With the exclusive exhibition “Icons: Back to Madison,” Sotheby’s revisits some sales that have changed the market and the imagination of international collecting.
How did the exhibition project Icons: Back to Madison come about?
With Icons: Back to Madison, the auction house reunites some of the most famous lots that have passed through its catalog over the years. The exhibition was held in Abu Dhabi from December 2 to 6 and in New York from December 13 to 21, creating a compact and ambitious narrative of its history.
The itinerary puts into dialogue works that have marked not only the story of Sotheby’s but also that of the global market. In these sales, estimate, adjudication, and symbolic value have aligned, producing a continuous redefinition of artistic hierarchies and economic parameters.
Why has Warhol’s Shot Orange Marilyn become an icon?
An emblematic case is Shot Orange Marilyn by Andy Warhol, offered in New York in 1998 with an estimate of 4–6 million dollars and finally sold for 17.3 million dollars. The amount, over four times the expectations, marked a key milestone for the artist.
The famous gunshot perforation, the result of an unauthorized performative action at the Factory, transformed a serial image into an unrepeatable object. In this way, Marilyn is definitively consecrated as a pop icon, while Warhol establishes himself as a cornerstone of the contemporary market.
What role does Mondrian play in the construction of historical value?
In another direction, but with similar paradigmatic strength, is Composition No. II by Piet Mondrian, auctioned in 2022. Although lacking a traditional public estimate, the work was sold for 51 million dollars, nullifying the artist’s previous record.
It is the only example in private hands from the very rare 1929–31 group characterized by the red square. Moreover, the case highlights how formal rigor, rarity, and provenance remain central elements in the construction of long-term value.
How did Basquiat change the American market?
Perhaps the most emblematic moment of the last decade remains Untitled (1982) by Jean-Michel Basquiat, presented in 2017 with an estimate of 60 million dollars and sold for 110.5 million dollars. The figure made it the most expensive painting by an American artist ever sold at auction.
The work, created at the height of Basquiat’s creative tension, marked the definitive entry of his language into the pantheon of 20th-century masters. In contrast to the marginal origins of his practice, the canvas has become a central asset for global collecting.
What does False Start by Jasper Johns represent?
A similar path, but anticipated by decades, is that of False Start by Jasper Johns. The work was offered in 1988 with an estimate of 4–5 million dollars and sold for 17.05 million dollars, becoming at the time the second-highest auction price ever recorded in the United States.
This sale helped consolidate the New York School as a foundational axis of postwar American historiography. Moreover, Johns’ reflection on language, perception, and the ambiguity of the sign also took on an economic value, making the analytical gesture a factor of primacy in the market.
How does de Kooning redefine the transition between figure and abstraction?
The crucial transition between figuration and abstraction finds an exemplary synthesis in Interchange by Willem de Kooning. The work was offered in 1989 with an estimate of 4–6 million dollars and sold for 20.7 million dollars.
That figure made the painting the most expensive contemporary work of its time, setting a new standard for Abstract Expressionism. Moreover, it reinforced the idea of American modernity as a collectible value, in stark contrast to a previous European centrality.
Why is the Clyfford Still case considered radical?
Even more radical is the case of the monumental canvas 1949-A-No. 1 by Clyfford Still, offered in 2011 with an estimate of 25–35 million dollars and sold for 61.7 million dollars. Here, the primacy did not just redefine the artist’s market.
The proceeds from the sale contributed decisively to the founding of the Clyfford Still Museum in Denver. In this way, the auction became a tool for retrospective musealization, showing how the market can produce direct institutional effects.
How has Banksy transformed the auction into a media performance?
The performative and media dimension of the system emerges strongly in the case of Girl With Balloon by Banksy. The work, partially self-destructed during a previous auction, was subsequently estimated at 4–6 million pounds and sold in 2021 for 18.58 million pounds.
It is, in fact, the only work literally “created” in the room. However, the critique of value staged by the artist was immediately reabsorbed by the same system it intended to question, transforming destruction into a powerful symbolic multiplication.
How does Icons expand the concept of iconic work?
Alongside the visual arts, the project includes lots that expand the very notion of the iconic object. An emblematic case is the original Birkin made for Jane Birkin, sold in Paris in 2025 for 8.58 million euros, against a significantly lower estimate.
The outcome marks the definitive entry of the fashion object into the sphere of high collecting. Moreover, the value lies in the ability of an accessory that is both everyday and luxurious to condense desire, identity, and cultural myth, similar to what happens with many postwar artworks.
What image of the market does Icons: Back to Madison convey?
In this continuum of exceeded estimates, broken records, and redefined meanings, Icons: Back to Madison offers a portrait of the market as an active agent of value production. The gathering of these lots in the new Breuer Building in New York positions the auction house as a living archive of the moments when art became an icon.
That said, what emerges is a definitive fusion between economic value and symbolic value, where each historical adjudication contributes to rewriting the hierarchy of works and collectors’ desires.
As expert in digital marketing, Amelia began working in the fintech sector in 2014 after writing her thesis on Bitcoin technology. Previously author for several international crypto-related magazines and CMO at Eidoo. She is now the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Cryptonomist and Econique.
She is also a marketing teacher at Digital Coach in Milan and she published a book about NFTs for the Italian publishing house Mondadori, while she is also helping artists and company to entering in the sector. As advisor, Amelia is also involved in metaverse-related project such as The Nemesis and OVER.
