ntPainted on Christmas Day in 1981, just after his 21st birthday,u00a0Crowns (Peso Neto)</em> was produced as Basquiat was vaulted from downtown prodigy to art-world phenomenon. This was the year Basquiat moved from the street into the studio, as well as the year critics and collectors began to grasp the range of his ambition. In the painting, the secular and the sacred blur into a private cosmology, enacting a tension between his self-image and the one the world was already projecting onto him.</p>nnnn
ntThe monumental work gathers the emblems that would become his visual signature: spiritual glyphs, anatomical fragments, bursts of language, and a three-point crown. Its exhibition history reinforces its status as a hinge in his career, appearing in his first US solo show and in later retrospectives that shaped his posthumous reputation.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Sotheby’s”,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761702,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-120.-Jean-Michel-Basquiat_Crowns-Peso-Neto-1981.jpg?w=1024″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-120.-Jean-Michel-Basquiat_Crowns-Peso-Neto-1981.jpg?w=292″,”width”:292,”height”:240},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-120.-Jean-Michel-Basquiat_Crowns-Peso-Neto-1981.jpg?w=584″,”width”:584,”height”:480},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-120.-Jean-Michel-Basquiat_Crowns-Peso-Neto-1981.jpg?w=731″,”width”:731,”height”:600},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-120.-Jean-Michel-Basquiat_Crowns-Peso-Neto-1981.jpg?w=935″,”width”:935,”height”:768},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-120.-Jean-Michel-Basquiat_Crowns-Peso-Neto-1981.jpg?w=1024″,”width”:1024,”height”:841}},”fullWidth”:700,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t
ntMondrianu2019su00a0Composition with Red and Blue</em>, from the Ross Weis Collection,u00a0belongs to the period when the artist was fleeing a collapsing Europe with a bundle of half-finished canvases tucked under his arm. Signed u201cPM 39u201341,u201d itu2019s one of the works he amended in stages as he moved from Paris to London and finally to New York, adjusting the geometry while the political map was being redrawn beneath him.</p>nnnn
ntThat push-and-pull between order and upheaval gives this painting its bite. The black bars impose discipline, but the color fields press against them, threatening to misbehaveu2014a reminder that Mondrianu2019s grids werenu2019t serene abstractions so much as negotiations with chaos. As an example of the small group of works completed during that escape route,Composition with Red and Blue</em>is less a monument to purity than evidence of a painter holding on to principle in the face of historyu2019s indifference.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Christie’s Images Ltd. 2025″,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761705,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-14A_PIET-MONDRIAN-Composition-with-Red-and-Blue.jpg?w=771″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-14A_PIET-MONDRIAN-Composition-with-Red-and-Blue.jpg?w=181″,”width”:181,”height”:240},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-14A_PIET-MONDRIAN-Composition-with-Red-and-Blue.jpg?w=361″,”width”:361,”height”:480},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-14A_PIET-MONDRIAN-Composition-with-Red-and-Blue.jpg?w=452″,”width”:452,”height”:600},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-14A_PIET-MONDRIAN-Composition-with-Red-and-Blue.jpg?w=578″,”width”:578,”height”:768},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-14A_PIET-MONDRIAN-Composition-with-Red-and-Blue.jpg?w=771″,”width”:771,”height”:1024}},”fullWidth”:433,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:[]},{“ID”:1234761707,”position”:8,”positionDisplay”:9,”date”:”2025-11-14 09:34:36″,”modified”:”2025-11-14 14:32:11″,”title”:”Edvard Munch,u00a0Sankthansnatt (Midsummer Night)</em>, $20 millionu2013$30 million at Sothebyu2019s”,”subtitle”:null,”slug”:”edvard-munch-sankthansnatt-midsummer-night-20-million-30-million-sothebys-lauder-collection”,”caption”:”Edvard Munch,u00a0Sankthansnatt (Midsummer Night)</em>, (1901-1903)”,”description”:”ntttt
