Sotheby’s New York is one of the world’s leading auction houses. Its May and November art auctions are pillars of New York City’s art scene.
There are auctions all year long, but during art auction season, the entire building becomes a huge museum-quality exhibition. It’s a great place for a date. The online exhibition catalogs are excellent, so you can still study the work, even if you can’t attend.
Sotheby’s Auctions
There are auctions all year long, but the big clusters that draw international art collectors are in May and November.
MAY
Modern Art Auction
Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction, including works by Cuban artist Lam, Mexican artist Tamayo, and Mexican artist Varo; goes on view at Sotheby’s showroom in Manhattan’s Upper East Side; on Friday, May 2, 2025, for auction on Tuesday, May 13, 2025 at 7pm. 🇨🇺 🇫🇷 🇲🇽 🇪🇸
Italian Art Auction
Im Spazio: The Space of Thoughts, an auction of mostly Italian masterworks from the collection of Israeli art dealer Daniella Luxembourg; goes on view at Sotheby’s in Manhattan’s Upper East Side; on Friday, May 2, 2025; for auction on Thursday, May 15, 2025 at 7pm. 🇮🇹
Contemporary and Now Art Auction
Sotheby’s The Now and Contemporary Evening Auction, including work by Haitian Puerto Rican art star Basquiat goes on view at Sotheby’s showroom in Manhattan’s Upper East Side; on Friday, May 2, 2025, for auction on Thursday, May 15, 2025 at 7:30pm. 🇺🇸 🇫🇷 🇭🇹 🇵🇷 🇷🇴
NOVEMBER
Art Auctions
Sotheby’s November featured collection is The Collection of Sydell Miller, the modern art collection of painting, sculpture, and design built by the beauty industry mogul of Ardell false eyelashes and Matrix Essentials salon products, who died in 2024. Her innovations included easy to apply false eyelashes, and cream hair colors that enabled hairstylists to paint color on hair. Auction highlights include Monet’s “Nymphéas” (1914-17), a water lily painting that represented his shift to monumental canvases; Henry Moore’s “Reclining Mother and Child” (1975-76), and Picasso’s “La Statuaire” (1925) which blended Cubism with Neo-Classical figurative forms. The auction is at Sotheby’s in Manhattan’s Upper East Side; on Monday, November 18, 2024, at 6pm. 🇫🇷 🇪🇸
Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction Latin highlights include British-Mexican Leonora Carrington’s painted wooden sculpture “La Grand Dame” (1951), and Mexican painter Remedios Varo’s surrealist painting “Los caminos tortuosos” (1958). The auction exhibition goes on view at Sotheby’s in Manhattan’s Upper East Side; on Friday, November 8, 2024, for auction on Monday, November 18, 2024 at 7pm. 🇫🇷 🇲🇽 🇪🇸
Sotheby’s Now and Contemporary Evening Auction features abstraction, pop art, and Maurizio Cattelan’s scandalous “Comedian.” The banana duct-taped to a canvas achieved viral fame in 2019. It’s Cattelan’s sly commentary on art and the art industrial complex. You may remember his “America,” a functioning solid gold toilet, installed at the Guggenheim Museum in 2011. There is also a Fernando Botero “Horse” (1992). The auction exhibition goes on view at Sotheby’s in Manhattan’s Upper East Side; on Friday, November 8, 2024, for auction on Wednesday, November 20, 2024 at 7pm. 🇨🇴 🇮🇹
Visit Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s New York
1334 York Ave
(between 71st & 72nd St)
Upper East Side, Manhattan
About Sotheby’s
Sotheby’s was the first auction house to fold Latin American art into its general auctions, thereby increasing valuations. The showroom moves into the Breuer Building on Madison Avenue (the former Whitney Museum) in 2025.
The most important work tends to be sold in the evening auctions. You can attend most auctions, but some are invitation only. Register to bid.
Do go see the exhibitions because they are museum-quality introductions to modern, contemporary, and now art. Even browsing exhibitions on the web is instructive. You can learn a lot about art.
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Latin Artists
Fernando Botero (1932-2023) was a Colombian figurative painter and sculptor famous for “Boterismo,” his unique style of voluptuous figures. 🇨🇴
Leonora Carrington (1917-2011) was a British Mexican painter and sculptor who was one of the last living participants in the Surrealist movement. Mexico is itself surreal, so it was a great place for her to grow as an artist. 🇬🇧 🇲🇽
Maurizio Cattelan (1960) is a self-taught Italian artist with a sly satirical approach to hyperrealistic sculpture and installation. He is best known for his scandalous “Comedian.” The banana duct-taped to a canvas achieved viral fame in 2019. You may remember his “America,” a functioning solid gold toilet, installed at the Guggenheim Museum in 2011. 🇮🇹
Claude Monet (1840-1926) was a French impressionist famous for his water lily paintings. He was losing his sight, but captured the light and feeling of his subjects. Squint your eyes while looking at the work to see it more as he saw it. 🇫🇷
Pablo Picasso (1881-1973) of Spain was one of the key figures in modern art and is one of the most famous artists of all time. The child prodigy had many periods in his work, including: Blue, Rose, African, Cubist, Neoclassical, and Surrealist periods. In the end, he put it all together in a unique style. Picasso’s paintings of his lovers are stunning. 🇪🇸
Remedios Varos (1908-1963) was a Spanish surrealist who fled from World War II to Mexico where she did her best work. Varos, British-Mexican artist Leonora Carrington, and Kati Horna, the Hungarian-Mexican photojournalist were a little group of expats who inspired each other in Mexico City’s famous Colonia Roma. Varos was interested in the mystical side of life. You can see it in her paintings. 🇪🇸 🇲🇽