April showers may bring May flowers, but in the art world, the early signs of spring also mean that the auction houses are gearing up for the first of their marquee New York sales. Typically, these auctions, from Christie’s, Sotheby’s, and Phillips, occur over the course of a week, but 2026’s calendar is a bit more fickle, owing to the Venice Biennale opening next week, followed by Frieze New York the following week. Sotheby’s is likely looking to capitalize on the collectors in town for Frieze by holding its “The Now & Contemporary Evening Auction” on May 14, the day after the fair’s VIP preview. The rest of the evening sales will resume the following week, with Christie’s holding its “20th Century Evening Sale” on May 18.
The May 2026 auctions will once again serve as a test of the strength of the high-end of the market. Last year’s May sales failed to meet expectations: the three houses’ pre-sale estimates believed they could fetch between $1.2 billion to $1.6 billion, collectively. (Those figures do not include any fees that are tacked onto the buyer.) The cumulative hammer total (sans fees) was a paltry $837.5 million, while the total, inclusive of fees, was just over $1 billion. But November 2025 brought better news, with a total of $2.2 billion (with fees) generated across the three houses. (All but one of the year’s top 10 lots came from the November sales.)
Across the evening sales are multiple works in the eight and nine figures, many of which have stellar provenance, like S.I. Newhouse, whose estate is offering 16 lots, eight of which are among the priciest on offer. Others come from the estates of former MoMA board president Agnes Gund and dealer Marian Goodman. The artists, none of whom are women, are familiar figures at this end of the market, from Picasso and Mondrian to Pollock and de Kooning to Warhol and Twombly. Two living artists, Jasper Johns and Gerhard Richter, also make the cut.
Below, a look at the top 20 lots on offer in the May 2026 sales, all of which are priced at $30 million or higher.
