Phillips Modern & Contemporary Sale Nets  $115.2 M., With Strong Results for Women Artists

The team at Phillips seemed delighted with the results of its Modern and Contemporary Art Evening Sale, which kicked off at the important time of 5pm on Tuesday. The auction house sold the property for $115.2 million against an estimate of $84.2 million, the highest pre-sale estimate since the bubble days of 2022. All 40 lots found buyers, with two works by Richard Prince and Albert Oehlen withdrawn before the sale.

The auction total is nearly double the $61.2 million for 31 lots in November (excluding the dinosaur fossils it offered) and more than double the $52 million for 36 lots in May 2025. To put that in perspective, the auction’s average lot value was $2.9 million, more than double last May’s average lot value of $1.4 million.

Only about 19 of the 40 lots have third-party guarantees. Given that several works sold for less than their low estimates, it appears that many consignors were willing to accept lower reserves. Approximately 50% of the lots receive priority bidding through Phillips’ proprietary system, which offers a 4% discount on the buyer’s premium if bidders bid more than 48 hours in advance. This is further proof that the auction house’s new system is working: since priority bidding was introduced in July 2025, 40% of all lots sold have reportedly attracted such bids as of January, with the value of lots sold before auction eight times higher than in the first half of 2025, and the number of early auction bids quadrupling.

Phillips is perhaps best known for what it does best: selling works by living artists on the secondary market, something that’s not possible on the primary market. Joseph Yaeger 2021 Tenders for Plaster Linen Watercolor, There is a light but it always goes outcan only be described as crazy. As soon as auctioneer Henry Highley opened the lot, seven experts had their hands raised trying to place phone bids. In total, about 10 bidders made more than 30 bids on the painting of a hand holding a lit match, raising its bid to $477,300 against an estimate of just $60,000. The winner was a client who was on the phone with Tamila Kerimova, Senior Director UK. The price broke Sotheby’s auction record of $320,000 for the artist set last week.

An early painting by Anna Weyant, depicting a flaxen-haired woman sitting face down at a dining table with cloud-patterned wallpaper curling slightly behind her, sold for $980,400 against an estimate of $380,000. She created this work in 2019, three years before joining Gagosian. Six bidders competed for the painting, with Bernard Lagrange of Gagosian Art Consulting competing against Courtney Pettit of Pettit Art Partners, who emerged victorious.

A 2020 work by Salman Toor, represented by Luhring Augustine, sold for $335,400 against an estimate of $180,000. By comparison, his primary-market works sell for about $90,000 to $120,000, said Carolyn Kohlberg, Phillips’ director of sales.

Prices for works by important 20th century female artists are catching up with their male counterparts, including Lee Bontecou, ​​Pat Passlof, Olga de Amaral, Helen Frankenthaler and Georgia O’Keeffe, with works exceeding expectations. A rare Bontecou pastel painting on canvas more than tripled its $1.2 million estimate to $4.3 million, setting a record for a two-dimensional work by the artist.

Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips have all collected gold textile works by de Amaral this season, with Phillips’ work from 2015 widely considered the best of the three. Even as Haley hammered down the hammer on a client for $1.25 million during a phone call with Miami Vice Chairman Vivian Pfeiffer, Kohlberg offered $1.3 million, or $1.7 million, including commissions. That’s nearly three times the work’s estimated price of $600,000. By comparison, a 1990 Sotheby’s work by the Colombian textile artist sold for $742,400 and has seen its market price soar since its 2024 exhibition at the Fondation Cartier, while a Christie’s work, also from 2015, will be auctioned on Thursday.

Consultant Erica Samuels beat out four other bidders, including two in the room, to win a small double-sided painting by Georgia O’Keeffe Maple leaves and blooming cactusstarting in the 1920s. The work was exhibited in Edith Halpert’s downtown gallery and has been in the same collection since 1978. “This double-sided canvas is 100 years old and feels so fresh,” Samuels texted art news After sales. “I feel good about American painting.”

Phillips Gallery, under the leadership of Vice Chairman Jeremiah Evarts, who joined in 2021, has been committed to promoting the diversity of Impressionist, modern and American paintings. The gallery launched 80 works in these categories this season, compared with 65 for all of 2024. It won the Danish art collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr., son of philanthropist Frances Lehman Loeb (of Lehman Brothers). Lehman Brothers), thanks in large part to Evarts’ ties to the family.

Following the sale of several works from the series in London in March, five more works were offered at this week’s evening auction, followed by a further 27 works on Thursday morning. In the evening sale, the top lot in the collection was a 1902 self-portrait by Skagen painter PS Krøyer, which sold for $1.3 million, more than four times its estimate and breaking the artist’s record of $1.1 million set in 2000. The buyer was a client who was on the phone with Tokyo-based strategy consultant Takako Nagasawa. Prior to the auction, Phillips visited select pieces from the collection in seven locations, including Tokyo and Hong Kong. “We knew people were interested in Asia and then expanded that interest,” Evarts told art news.

The highest-valued lot in the sale is a Warhol work sixteen jackiedating from 1964, is the fifth time it has appeared at auction in five years. It last sold at Christie’s in 2023 for $25.9 million. Phillips is valued at just $15 million and has a third-party guarantee. Haley opened the bid at $11 million and fielded several bids between deputy chairman Scott Nussbaum and London managing director India Phillips, who joined the company in February from Bonhams. Nussbaum’s client won with a hammer price of $13.5 million, which represented a huge loss for the seller.

Client of Gerhard Richter Color Abstracts Bethanstarting in 1984, also lost money. They bought the work at Christie’s Hong Kong in 2022 for US$10.2 million, and it was sold at the Phillips auction house for a low estimate of US$6.5 million (US$8.1 million including commission).

Finally, Phillips himself became interested in a 1948 black-and-white drip painting by Jackson Pollock, the second time the company had offered it. It was first sold to filmmaker David Mimran in November 2024 for $15.3 million as a “prestigious private collection property,” but he reneged on the deal, prompting a highly publicized lawsuit. We now know the shipper was Robert Mnuchin, who died late last year. Possibly taking advantage of the Mnuchin series being shown at Sotheby’s this season, as well as the major Pollock drip paintings by SI Newhouse Jr. being shown at Christie’s the same year, Phillips decided to re-auction the work. This time, likely affected by legal disputes, it sold for just $9.2 million to the client who spoke to Nussbaum on the phone.

By the time the Phillips sale ends, the fast-paced art world has entered its next phase. Most attendees had headed uptown for Sotheby’s Modern Evening Sale or downtown for the Whitney Gala.