This November, auction catalogs serve as the holiday season’s most aspirational gift guides—and a bellwether for the art world at large.
Last year, the market rebounded after a significant post-pandemic slump; according to the 2026 Art Basel and UBS Global Art Market Report, public auction sales rose 9 percent in 2025. Next week, the industry is looking for an even larger infusion of capital as some of the world’s most important estates go up for auction.
Sotheby’s is bringing more than $1.1 billion dollars worth of art to the market, led by the $450 million collection of Argentine industrialist Nelly Arrieta de Blaquier. Van Gogh’s Blooming Chestnut Trees, 1890, estimated in the region of $180 million, is set to break the artist’s previous record, from 2022, of $117 million. The other lot crossing the nine-figure threshold, Paul Cézanne’s Arlequin, 1888-90, is estimated at around $120 million (the artist’s current record is $138 million, from 2022 as well).
Sotheby’s is also offloading the estates of American oil executive Armand Hammer, which includes a Cassatt and a Degas, and of American cable television mogul Theodore Baum and his wife, philanthropist Ruth Baum, whose holdings include prime paintings by Mark Rothko and Joan Mitchell.
If you opt to shop at Christie’s, you’ll find offerings from the estate of Agnes Gund, the revered patron and former MoMA president who passed away last year. An $8 million painting by Vija Celmins leads the sale. You can also bid on Near Abiquiu, New Mexico, 1930, a long-lost Georgia O’Keeffe painting that a woman recently found in a closet in the East Village. Estimated at $3-5 million, it’s a bargain compared to the $30 million Basquiat and the 20th-century marquee items: a Kandinsky and a Klimt each priced at $60-80 million. Overall, Christie’s aims to bring in $800 million in sales.
If it’s a Modigliani sculpture you covet, head to Phillips, where Tête, 1911-12, the artist’s limestone head, is on offer for $28-35 million. The auction house is calling it the “highest value sculpture” it’s ever sold. Almost 90 percent of the works in their evening sales will be on the block for the first time.
While these offerings have all made news, there are plenty of treasures to be found beyond the potential record-breakers. We asked nine art-world aficionados—writers, curators, and art historians with great taste but no auction-ready bank accounts—what they’d buy, if money were no object. Below, they recommend an anguished self-portrait, a creepy sculpture of a leg, and… charity.
Agnes Martin, Desert, 1967
Sotheby’s, estimate: $6,000,000 – $8,000,000
Date of sale: Nov. 16
Selected by Katy Hessel, art historian and author of The Story of Art without Men
“To continually stare at an Agnes Martin for the rest of my life would be a transcendental experience. She tests the limits of looking. If I were to wake up to this every day, I think I would live a much calmer existence. Works like Desert stop you in your tracks. You are forced to pause.”
Francis Bacon, Self-Portrait, 1972
Sotheby’s, estimate: $10,000,000 – $15,000,000
Date of sale: Nov. 16
Selected by Christian Viveros-Fauné, writer and curator of “Iván Tovar: Le Retour,” a collateral event of the 61st Venice Biennale
“If money were no object, I would snap up Francis Bacon’s Self-Portrait, 1972. He painted it at 61 years of age just months after the suicide of his model and lover George Dyer. I recently saw the canvas described as ‘a potent cocktail of grief and self-examination,’ which sounds about right, especially the ‘potent cocktail’ part.”
Vija Celmins, four works on offer
Christie’s, estimate: $8,000 – $8,000,000
Dates of Sale: various
AND Lee Lozano, Untitled, 1963-4
Christie’s, estimate: $12,000 – $18,000
Date of Sale: online
Selected by Jesse Bandler Firestone, independent curator & Associate Curator, RAY Triennial
“I’m not a collector, but if money were no object, I’d spend 14.2 million dollars this fall and I’d buy every Vija Celmins work coming to auction this November. I’m working on an exhibition involving one of her paintings, so I’ve been spending a great deal of time thinking about her work. And as a Capricorn, her drawing of Saturn (my ruling planet) feels more like a cosmic obligation than an acquisition. I’d also buy a Lee Lozano. For an artist so committed to refusal, I can think of no better home than my collection that doesn’t exist.”
