from 2014 to 2021.

Dolman, who oversees the house’s London-based board of directors, will take over leadership of global operations and “full responsibility” of the company’s management in the interim, according to a spokesperson.

The leadership change comes after Phillips saw parts of its business strained in the last year. The house reported a 15 percent decline for its global auction sales between 2022 and 2023. Meanwhile, its board decided against paying a dividend to the Russian owners of its holding company after reporting revenue losses from its UK sales in 2022, according to financial filings from October.

“Stephen has led the company through a remarkable period of growth during his tenure and his contributions have helped to build the infrastructure for Phillips’ continued success,” Dolman said in a statement. “I thank him for his many contributions to the company and wish him all the best.”

Brooks took up the position at Phillips, the smallest of the three major houses — which has headquarters in New York, London and Hong Kong—  in April 2021.

Over the course of Brooks’ nearly three-year term at Phillips, he piloted the company through multiple pressure-points: recovering from the pandemic’s impact on sales and navigating the effects of the war in Ukraine that placed scrutiny on its Russian owners and their ties to the conflict. In an interview with ARTnews in September 2021 several months after coming on as Phillips CEO, he described the house as “a vastly changed organization” at the time he took over, after it grew three times in size in a five year period while it was under Dolman’s leadership.

Under Brooks, the house brought in a record $1.3 billion in sales in 2022, an 8 percent increase over the previous year’s result of $1.2 billion, a figure that was up 32 percent from its pre-pandemic level in 2019 before Brooks took over. Meanwhile, under Brooks, Phillips also expanded in Asia as they opened a new headquarters in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District last March. However, the house reported a decline in sales there by 8 percent between 2021 and 2022.

With a background in finance, Brooks came to Phillips after departing his previous role at Christie’s as its deputy chief executive in 2020. During his eleven-year tenure at Christie’s, he oversaw varying levels of its business operations, helping to structure complex financial deals around some of Christie’s more valuable lots. 

Phillips declined to comment on when the house expects to appoint a new CEO. Brooks could not immediately be reached for comment by ARTnews.