ntMunchu2019su00a0Sankthansnatt (Midsummer Night)</em>, from the Lauder Collection,u00a0was painted between 1901 and 1903. The work comes from the same stretch of u00c5sgu00e5rdstrand paintings that usually get packaged as an idyllic counterweight to his darker work, but the picture is more interesting than that binary suggests. Yes, the midsummer light softens the shoreline and the clapboard houses, and yes, the scene appears tranquilu2014but itu2019s the kind of tranquility that feels slightly staged, as if Munch were testing how much atmosphere he could wring from a place better known for its painters than its drama. The whole thing reads less as an antidote tou00a0The Scream</em>u00a0than as its uneasy cousin: a quiet scene in which the emotional voltage has simply gone underground.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Sotheby’s”,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761708,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-6.-Edvard-Munch-Sankthansnatt-Johannisnacht-Mittsommernacht-St.-Johns-Night-Midsummer-Nights-Eve.jpg?w=977″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-6.-Edvard-Munch-Sankthansnatt-Johannisnacht-Mittsommernacht-St.-Johns-Night-Midsummer-Nights-Eve.jpg?w=229″,”width”:229,”height”:240},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-6.-Edvard-Munch-Sankthansnatt-Johannisnacht-Mittsommernacht-St.-Johns-Night-Midsummer-Nights-Eve.jpg?w=458″,”width”:458,”height”:480},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-6.-Edvard-Munch-Sankthansnatt-Johannisnacht-Mittsommernacht-St.-Johns-Night-Midsummer-Nights-Eve.jpg?w=572″,”width”:572,”height”:600},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-6.-Edvard-Munch-Sankthansnatt-Johannisnacht-Mittsommernacht-St.-Johns-Night-Midsummer-Nights-Eve.jpg?w=733″,”width”:733,”height”:768},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-6.-Edvard-Munch-Sankthansnatt-Johannisnacht-Mittsommernacht-St.-Johns-Night-Midsummer-Nights-Eve.jpg?w=977″,”width”:977,”height”:1024}},”fullWidth”:549,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t
ntMax Ernst madeu00a0Le roi jouant avec la reine</em>u2014selling from the Ross Weis Collectionu2014in a Long Island garage in 1944, while sharing a summer rental with Dorothea Tanning (who has a marvelous picture in Sothebyu2019s Exquisite Corpus sale, and whom Ernst would ultimately marry) and his dealer Julien Levyu2014hardly the setting one imagines for a sculpture now treated as Surrealismu2019s great bronze. The work grew out of Ernstu2019s lifelong obsession with chess, a system of symbols he preferred to inherited religious iconography, and one he trusted more than the metaphysics his movement claimed to overthrow. Rather than treat the piece as a tidy allegory, Ernst stages a scene that refuses to settle: a human-scaled u201ckingu201d that is part chess piece, part creature, part unreliable narrator.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Christie’s Images Ltd. 2025″,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761711,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-7A_MAX-ERNST-Le-roi-jouant-avec-la-reine.jpg?w=1024″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-7A_MAX-ERNST-Le-roi-jouant-avec-la-reine.jpg?w=240″,”width”:240,”height”:240},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-7A_MAX-ERNST-Le-roi-jouant-avec-la-reine.jpg?w=480″,”width”:480,”height”:480},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-7A_MAX-ERNST-Le-roi-jouant-avec-la-reine.jpg?w=600″,”width”:600,”height”:600},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-7A_MAX-ERNST-Le-roi-jouant-avec-la-reine.jpg?w=768″,”width”:768,”height”:768},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-7A_MAX-ERNST-Le-roi-jouant-avec-la-reine.jpg?w=1024″,”width”:1024,”height”:1024}},”fullWidth”:575,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:[]},{“ID”:1234761713,”position”:10,”positionDisplay”:11,”date”:”2025-11-14 09:42:03″,”modified”:”2025-11-14 14:37:18″,”title”:”Yves Klein,u00a0Sculpture u00e9ponge bleue sans titre (SE 167)</em>, $14 millionu2013$18 million, at Sothebyu2019s”,”subtitle”:null,”slug”:”yves-klein-sculpture-eponge-bleue-sans-titre-se-167-14-million-18-million-sothebys-the-now-evening-auction”,”caption”:”Yves Klein,u00a0Sculpture u00e9ponge bleue sans titre (SE 167)</em>”,”description”:”ntttt
ntYves Kleinu2019su00a0SE 167</em>u00a0is one of the large sponge sculptures he made in 1959, a year when his belief in immateriality ran well ahead of the materials he was actually using. Composed of a rough stone base topped with a cluster of soaked, pigment-saturated sponges, the piece is simple in construction and unmistakably Klein, making use of his trademark shade of blue. The sponges cling to the pigment; the pigment clings to the eye. Here, blue behaves like a metaphysical force. </p>nnnn
