In New York, Sotheby’s Repositions Itself as a Cultural Destination

Sotheby’s reported unprecedented attendance last month for its record-shattering $1.173 billion marquee week sales—with queues circling the block from the moment its new Breuer Building headquarters opened on November 8 and more than 25,000 visitors passing through in just over a week. The auction house has, it seems, secured a new level of widespread popularity, drawing audiences beyond the usual art-world crowd

Now, “Icons: Back to Madison” is bringing together some of the most widely celebrated works the auction house has sold over the years. Masterpieces acquired by private collectors and museums will return to Sotheby’s for the exhibition, which will be on view at the new Madison Avenue location December 13-21—a first-of-its-kind showcase made possible through a collaboration with Etihad Airways. With this show, Sotheby’s seems determined to uphold the Breuer Building’s museum-rich legacy by utilizing its landmark spaces not only to showcase art-history-defining artworks and collectibles headed to auction but also to celebrate the auction house’s own institutional history and its role in preserving the resonance of that history.

Among the highlights is Banksy’s Love is in the Bin (2018), the only artwork ever created live in an auction room when, in a radically Duchampian gesture, it partially self-shredded the moment Sotheby's hammer fell at its record price of £1.04 million. Although Sotheby’s staff admitted they had no idea the frame had been modified—and Banksy subsequently released a behind-the-scenes video revealing the mechanism hidden inside—the auction house and the sale itself played a key role in shaping the work’s meaning and afterlife.

Also in the exhibition is Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Untitled (1982), which sold in 2017 for a record-shattering $110.5 million, the highest price ever paid at auction for an American artist. Although the work was reportedly purchased by Japanese collector Yusaku Maezawa, it may have changed hands since, as the painting now appears courtesy of billionaire Kenneth C. Griffin, who is widely credited with pushing Basquiat’s market into the stratosphere through several landmark acquisitions that reset comparables at the very top. The painting was initially owned by the Annina Nosei Gallery in New York before being sold to Phoebe Chason, who sold it to Alexander F. Milliken in 1982 for $4,000. After that, it remained out of public view until its sale at Christie’s in 1984 to Emily and Jerry Spiegel for $19,000. When it resurfaced at Sotheby’s in 2017, painted by Basquiat at 21 and already at the height of his ascent, it far exceeded its presale estimate of $60 million.

Also courtesy of Griffin is Andy Warhol’s Shot Orange Marilyn (1964), the silkscreen famously marked by a bullet hole from an unauthorized performance at the Factory. The work sold anonymously at Sotheby’s in 1998 for more than $17.3 million. As Nate Freeman reported in Vanity Fair after the 2022 Christie’s sale of Shot Sage Blue Marilyn for roughly $195 million, Griffin had acquired the Shot Orange Marilyn from the estate of Si Newhouse in a private sale orchestrated by former Sotheby’s specialist and mega-dealer Tobias Meyer for about $240 million. In a 1998 BBC article, Meyer—then still a young Sotheby’s specialist—called the work “a wise buy,” likely echoing the same sentiment years later while facilitating what remains one of the most emblematic deals of the century.

Meyer, in the same article, described Shot Orange Marilyn as the equivalent of a De Kooning, a Jasper Johns or an important Picasso. All three are represented in the show, which includes de Kooning’s seminal Interchange (1955) and Jasper Johns’s False Start (1959), both also courtesy of Griffin. Created during de Kooning’s pivotal transition from the “Women” series into a more gestural, landscape-inflected abstraction, Interchange was acquired by Griffin from David Geffen in 2016 for roughly $300 million—reported independently by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal—after last appearing at auction at Sotheby’s in 1989, where it fetched $20.68 million, then a record for a living artist. Johns’s False Start, meanwhile, last sold at auction in November 1988 for $17.05 million—a record for a living artist at the time—before being acquired by Griffin from the Geffen Foundation in 2006 for a reported $80 million.

