NEW YORK, NY.- As the market prepares for the biggest season it has ever seen, Sotheby’s today unveils the full contents of its New York Marquee auctions. Among the most valuable sales series ever staged by the company, this season is also distinguished by the remarkable freshness of the material on offer, the vast majority of which has not been seen on the market in a generation.

Opening the season will be the hotly-anticipated sale of works from the collection of David M. Solinger - 23 exceptional works, each one with its own story to tell, and all bought soon after their creation, either directly from the artist or from those most closely connected with them. A highly successful lawyer who was a transformational force as President of the board of the Whitney Museum of American Art (the first person from outside the Whitney family to hold this position), David Solinger was at the vanguard of collecting in the post-war years, his collection presenting a precise vision of the art created on both sides of the Atlantic at that time. Highlights from the collection include:

• Willem de Kooning’s Collage from 1950, a dazzling example of the visceral power of abstraction in de Kooning’s hands and uniquely scattered with thumbtacks that capture forever his working practice (estimate $18/25 million)

• Pablo Picasso's Femme dans un fauteuil from 1927 - one of the earliest works in which the features of his most famous muse Marie-Thérèse Walter appear (estimate $15/20 million)

• Joan Miró's Femme, étoiles, painted on 7 May 1945, the day the the German High Command signed an unconditional surrender at Reims, and evoking both the horror of war and the hope of freedom (estimate $15/20 million)

• Alberto Giacometti's Trois hommes qui marchent (grand plateau), one of only a small number of examples to have been hand-painted by the artist himself (estimate $15/20 million)

Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction will present works from many of the most famous and significant artists of the late 19th and 20th centuries. Highlights include:

• Works from the Collection of William S. Paley, assembled over 40 years by one of the foremost collectors of Modern art in America, sold to benefit xxx and led by Pablo Picasso’s Guitare sur une table (estimate in excess of $25 million)

• A signature abstract grid painting from 1930 by pioneering artist Piet Mondrian (estimate in excess of $50 million)

• Henry Moore’s landmark commission for 1951 Festival of Britain - the most valuable work by any British sculptor offered at auction (estimate in excess of $30 million)

• Alberto Giacometti’s Caroline - a poignant painting of his ‘late muse’, regarded as one of his most significant oils on the subject (estimate $15/20 million)

• This striking portrait of Romana, the daughter of the Duchess Marika de la Salle - one of Lempicka’s greatest works, epitomising the artist’s Art Deco stylization (estimate $10/15 million)




• The Now Evening Auction returns to New York following two white-glove sales: in May earlier this year and November 2021. Once again, women artists will feature large in the sale, which this season showcases artists with strong institutional histories but little track record at auction. HIghlights include:

• Yoshitomo Nara’s Light Haze Days / Study - among the most important works by Nara to have ever appeared at auction, embodying a stylistically transcendent period within his oeuvre (estimate $9/12 million)

• Cecily Brown’s Eyes Wide Shut captures the artist’s unparalleled ability to seemingly transform paint into flesh (estimate $4/6 million)

• Rendered in Salman Toor’s signature emerald green, Four Friends from 2019 is arguably one of Toor’s most celebrated and powerful paintings, a key highlight of the artist’s first museum solo exhibition in 2020-2021 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. It carries the highest ever estimate for the artist at auction (est. $300/400,000).

Works by Jacqueline Humphries, Albert Oehlen and Avery Singer see their creators boldly engaging with technology as a means of image making, while tender portraits by the likes of Elizabeth Peyton, Julien Nguyen and Toyin Ojih Odutola evidence the uprooting of this historic genre in the 21st century.

Women artists feature large, from Charline von Heyl to Anna Weyant, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Cecily Brown and more.

In a year that has seen Contemporary sales at Sotheby’s reach a record high, this season’s Contemporary Evening Auction is the most valuable sale for the category in recent years. Highlights include:

• Andy Warhol’s White Disaster (White Car Crash 19 Times), from the artist's haunting Death and Disaster series, which is considered one of the most provocative artistic achievements of the 20th century – and arguably the most significant achievement of Warhol's career (estimate in excess of $80 million)

• Three major abstract paintings by Willem de Kooning, spanning three pivotal decades of the artist’s career (the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s) come to the market direct from the artist’s family. Led by Untitled, circa 1979, a singular masterwork of de Kooning’s oeuvre (estimate $30/40 million)

• Francis Bacon’s powerful Three Studies for Portrait of Lucian Freud from 1964 is the first of only five triptychs Bacon created of his contemporary Freud (estimate $30/40 million)

• A group of five works from the collection of Joel and Sherry Mallin, including major works by Robert Gober ever to have come to auction.

Additional details on highlights across all four evening auctions can be found in the attached press releases.

For the second year in a row, Sotheby's New York Sales, encompassing the Modern, Contemporary, and The Now Evening Auctions, will be presented in partnership with Samsung, the world’s leading TV manufacturer. Powering Sotheby’s pre-sale exhibitions, Samsung will showcase their state-of-the-art screens throughout Sotheby’s galleries, including the monumental, 110-inch class MICRO LED—a breath-taking display, featuring self-illuminated pixels forged from sapphires—it is the pinnacle of luxury home entertainment.