ntOnly six works of this scale by Klein exist; half are kept by major museums. That makes this oneu2019s reappearance after decades significant.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Sotheby’s”,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761714,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-116.-Yves-Klein-Sculpture-eponge-bleue-sans-titre-SE-167-circa-1959.jpg?w=759″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-116.-Yves-Klein-Sculpture-eponge-bleue-sans-titre-SE-167-circa-1959.jpg?w=178″,”width”:178,”height”:240},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-116.-Yves-Klein-Sculpture-eponge-bleue-sans-titre-SE-167-circa-1959.jpg?w=356″,”width”:356,”height”:480},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-116.-Yves-Klein-Sculpture-eponge-bleue-sans-titre-SE-167-circa-1959.jpg?w=445″,”width”:445,”height”:600},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-116.-Yves-Klein-Sculpture-eponge-bleue-sans-titre-SE-167-circa-1959.jpg?w=569″,”width”:569,”height”:768},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-116.-Yves-Klein-Sculpture-eponge-bleue-sans-titre-SE-167-circa-1959.jpg?w=759″,”width”:759,”height”:1024}},”fullWidth”:426,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t
ntBaconu2019su00a0Study for Head of Isabel Rawsthorne and George Dyer</em>u00a0was painted in 1967, when the artist was at full tilt, and uses the tight 14-by-12-inch format he favored for its compressed intensity. Itu2019s the first of just 12 diptychs in that size, and one of only two that place Rawsthorne and Dyeru2014two of the most charged presences in his lifeu2014side by side. Bacon didnu2019t collect sitters so much as orbit them, and these two were central: Rawsthorne, with her sharp, architectural features, and Dyer, whose presence in his work would grow heavier and more fraught as their relationship unraveled.</p>nnnn
ntSotheby’s catalog treats Baconu2019s circle as a kind of Soho pantheon, but the truth is simpler: he repeatedly painted the people he drank with, fought with, and depended on. Between 1963 and Dyeru2019s death in 1971, Bacon produced 40 portraits of him; Rawsthorne appears nearly as often. What matters here isnu2019t the mythology but the arrangement: two heads sharing a diptych, neither looking at the other, both caught in Baconu2019s familiar churn of affection, distortion, and dread. Itu2019s a small format doing a lot of emotional heavy lifting.</p>nnnn
ntIt’s worth noting that at Sothebyu2019s London last month it took 20 minutes and more than 20 bids for someone to walk away with Francis Baconu2019su00a0Portrait of a Dwarf</em>u00a0(1975), which hammered above its u00a36 million to u00a39 million estimate, ultimately bringing in u00a313.1 million with fees (about $17.6 million). Will something similar happen here?</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Phillips”,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761742,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Bacon_Study-for-Head-of-Isabel-Rawsthorne-and-George-Dyer.jpg?w=1024″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Bacon_Study-for-Head-of-Isabel-Rawsthorne-and-George-Dyer.jpg?w=320″,”width”:320,”height”:197},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Bacon_Study-for-Head-of-Isabel-Rawsthorne-and-George-Dyer.jpg?w=640″,”width”:640,”height”:394},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Bacon_Study-for-Head-of-Isabel-Rawsthorne-and-George-Dyer.jpg?w=800″,”width”:800,”height”:493},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Bacon_Study-for-Head-of-Isabel-Rawsthorne-and-George-Dyer.jpg?w=1024″,”width”:1024,”height”:631},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Bacon_Study-for-Head-of-Isabel-Rawsthorne-and-George-Dyer.jpg?w=1024″,”width”:1024,”height”:631}},”fullWidth”:933,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:[]},{“ID”:1234761719,”position”:12,”positionDisplay”:13,”date”:”2025-11-14 09:50:32″,”modified”:”2025-11-14 14:40:46″,”title”:”Henri Matisse,u00a0Figure et bouquet (Tu00eate ocre)</em>, $15 millionu2013$25 million, at Christieu2019s”,”subtitle”:null,”slug”:”henri-matisse-figure-et-bouquet-tete-ocre-15-million-25-million-christies-ross-weis-collection”,”caption”:”Henri Matisse,u00a0Figure et bouquet (Tu00eate ocre)</em>, (1937)”,”description”:”ntttt
