Spring Sale: $2.3 Billion of Art

Auction houses ask record prices for Picasso and others; Sotheby’s kicks off with a major van Gogh

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The art market is redefining sticker shock.

Over the next two weeks, roughly $2.3 billion of Impressionist, modern and contemporary art will be offered for sale at the world’s chief auction houses in New York. Two pieces, a Pablo Picasso painting that could sell for at least $140 million and an Alberto Giacometti sculpture that could go for more than $130 million, could break records for the highest prices ever fetched at auction.

Spurred by the momentum of several successful sale seasons and an influx of newly wealthy global bidders, the major auction houses—Sotheby’s, Christie’s International and boutique auctioneer Phillips—say demand for status art is at historic levels and shows no signs of tapering off.

Christie’s is poised to sell more than $1 billion of contemporary art alone, a first for these semiannual series that help determine price levels for top artists. If these spring sales are any indication, blue-chip artists can expect their market values to go up.

Both Christie’s and Sotheby’s are asking record-high prices not only for Picasso and Giacometti but newer favorites like post-Pop painter Sigmar Polke and photographer Thomas Struth. Some 37 artworks are estimated to sell for $10 million or more. Lesser-known artists like Chaim Soutine, whose 1920s paintings of hanging beef have sold for as much as $14 million, are turning up in these sales with works priced at $20 million or more.

The sales kicked off Tuesday at Sotheby’s, anchored by a pastoral landscape of Arles, France, by Vincent van Gogh, “The Allee of Alyscamps,” that sold for $66.3 million to an Asian man in the saleroom. The man sat several rows from the rostrum, wearing a black leather jacket and sneakers, and bid while whispering into a cellphone. He declined to speak after the sale.

Whether he was bidding for himself or another collector, his Van Gogh image of a yellow lane of trees easily surpassed its $40 million estimate and now represents the artist’s third-highest price at auction.

The same work sold at Christie’s 12 years earlier for $11.7 million. Specialist Simon Shawsaid a Van Gogh painting of poppies that Sotheby’s offered for sale last fall for around $30 million wound up selling for twice as much to a Chinese collector, who beat out several U.S. collectors.

Asian bidders dominated Sotheby’s $368.3 million opening sale, taking home a $29.9 million Picasso portrait of a “Woman With a Bun in a Chair” and a $20.4 million Claude Monet landscape, “Water Lily Pond, Roses.”

Sotheby’s also found buyers for five of six paintings it offered spanning the career of Monet, the Impressionist master who enjoys broad appeal among new buyers seeking blue-chip art. “Water Lilies,” Monet’s 1905 view of an indigo-colored pond, sold for $54 million to a U.S. phone bidder, above its $40 million high estimate. It has been in the same collection since 1955.

Sotheby’s York Avenue saleroom was packed, with London jeweler Laurence Graff sitting in the aisles and actor Leonardo DiCaprio watching from a skybox situated overhead. At one point during the sale, bidders in the room snickered to see the actor kissing his blonde companion for several minutes.

Next week, Christie’s will counter with its own Monet, a lavender view of a blurry “Houses Of Parliament, At Sunset” from 1900-1901 that it aims to sell for at least $35 million on May 11. The work is part of an additional sale that Christie’s is organizing, combining heavyweight artists from the 20th century, both old and new. This cross-category sale is called “Looking Forward to the Past,” and it will include a pair of the priciest works in the entire sale series: Picasso’s “Women of Algiers (Version O),” which could sell for at least $140 million and Giacometti’s “Pointing Man” sculpture, which could sell for at least $130 million.

The record price for any artwork at auction is a $142.4 million portrait by Francis Bacon that Christie’s sold two years ago, so either of those pieces could claim the trophy title this time around, dealers say.

When Picasso’s “Women” was last offered at auction in 1997, it sold for $32 million—a near-record for the artist. That’s partly why Christie’s set a record-level estimate for the artwork this time around. Brooke Lampley, a specialist at Christie’s, said collectors are willing to splurge to win pieces that reaped hefty prices in the past. The fact that an artwork was deemed a hit by earlier generations of collectors makes buyers feel safer betting big now.

Sotheby’s expert Alex Rotter said collectors apply the same premium to top contemporary works as well. This trophy phenomenon will get tested when Sotheby’s offers Polke’s “Jungle” for at least $20 million on May 12. The auctioneer sold the same painting for $9.2 million four years ago, establishing a new high bar for Polke at the time.

Mr. Rotter said demand has since increased for Polke, a German painter known for experimenting with Pop art. Mr. Rotter said he asked its owner to put “Jungle” up for sale. This flip will allow Sotheby’s to test Polke’s popularity in the U.S. where the artist isn’t yet a household name.

“Americans haven’t turned on to Polke, but I think they will,” he said.

The spring sales end May 15.