11 New Artist Auction Records Set in May 2025

New York’s marquee spring auction week, which began on May 12th, was marked by high expectations, cautious bidding, and an undercurrent of uncertainty. The major houses—Sotheby’s, Christie’s, Phillips, and Bonhams—together were estimated to bring in $1.25 billion, down 17% from the equivalent sales last May. By the end of the week, the houses brought in a total of $1.27 billion.

The week’s top lot, Piet Mondrian’s Composition with Large Red Plane, Bluish Gray, Yellow, Black and Blue (1922), fetched $47.56 million at Christie’s, but the mood across salerooms was tense. Trophy works were withdrawn, including Andy Warhol’s highly anticipated Big Electric Chair (1967–68), which had been set to headline Christie’s 20th-century evening sale on Monday. Meanwhile, several top lots failed to sell across the auction houses, including the most anticipated lot at Sotheby’s modern evening sale on Tuesday: Alberto Giacometti’s Grande tête mince (1955), estimated in excess of $70 million.

The results reflect growing evidence that the upper echelon of the market is undergoing a reset. Once-infallible names like Giacometti and Warhol no longer guarantee bidding wars, as generational shifts and broader economic uncertainty reshape collector behavior. Heirs are increasingly disinterested in maintaining legacy collections, while new buyers are reluctant to stretch into eight-figure territory.

Yet, in the face of top-end volatility, a different kind of momentum is emerging. According to recent data from Art Basel and UBS, transaction volume is rising in the lower and mid-tier price segments, particularly among first-time and younger collectors. Meanwhile, momentum for women artists on the primary and secondary markets continues to accelerate. It’s in this context that five of the eleven most notable artist records set this May were for works by women artists.

The new auction records below suggest that bidders were interested in more than just prime inventory. Works by women artists—particularly Surrealists—and emerging and mid-career artists with growing momentum, including three represented by David Zwirner, saw prices soar past their previous records. Here, we spotlight 11 record-breaking sales. All prices include fees.

Marlene Dumas, Miss January, 1999

Sold for $13.65 million (Estimate: $12 million–$18 million)

Christie’s

The standout lot from this auction season was Marlene Dumas’s Miss January (1999), which became the most expensive work sold at auction by a living woman artist. The piece sold for $13.65 million at Christie’s 21st-century sale on May 14th. The nine-foot painting is a full body portrait of a blonde woman nude from the waist down, wearing a single sock on her left foot. The painting surpassed its $12 million low estimate.

Sara Friedlander, deputy chairman of post-war and contemporary art at Christie’s, referred to the work as “truly the magnum opus of Marlene Dumas.” The painting was offered by Mera and Don Rubell, longtime collectors and founders of the Rubell Museum in Miami and Washington, D.C., who acquired it more than two decades ago from Galerie Paul Andriesse in Amsterdam.

The previous record for a living woman artist was set by Propped (1992) by Jenny Saville, which sold for £9.5 million ($12.69 million) at Sotheby’s London in 2018. Dumas’s previous record was held by The Visitor (1995), which sold for $6.32 million at Sotheby’s London in 2008.

Frank Lloyd Wright, An Important Double-Pedestal Lamp for the Susan Lawrence Dana House, Springfield, Illinois, ca. 1904

Sold for $7.49 million (Estimate: $3 million–$5 million)

Sotheby’s

A rare lamp by Frank Lloyd Wright more than tripled its previous sale price. The piece sold for $7.49 million after inciting an 11-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s 20th-century evening sale.

Known as the Double Pedestal Lamp, the piece was designed for the Dana House, a 12,000-square-foot residence built in Wright’s signature Prairie style in Springfield, Illinois. The home is considered one of Wright’s most ambitious early residential commissions and contains the largest site-specific collection of his art glass and furniture.

The lamp features opalescent glass panels and pedestal motifs of local sumac, consistent with the house’s integration of architecture and nature. Only two examples of the lamp are known to exist, the other of which remains in the house’s collection following a 1988 acquisition.

According to Sotheby’s, the recently auctioned lamp last appeared at auction in 2002, when it sold for $1.98 million. Wright’s auction record previously stood at $2.9 million for another illuminated object—a 1902 ceiling light from the Francis W. Little House in Peoria, Illinois, which sold at Sotheby’s in 2023.

Remedios Varo, Revelación (El relojero), 1955

Sold for $6.22 million (Estimate: $3.5 million–$5.5 million)

Christie’s

A spectral painting by Spanish-born Surrealist Remedios Varo sold for $6.22 million at Christie’s 20th-century evening sale. The piece narrowly eclipsed her previous record, which was set by Armonía (Autorretrato Sugerente) (1956) when it sold for $6.19 million at Sotheby’s in 2020.