Ruth Asawa, Untitled, 1968
Sotheby’s, estimate: $800,000 – $1,200,000
Date of Sale: Nov. 16
Selected by Danielle Wu, Communications and Exhibitions Director at Asian American Arts Alliance
“Ruth Asawa survived Japanese incarceration camps, received backlash for her public sculpture in San Francisco, and made art at a time when there were very few representations of women of color in the arts. Yet she remained a community-centered artist who was incredibly generous with her time and resources. Her story keeps unfolding each time I see her work. Her sculptures are playful, ethereal, and they encourage my own perseverance and creative devotion. It would be a dream to possess a physical reminder of Asawa’s spirit.”
Robert Gober, Untitled, 1992
Christie’s, estimate: $600,000 – $800,000
Date of Sale: Nov. 20
Selected by Bianca Bosker, author of the New York Times bestseller Get the Picture
“Robert Gober’s sculptures are weird, demented, creepy, and I love them. This piece is so unbelievably off-putting that it’d be insane to live with—but also, that’s the fun of it. It seems tragic when you first look at it, but really it’s more bizarre: Did this leg plunge into the room from another dimension? Was the rest of the body swallowed by a ravenous white wall? And why are this girl’s leg hairs so manly? As a longtime fan of Gober’s Short Haired Cheese, I covet anything sprouting his sinister and silly hairs.”
Simone Leigh, Runaway Bay, 2020
Sotheby’s, estimate: $2,500,000 – $3,500,000
Date of Sale: Nov. 16
Selected by Aurora James, Creative Director and Founder of Brother Vellies
“Hands down Simone Leigh’s Runaway Bay, 2020. A girl can dream. I am a forever fan of Simone and her large scale works make my heart skip a beat. The concept of living with one of these pieces everyday would be incredible. Of course, I would also need the house to match, which would mean a whole other interior project I would be equally elated about.”
Huguette Caland, Untitled (from Bribes de Corps), 1973
Sotheby’s, estimate: $400,000 – $600,000
Date of Sale: Nov. 17
Selected by Lumi Tan, curator and writer
“I’ve long followed Huguette Caland’s work from small presentations I’d seen over the years, but it wasn’t until I saw her retrospective currently on view at the Hammer Museum that I felt completely transported by the work—every painting, drawing, and textile was the expression of a rich life shaped by the intersection of political, personal, and cultural events across Beirut, Paris, and Los Angeles. In particular, the room dedicated to the ‘Bribes de Corps’ paintings was a revelation in how she used color and line towards eroticism and humor—the universal confusion and beauty that our bodies bring, alone or together. The purple and orange in this Untitled work gives an electric edge to the fleshiness.”
John Kacere, Laura II, 1993
Sotheby’s, estimate: $200,000 – $300,000
Date of Sale: Nov. 17
Selected by Diva Corp, an art criticism project based in Los Angeles
“I’d get the John Kacere piece and it’s not even close. I’m shocked to see it up for auction. He’s got, what, 120 paintings out there, total? So, it’s guaranteed to appreciate. Plus, just look at this one, Laura II. It typifies what Kacere’s best at: painting walls. Here he’s layered that smoky purple on so thin you can practically see the teeth of the linen poking through. And then, as we track up and to the right, Kacere upsets his own consistency with these muted, almost indistinguishable pools of light on the wall, just above the ruffled slip. He adds jabs like this to every painting of his. Always on the wall. It’s what I attend to, and get lost in, with Kacere.”
?
Selected by Jerry Saltz
“I have no idea what is coming under the nauseating hammer at any of these awful auction houses. But, I would buy whatever one obscenely priced masterwork that would otherwise never be able to be bought by a museum. I would buy it and give it to them. Otherwise, a pox on their houses.”
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