April 27, 2025
The never-before-sold Jean-Michel Basquiat piece is estimated to go at between $10 million to $15 million.
On May 13, a recently discovered and never before early painting by the Black artist Jean-Michel Basquiat will be sold at Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction in New York. The late artist’s piece has a $10 million to $15 million estimate, as the piece hasn’t been seen publicly in over 30 years according to Grégoire Billault, Sotheby’s chairman of contemporary art.
As reported by ARTnews, the untitled work was painted in 1981 and will be one of the most anticipated pieces to be featured in the Modern Evening Auction.
The exhibitions for Sotheby’s Modern and Contemporary sales officially open on May 2 and will remain available through May 15.
Billault explains that the Basquiat was done when the artist was just 20 years old. The piece is five feet wide and is described as “[capturing] the heat and urgency of his breakout moment: a frenetic, mythic figure scrawled in oil stick on paper, hovering…between the street and the studio.”
Billault stated that this upcoming May auction is unique as it comes during a lull in the high-end art sales world, as global sales have dropped 12 percent by value in the year 2023. With rare and unique art pieces becoming harder and harder to secure, Sotheby’s is hopeful that the Modern Evening Auction’s lineup will be successful.
Billault began, “Because there’s less volume, you need to be more astute and bring things that are really exciting for everyone to get people’s attention—because people’s attention right now is very much in the news. These are works that have never been seen. Completely fresh to the market.”
Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction not only includes an original Basquiat but also will have top lots from artists such as Lucio Fontana, Robert Rauschenberg, Sally and Victor Ganz, and others, all valued at upwards of $10 million.
Billault revealed that Sotheby currently estimates that its two evening sales in Modern and Contemporary will take in somewhere between $382.9 million and $525.2 million.
“There’s less for sale,” Billault acknowledged, before continuing, “But in terms of pricing, I see a market that’s doing actually very well.”
“This may not be the biggest season,” he speculated, “but just imagine being able to buy what Barbara Gladstone was collecting for forty years. Or works from the estate of Roy Lichtenstein—one of the giants of American art history. The last estate of that caliber was probably Warhol at Sotheby’s in the 1990s.”