Revelación (El relojero) (1955) depicts a mystical horologist in a room filled with anthropomorphic clocks, reflecting Varo’s lifelong fascination with esotericism, time, and the unconscious. Each clock appears to reveal a portal behind billowing drapes. The work stands as a key example of the artist’s synthesis of magical realism, scientific curiosity, and the symbolic power of exile. The painting was created in the same year as one of Varo’s most famous works, Sympathy (1955), which sold for $3.13 million at Christie’s in 2019.

The auction record rides the ongoing interest in Surrealist work in recent years, particularly from women artists. Last May, the top auction record was set by Leonora Carrington’s Les Distractions de Dagobert (1945), which sold for $28.5 million at Sotheby’s.

Simone Leigh, Sentinel IV, 2020

Sold for $5.73 million (Estimate: $3.5 million–$5.5 million)

Christie’s

Standing at 10 feet tall, Simone Leigh’s colossal bronze sculpture Sentinel IV (2020) achieved $5.73 million, just exceeding its high estimate of $5.5 million. This work is the third in an edition of three, with two additional artist’s proofs. This sale nearly doubled Leigh’s previous auction record, which was set by Las Meninas II (2019) when it sold for $3.08 million at Sotheby’s in 2023.

Like many of Leigh’s sculptures, the work draws from African sculptural traditions, combining the female form with ceremonial and tool-like motifs. The towering sculpture is modeled after a Zulu ceremonial spoon, featuring a female body at its base that leads to a giant scooped form at the top. Another edition of this work is located outside the University of Texas in Austin’s Anna Hiss Gymnasium. The third edition of the work was featured in a solo exhibition mounted by David Kordansky Gallery in Los Angeles in 2020.

Michael Armitage, Mpeketoni, 2015

Sold for $2.36 million (Estimate: $2 million–$3 million)

Sotheby’s

Michael Armitage’s Mpeketoni (2015) sold for $2.37 million at Sotheby’s contemporary evening auction on May 15th, setting a new benchmark for the British Kenyan painter. This latest sale comes just a week after the opening of Armitage’s solo exhibition “Crucible” at David Zwirner’s new flagship gallery in New York.

Painted in oil on lubugo bark cloth—a material harvested from Ugandan fig trees that is central to Armitage’s practice—Mpeketoni refers to the town in coastal Kenya where al-Shabaab militants executed 48 men during the 2014 World Cup. The composition filters this violence through Armitage’s characteristically dreamlike, allegorical lens: Six figures in soft pink robes encircle a turquoise pool, set within a lush, warped landscape of swaying trees and cascading forms.

The artist’s previous auction record was set by Muliro Gardens (baboons) (2016), which sold for $2.24 million at Sotheby’s in 2023. David Zwirner began jointly representing Armitage with White Cube in March 2022; White Cube had been showing the artist since 2015.

Dorothea Tanning, Endgame, 1944

Sold for $2.34 million (Estimate: $1 million–$1.5 million)

Christie’s

Dorothea Tanning’s Endgame (1944), a dreamlike reinterpretation of a chessboard, sold for $2.34 million, soaring past its $1.5 million high estimate at Christie’s 20th-century evening sale on May 12th. Tanning’s previous auction record was set by Le mal oublié (1955), which sold for $1.44 million at Christie’s in 2022.

Endgame was painted shortly after Tanning’s relationship with Max Ernst began in 1942. A section at the bottom of the painting that appears to be torn from the chessboard reveals a landscape recalling Sedona, Arizona, where the two Surrealists spent extended time together.

Tanning and Ernst shared a passion for chess, yet the work suggests an underlying intensity. The queen piece is represented by a silk white slipper, which is crushing a bishop’s mitre. Tanning once described chess as “a way of thinking.” She continued: “You have to be clever in a warlike way. You are a good chess player if you have a mean streak in you. I think mean people make good chess players.”

Carroll Dunham, Bathers Seventeen (Black Hole), 2011–12

Sold for $762,000 (Estimate: $250,000–$350,000)

Sotheby’s

Carroll Dunham’s Bathers Seventeen (Black Hole) (2011–12) sold for $762,000 at Sotheby’s sale of selections from the collection of the legendary late gallerist Barbara Gladstone on May 15th. The large-scale painting is one of Dunham’s more recent figurative paintings, a far cry from his post-Minimalist origins in the 1970s.

In Bathers Seventeen (Black Hole), a lone nude woman with flowing black hair leans over a body of water, gazing at a moonlit sea under a dark blue sky. The scene is framed by vibrant, stylized flora and rolling hills, channeling eroticism and Dunham’s distinct cartoon-esque aesthetic.