ntPainted in early 1937,u00a0Figure et bouquet (Tu00eate ocre)</em>u2014from the Ross Weis Collectionu2014comes from the period when Matisse finally returned to the easel after years spent making murals, retrospectives, and long-distance escapes that conveniently doubled as artistic sabbaticals. The result isnu2019t a grand reinvention so much as a recalibration: broad, unmodulated slabs of color locked against thin, nervous contours. Matisse’s cut-outs remain his most famous works of the 1930s, but paintings like this one show a more interesting tensionu2014a painter trying to decide how much structure he could strip away without the whole thing falling apart.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Christie’s Images Ltd. 2025″,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761720,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-3A_HENRI-MATISSE-Figure-et-bouquet-Tete-ocre.jpg?w=758″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-3A_HENRI-MATISSE-Figure-et-bouquet-Tete-ocre.jpg?w=178″,”width”:178,”height”:240},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-3A_HENRI-MATISSE-Figure-et-bouquet-Tete-ocre.jpg?w=355″,”width”:355,”height”:480},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-3A_HENRI-MATISSE-Figure-et-bouquet-Tete-ocre.jpg?w=444″,”width”:444,”height”:600},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-3A_HENRI-MATISSE-Figure-et-bouquet-Tete-ocre.jpg?w=569″,”width”:569,”height”:768},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/LOT-3A_HENRI-MATISSE-Figure-et-bouquet-Tete-ocre.jpg?w=758″,”width”:758,”height”:1024}},”fullWidth”:426,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t
ntTo my eye, Kline is the only postwar heavyweight whose paintings actually look as alive as people claim Abstract Expressionism felt. (Okay, I admit it, Iu2019m a fan.)u00a0Placidia</em>, painted in 1961 and selling from the Ross Weis Collection, is proof. At more than five by seven feet, the canvas behaves like a live wire, black bars slashing through white space with the kind of velocity that makes most of his contemporaries’ works look mannered by comparison.</p>nnnn
ntKline loved to insist there was no hidden narrative, and maybe there isnu2019t one. The paintingu2019s rarity on the market (a half-century in one private collection) isnu2019t the point. The point is thatu00a0Placidia</em>u00a0captures the part of AbEx that still feels modern: the refusal to prettify, the impatience with metaphor, the sense that painting is an event, not an illustration. Iu2019m biased, but this one has a pulse.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Christie’s Images Ltd. 2025″,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761743,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Franz-Kline-Placida.png?w=1024″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Franz-Kline-Placida.png?w=320″,”width”:320,”height”:236},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Franz-Kline-Placida.png?w=640″,”width”:640,”height”:472},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Franz-Kline-Placida.png?w=800″,”width”:800,”height”:590},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Franz-Kline-Placida.png?w=1024″,”width”:1024,”height”:756},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Franz-Kline-Placida.png?w=1280″,”width”:1280,”height”:945}},”fullWidth”:779,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:[]},{“ID”:1234761726,”position”:14,”positionDisplay”:15,”date”:”2025-11-14 09:57:33″,”modified”:”2025-11-14 14:46:36″,”title”:”Joan Mitchell,u00a0Untitled</em>, $10 millionu2013$15 million, at Phillips”,”subtitle”:null,”slug”:”joan-mitchell-untitled-10-million-15-million-phillips-modern-contemporary-evening-sale”,”caption”:”Joan Mitchell,u00a0Untitled</em>, (1957u20131958)”,”description”:”ntttt
ntPainted just before Joan Mitchell left New York for France, this untitled work from 1957u201358 shows is crowded but not chaotic. Coils of red, yellow, and green racing toward a bright center, then pulling back before the whole thing detonates. Mitchell understood that white wasnu2019t emptyu2014it was also full of tension. The drips, the tangles, the sudden pockets of airu2014none of it is accidental, and none of it indulges the macho mythologies of the men who founded Abstract Expressionism. Itu2019s one of the big New Yorku2013period Mitchells where you can feel the tectonic plates of her style shifting in real time.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Phillips”,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761740,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Joan-Mitchell_Untitled.png?w=1024″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Joan-Mitchell_Untitled.png?w=320″,”width”:320,”height”:240},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Joan-Mitchell_Untitled.png?w=640″,”width”:640,”height”:480},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Joan-Mitchell_Untitled.png?w=800″,”width”:800,”height”:598},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Joan-Mitchell_Untitled.png?w=1024″,”width”:1024,”height”:766},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Joan-Mitchell_Untitled.png?w=1024″,”width”:1024,”height”:766}},”fullWidth”:769,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t