Returning to New York from the YAGEO Foundation Collection in Taiwan are Piet Mondrian’s 1929 Composition No—II and Francis Bacon’s Three Studies for Portrait of Lucian Freud (1969). The former sold at Sotheby’s in 2022 for $51 million, setting a new auction record for Mondrian; one of only three works featuring the commanding red square at upper right and the only example remaining in private hands, the painting survived World War II in France before following the artist belatedly to the U.S. in 1950. Bacon’s triptych last sold at Sotheby’s in November 2003, fetching $3,816,000, but its price has risen significantly ever since: the most recent sale of another Three Studies for Portrait of Lucian Freud took place on November 12, 2013, at Christie’s, achieving $142.4 million (including buyer’s premium), which remains the auction record for the artist.

Also resurfacing in the exhibition is Jane Birkin’s original Hermès Birkin, which sold this summer for more than $10 million, drawing renewed attention to the rising value of rare luxury objects. The record-setting buyer was Shinsuke Sakimoto, a Japanese entrepreneur in the resale business and former professional soccer player, who reportedly purchased the bag under his company’s name, Valuence Japan. Another rare collectible on view is Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Medusa Pendant Necklace (c. 1904), on loan from the Tiffany & Co. archives after re-emerging at Sotheby’s in 2021 as part of the sale of the Schocken family collection. Estimated at $100,000-200,000, it ultimately fetched $3.65 million, setting a new auction record for a Louis Comfort Tiffany jewel.

“‘Icons: Back to Madison’ is more than an exhibition; it reflects Sotheby’s longstanding legacy and marks a return to Madison Avenue, a center of art, culture and collecting for generations,” Courtney Kremers, Sotheby’s vice chairman, senior specialist post-war and contemporary art, told Observer. She added that by reuniting some of the most remarkable works ever sold at Sotheby’s—including pieces from private and museum collections, several of which are on view for the first time in decades—the auction house is giving audiences an exceptional opportunity to encounter masterpieces that have influenced the global landscape of collecting. “Bringing these works together transforms the Breuer into a space of discovery and underscores Sotheby’s enduring place within New York’s cultural landscape.”

As part of its strategy, Sotheby’s is publishing a book with Phaidon featuring 100 of the most iconic works ever sold at the auction house. “Icons” merchandise, designed in collaboration with U.K.-based artist Angelica Hicks, will be available at the exhibition, including a sketchbook, notecards, stickers and apparel. Also with Phaidon, Sotheby’s will publish Breuer, the definitive monograph on Marcel Breuer and his legacy, showcasing Sotheby’s new global headquarters in New York.

In keeping with the holiday spirit, Sotheby’s has partnered with Tom Martin on a bespoke painted ornament featuring a snowy street scene outside the Breuer—an initiative that perhaps gestures toward its aim to compete with the major seasonal spectacles on Fifth Avenue, from the historical light shows at Saks and Bergdorf Goodman to the festive façades of Cartier and Tiffany further down the street.

Sotheby’s will also present “Swinging on a Star: The Private Collection of Kathryn and Bing Crosby” ahead of the December 18 auction—a festive presentation that leans into celebrity culture and lifestyle. Drawn from the couple’s personal collection, the auction will include items across a wide price spectrum, from Kathryn’s holiday-evocative fashion, including her ivory Jean Louis coat from the Bing Crosby Christmas Show, to fine and decorative art favored by Bing, along with Hollywood memorabilia such as the Erard grand piano featured in High Society, prized works by Sir Alfred Munnings and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and rare Fabergé creations, including Kathryn’s aventurine quartz lion and sapphire mouse.

It’s striking how Sotheby’s, globally, is toeing the line between museum and luxury brand, deploying a form of intentional brand dilution designed to multiply its symbolic capital across price tiers and target audiences within an economy shaped by content, experience and spectacle.

Altogether, the rollout appears to be a successful expression of Sotheby’s “New World” experience, which saw the auction house opening boutique-style flagships across its Hong Kong, Paris and now New York venues, with full cross-category luxury environments designed to attract audiences far beyond traditional art-world insiders—targeting visitors who might not buy at auction but will engage with the Sotheby’s brand at other levels, whether that means shopping for one-of-a-kind jewelry or buying an exhibition souvenir.

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