The work was exclusively in the esteemed private collection of Gladstone, who died last summer at 89. Initially estimated at $250,000–$350,000, it was the subject of competitive bidding and ultimately surpassed Dunham’s previous auction record of $591,000, fetched by Integrated Painting Seven (1992) at Sotheby’s in 2017.

Louis Fratino, You and Your Things, 2022

Sold for $756,000 (Estimate: $600,000–$800,000)

Christie’s

A new auction record was set for Louis Fratino when You and Your Things (2022) sold for $756,000 at Christie’s 21st-century evening sale on May 14th. The tender painting depicts a nude man curled up on a couch, surrounded by fruit, books, and tableware. This result just surpasses the artist’s previous record of $730,800, set at Sotheby’s in 2022 for An Argument (2021).

You and Your Things (2022) debuted at Galerie Neu in Fratino’s 2022 solo exhibition “Die bunten Tage.” Based in Brooklyn, the artist is represented by Sikkema Malloy Jenkins. Fratino’s intimate figurative paintings, often depicting queer life in city settings, has found a growing collector base in recent years. This market attention was bolstered by his participation in the main exhibition at the 2024 Venice Biennale, where his tender paintings of the male body in intimate settings were featured prominently.

Yu Nishimura, across the place, 2023

Sold for $406,400 (Estimate: $50,000–$70,000)

Sotheby’s

Yu Nishimura’s across the place (2023) shattered estimates at Sotheby’s on May 15th, where it featured in the contemporary evening sale. The work hammered $406,400, more than quadrupling its $70,000 high estimate and establishing a new record for the Japanese painter. David Zwirner announced representation of the artist in early May and is currently presenting his work in a solo show at its uptown gallery in New York.

Rendered in muted grays, creams, and a streak of dark blue, across the place depicts a seated figure drawn in Nishimura’s minimalist linework, nested within a ghostly double portrait. The figure’s serene posture—arms crossed, legs tucked over a stool—contrasts with the darkened, larger visage that looms behind, suggesting both psychological distance and emotional overlay.

The painting made its auction debut and drew competitive bidding. Nishimura’s previous record was set by Sandy Beach (2020) when it sold for $296,100 at Christie’s this past February.

Emma McIntyre, Up bubbles her amorous breath, 2021

Sold for $201,600 (Estimate: $50,000–$70,000)

Christie’s

Emma McIntyre’s Up bubbles her amorous breath (2021) more than doubled its high estimate, selling for $201,600 at Christie’s 21st-century sale. This smashed the New Zealand–based artist’s previous auction record of £100,800 ($126,147), set by If there is light that has weight (2021) at Christie’s in 2024.

Inspired by Keats’s poem “On a Picture of Leander,” the painting is characterized by swirling white gestures, bold black marks, and vivid gradients of yellow, violet, and pink. Scattered spheres and a stamped orange flower hint at a dreamlike, cosmic landscape. The painting gets its title from the poem, where the titular Leander drowns while crossing a body of water to reach his love, Hero. When her lantern goes out, she exclaims: “He’s gone; up bubbles all his amorous breath!” Originally exhibited in her first European solo show at Air de Paris in early 2022, the painting is emblematic of McIntyre’s lyrical and layered approach to abstraction.

The artist has gained traction in the years since graduating from the Elam School of Fine Arts at the University of Auckland in 2016. Her first solo show with David Zwirner, “An echo, a stain,” was presented in New York in 2023. The gallery started representing her in February 2024.

Ernst Yohji Jäger, Untitled, 2021

Sold for $190,500 (Estimate: $60,000–$80,000)

Sotheby’s

An untitled 2021 painting by Ernst Yohji Jäger achieved $190,500 at Sotheby’s during its contemporary evening auction on May 15th. The work more than doubled its high estimate, as bidders chased the Japanese German painter’s work.

Dreamlike and disquieting, the painting captures a seated figure rendered in cool green tones, set against a fractured, quasi-architectural backdrop bathed in golds and purples. Above the figure and building, a warped green sky is littered with floating orbs, contributing to the surreal atmosphere. These muted, softly layered canvases are characteristic of Jäger’s paintings.

The record far surpasses the Vienna-based artist’s previous record, which was set by Untitled 4 (two windows) (2020) when it sold for $73,080 at Christie’s in 2024. Beyond auctions, there’s been growing interest in Jäger’s work, evidenced by a string of solo exhibitions—at Galerie Crèvecoeur in Paris, Croy Nielsen in Vienna, and 15orient in New York—as well as institutional acquisitions by the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris and Museo Jumex.