Rare Basquiat Painting Could Fetch Up to $15M at Sotheby’s Auction

A newly surfaced early painting by Jean-Michel Basquiat—one that has not been seen publicly for more than three decades—is set to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction in New York on May 13.

The untitled 1981 work, created when Basquiat was just 20 years old, carries a pre-sale estimate of $10 million to $15 million, according to Grégoire Billault, Sotheby’s chairman of contemporary art.

First reported by ARTnews, the painting will be among the most anticipated highlights of Sotheby’s Modern Evening Auction. Exhibitions for both the Modern and Contemporary sales open to the public on May 2 and will run through May 15.

Describing the significance of the piece, Billault noted that it “captures the heat and urgency of [Basquiat’s] breakout moment: a frenetic, mythic figure scrawled in oil stick on paper, hovering between the street and the studio.”

The five-foot-wide work exemplifies the raw, urgent energy that would come to define Basquiat’s meteoric rise in the art world.

The sale arrives at a cautious moment for the high-end art market. Global sales of fine art dropped by 12 percent in value in 2023, creating what Billault described as a “lull” in available inventory. Against that backdrop, Sotheby’s is banking on the rarity and freshness of works like the Basquiat to reenergize collectors’ interest.

“Because there’s less volume, you need to be more astute and bring things that are really exciting,” Billault said. “These are works that have never been seen. Completely fresh to the market.”

In addition to the Basquiat, Sotheby’s Contemporary Evening Auction will feature significant works from artists including Lucio Fontana, Robert Rauschenberg, and pieces from the collections of Sally and Victor Ganz—all expected to command prices upwards of $10 million.

Sotheby’s anticipates that its Modern and Contemporary evening sales could collectively bring in between $382.9 million and $525.2 million.

While acknowledging the smaller scale of this auction season, Billault remains optimistic. “There’s less for sale,” he said, “but in terms of pricing, I see a market that’s doing actually very well.”

He added, “This may not be the biggest season, but just imagine being able to buy what Barbara Gladstone collected over 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.”

With the appearance of a rare, early Basquiat and several other historic pieces, Sotheby’s aims to reignite excitement at the top end of the global art market.