Is the Tide Turning? The Klimt, the Kahlo, and the…

After a turbulent few years of market wobble, 2025 feels like the moment the art world has finally found its footing again. The new Art & Finance Report 2025 and the latest Art Basel & UBS Art Market Report both point to a market that’s settling, and this week’s seismic New York auctions have underlined that shift with a big boom.

The headlines have been impossible to miss.

Sotheby’s first marquee evening sales in its new Manhattan headquarters, the former Whitney Museum building designed by Marcel Breuer, achieved a record-breaking $706m (with fees).

It was the highest total the auction house has ever brought in during a single night. And the atmosphere in the room was electric: competitive bidding, new records, and a palpable sense that confidence is returning.

The centrepiece, of course, was Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer.

Making its auction debut with an on-request estimate of $150m, it stormed to $205m ($236m with fees) after a nearly 20-minute bidding battle. That result makes it the second-most expensive artwork ever sold at auction, surpassing Warhol’s Shot Sage Blue Marilyn, and the most expensive work ever sold by Sotheby’s. If anyone needed proof that the top end is alive and well, this was it.

But Klimt didn’t carry the night alone. The sold-out Leonard Lauder single-owner sale achieved a staggering $527m with fees, with strong performances from Calder, Matisse, Martin, Munch and more. Maurizio Cattelan’s notorious 18-karat gold toilet America (2016), which estimated at just over $9.9m based on its melt value alone, ultimately hammered at $10m ($12.1m with fees).

Not a market record for Cattelan, but a cultural moment nonetheless, especially given its infamous history and its singular surviving edition. Its inclusion and sale show the breadth of appetite returning to the market, from the historically significant to the provocatively absurd.

Then, on Thursday, another major signal of confidence arrived.

Frida Kahlo’s signature canvas sold for $54.7m, setting a new auction record for any female artist. With an irrevocable bid ensuring its sale and an estimate of $40–60m, it sailed comfortably past Georgia O’Keeffe’s long-standing 2014 record of $44.4m (around $61m today when adjusted for inflation). A new benchmark for Kahlo and for women artists more broadly, it adds yet another layer to the market’s upward momentum.

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All of this comes against a backdrop of supposedly “difficult” economic times for auction houses. Clearly, the market is not as soft as the narrative suggests, or maybe it’s just that the tide is finally changing.

These blockbuster results dovetail neatly with the broader data. Both Basel and Deloitte highlight a notable drop in perceived risk and historic lows in speculation, signalling a more mature and less volatile landscape. Meanwhile, the mid-market, particularly US$5,000 to US$500,000, continues to show renewed confidence.

So what does all this mean? Collectively, the reports, records, and renewed bidding suggest a market that is steadily recovering.