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The Top Collections Leading the May Marquee Auctions

More and more, the real competition between major auction houses involves securing single-owner consignments before strategically structuring the financial terms to ensure headline-generating sales.

From 2023 through 2024, trophy scarcity was the secondary market's defining challenge, with a sharp contraction at the top tier. Last fall saw the reemergence of trophy masterpieces that materially contributed to the revenue growth auction houses reported in 2025: up 9 percent to $20.7 billion, driven largely by stronger activity in the second half of the year and a series of record prices. The value of works sold for $1 million or more increased 21 percent year-on-year, while the ultra-high tier above $10 million rose 30 percent. The Modern segment reversed its three-year decline, rising 9 percent to $2.4 billion, while Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art showed the strongest growth, with values surging 47 percent to $1.8 billion.

Crucially, this resurgence at the top end was not simply a matter of renewed demand but of supply—specifically, the return of estate-driven material. Major single-owner collections have long underpinned the highest auction totals and, at pivotal moments, have reset price benchmarks across categories, reestablishing confidence and recalibrating value at the top of the market. According to the recent Contemporary Art Market Confidence Report by ArtTactic, single-owner collections in New York auctions totaled $730.9 million, a 89.9 percent increase from Q1 2025. Their reappearance is injecting both volume and credibility into a segment that had thinned out, giving auction houses not just inventory but narrative: fresh-to-market works with institutional-quality provenance and compelling stories.

Contributing to this—as many had predicted and hoped—is the highly anticipated generational wealth transfer, with an estimated $84 trillion expected to change hands over the next two decades. This is bringing to market masterpieces not only from legendary collectors but also from the estates of influential dealers who helped shape recent art history. Last year's spring marquee sales featured an $18.5 million selection from the collection of legendary dealer Barbara Gladstone and a $40.4 million trove from dealer Daniella Luxembourg. This May, the $130 million Robert E. Mnuchin collection leads Sotheby's evening sales, while the personal collection of gallerist Marian Goodman will headline Christie's 21st Century Evening Sale. Here are some of the top collections auction houses have secured this season, which are likely to sustain momentum, particularly at the very top end of the market.

The auction lots to watch this May

S. I. Newhouse's Collection

Masterworks from Agnes Gund's collection 

The David and Shoshanna Wingate Collection

Lorinda Payson de Roulet's Impressionist gems

Robert Mnuchin's collection

Henry ‘Hank’ S. McNeil's Minimalist masterworks

Marian Goodman's Richters

Enrico Donati, "The Last Surrealist"

Kermit Oswald's Keith Haring works

Anna Condo's ex-husband's works

Rabb Goldberg's Modern works

The Saul and Ellys Dennis collection

Diane Keaton's Architecture of an Icon

S. I. Newhouse's Collection

Masterpieces: The Private Collection of S.I. Newhouse, May 18

Combined estimate: in the region of $450 million

Headlining Christie's May marquee sales is a tightly curated group of 16 trophy works from media mogul S.I. Newhouse's collection, expected to generate around $450 million at the low end. Anchoring the sale is Jackson Pollock's Number 7A (1948), enamel on canvas, a monumental 131.5-inch-wide composition executed in his signature drip technique, among the largest of its kind still in private hands and not seen publicly since 1977, offered with an estimate in the $100 million range. The other top lot is Constantin Brancusi's rare gilded bronze Danaïde (1913)—the only example of its kind in private hands, as four of the six casts are held in major institutions—coming to auction with an estimate also around $100 million, underscoring its rarity and art-historical weight. The selection spans key movements and breakthroughs of 20th and 21st-century art, including Pablo Picasso's sculptural Tête de femme (1909), bronze, estimated at $40-60 million, paired with a Cubist painting of the same subject estimated at $6-7 million, as well as Homme à la guitare (1913), a seminal Cubist work once owned by Gertrude Stein and the Museum of Modern Art, offered at $35-55 million. Another Picasso highlight, La femme enceinte, 1er état (1950s), bronze, is estimated at $18-25 million. The group also features Piet Mondrian's Composition (1921), oil on canvas, at $35-65 million, Joan Miró's 1924 oil on canvas at $25-35 million, Henri Matisse's 1938 Nice-period painting at $30-50 million and Francis Bacon's Study for Portrait I (after the Life Mask of William Blake) (1955), oil on canvas, estimated at $4-6 million. Neo-Dada is represented by three career-defining Jasper Johns works from the 1950s: Figure 2, an encaustic on canvas estimated at $10-15 million; Halley Op at $6-8 million; and the iconic Grey Target at $20-30 million, all joined by Robert Rauschenberg's Leave (1955) at $7-10 million. Pop art is represented by Roy Lichtenstein's Voodoo Lily, at $6-8 million and Andy Warhol's Do It Yourself (1962), estimated at $20-30 million. Together, the group traces the evolution of modern art from Cubism to Pop, attesting to the breadth and exceptional quality of Newhouse's collection. Christie's has handled several additional auctions for the Newhouse estate, most notably Jeff Koons's mirror-polished Rabbit (1986), which sold for $91 million in 2019, becoming the most expensive work by a living artist ever sold at auction, while a group of 16 works from the collection brought $178 million in a dedicated sale in May 2023.

Masterworks from Agnes Gund's collection 

20th Century Evening Sale, May 18

Combined estimate: $145 million

When Agnes Gund passed away last September, her death marked the end of an era of artist patronage. Over decades, she played a defining role in nurturing the New York art ecosystem and beyond, joining the Museum of Modern Art's international council in 1967 and later serving as its president for 11 years. Had she chosen to retain the vast body of works she assembled over a lifetime, her collection might have rivaled—if not surpassed—the $1.6 billion estate of Paul Allen, sold by Christie's in 2022 as the highest-priced estate ever auctioned. Instead, Gund donated more than 1,500 works to museums and sold others to fund causes such as criminal justice reform and reproductive rights, consistently converting cultural capital into social impact. Headlining Christie's New York Evening Sale on May 18 are three masterpieces that hung in her apartment until the end, expected to fetch $145 million. The top lot is Mark Rothko's No. 15 (Two Greens and Red Stripe), a monumental late canvas where cold greens, blacks and deep indigo are pierced by a single red band, creating an atmospheric, shifting horizon suggestive of forest or northern sea. Painted six years after his turn toward darker tones, it is among the largest works from this period still in private hands and one of the few acquired directly from the artist—purchased by Gund during a 1967 studio visit and held ever since. Estimated at around $80 million, it may approach or surpass the current record. Alongside it is Cy Twombly's Untitled (1961), a key work from his Rome period in which his gestural, graffiti-like language reached a new intensity, shaped by the myths and energies absorbed in the city. With its unrestrained swirls and bursts of color, the painting channels a raw immediacy of expression, pushing toward the subconscious through the physical trace of the artist's hand, and is estimated at $40-60 million. The third highlight is Joseph Cornell's Untitled (Medici Princess) (1948), from his celebrated Medici series: a box assemblage centered on the image of Bronzino's Portrait of Bia de' Medici, the beloved daughter of Cosimo I, set within a blue painted box with glass shelves and map-lined compartments. The piece exemplifies his ability to merge Surrealism, abstraction and personal memory into a suspended, poetic world where historical time and private imagination converge and is estimated at $3-5 million, expected to exceed its previous auction high. As reported by the New York Times, Christie's secured the estate with a financial guarantee, underscoring the high-stakes competition for consignments that continues to define the market's upper tier.........

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