ntAgnes Martinu2019su00a0The Garden</em>u00a0(1964), from the Lauder Collection, comes from the years when her grids were at their most exacting. A six-foot square field of pale whites, yellows, and greens, the painting is built from rectangles so close that they almost cancel each other outu2014which is exactly the point, because Martin wasnu2019t offering enlightenment. She was testing how little a painting could do while still holding the viewer in place.</p>nnnn
ntThe grid here is drawn by hand, the pencil lines barely visible. The surface hums because every tiny shift in tone feels earned, not mystical. Itu2019s a great example of Martinu2019s lifelong argument that clarity is more radical than expression. If Martinu2019s delicate pictures knock your socks off, Iu2019d suggest a visit to Pace Gallery, where 13 works from her u201cInnocent Loveu201d series are on view from November 7 through December 20u2014and of course, a visit to the Breuer Building, where Sotheby’s is showing works such as this one before selling them.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Sotheby’s”,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234761729,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-17.-Agnes-Martin-Untitled-4.jpg?w=1024″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-17.-Agnes-Martin-Untitled-4.jpg?w=240″,”width”:240,”height”:240},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-17.-Agnes-Martin-Untitled-4.jpg?w=480″,”width”:480,”height”:480},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-17.-Agnes-Martin-Untitled-4.jpg?w=600″,”width”:600,”height”:600},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-17.-Agnes-Martin-Untitled-4.jpg?w=768″,”width”:768,”height”:768},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Lot-17.-Agnes-Martin-Untitled-4.jpg?w=1024″,”width”:1024,”height”:1024}},”fullWidth”:575,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:[]},{“ID”:1234761731,”position”:16,”positionDisplay”:17,”date”:”2025-11-14 10:03:31″,”modified”:”2025-11-14 14:53:07″,”title”:”Why Sothebyu2019s Dominates the Top End This Season”,”subtitle”:null,”slug”:”why-sothebys-dominates-the-top-end-this-season”,”caption”:”Sothebyu2019s new global headquarters in the iconic Marcel Breuer building in New Yorkn”,”description”:”ntttt
ntSothebyu2019s appears to have secured most of the seasonu2019s genuine trophy material, and the distribution isnu2019t subtle. Eleven of the 15 highest-estimated lots come from the house, including all three of the seasonu2019s most impressive Klimts, the marvelous van Gogh, and the Basquiat. Part of this is consignment strategyu2014Sothebyu2019s has leaned into single-owner collections with concentrated firepoweru2014but part of it is simply timing. The Lauder collection alone could have reshaped the season, but paired with the Pritzker group and a strong contemporary slate inu00a0“The Now,” it effectively monopolizes the upper bracket. Christieu2019s holds its own in the Ross Weis collection, but the balance of power is clear.</p>nnnn
ntThe estimates tell one story; the bidding will tell another. In a season defined by caution, the top of the market still tilts toward spectacle, and this yearu2019s November sales show that the appetite for blue-chip names hasnu2019t gone awayu2014itu2019s just become more discriminating. Whether that discipline holds under the lights of the saleroom is the last question left.</p>n</div>”,”alt”:””,”image_credit”:”Photography by Stefan Ruiz”,”url”:”https://www.artnews.com/list/art-news/market/november-auctions-top-lots-to-watch-1234761661/”,”image_id”:1234760707,”image”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sothebys-exterior-horizontal.jpg?w=1024″,”sizes”:{“pmc-gallery-s”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sothebys-exterior-horizontal.jpg?w=320″,”width”:320,”height”:216},”pmc-gallery-m”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sothebys-exterior-horizontal.jpg?w=640″,”width”:640,”height”:432},”pmc-gallery-l”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sothebys-exterior-horizontal.jpg?w=800″,”width”:800,”height”:540},”pmc-gallery-xl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sothebys-exterior-horizontal.jpg?w=1024″,”width”:1024,”height”:691},”pmc-gallery-xxl”:{“src”:”https://www.artnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/Sothebys-exterior-horizontal.jpg?w=1280″,”width”:1280,”height”:864}},”fullWidth”:852,”fullHeight”:575,”mime_type”:”image”,”ad”:””,”appleSongID”:null,”enableAppleGA”:false,”additionalDescription”:null,”subtitleColor”:null,”additionalSubtitle”:null,”additionalSubtitleColor”:null,”ads”:{“html”:”t