New York, 30 April 2026 - Phillips has announced highlights from Modern & Contemporary Art: Morning and Afternoon Sessions, taking place in New York on 21 May 2026 at 10:00 am and 2:00 pm ET. Comprising more than 260 lots, the sale brings together a wide-ranging selection of works spanning the late 19th century to the present day, anchored by landmark paintings, important private collections, and both established and emerging voices. The Morning Session is led by Pierre Bonnard and Robert Rauschenberg alongside works from major private collections, while Richard Prince and Firelei Báez lead the Afternoon Session.
The two sessions are designed to read as a continuum. The Morning Session presents historic examples from the late 19th and early 20th centuries alongside Post-War painting and sculpture, while the Afternoon Session focuses on contemporary practices, featuring bold works that explore evolving approaches to material, identity, and image-making. The offering ranges from the tranquil landscapes and intimate domestic scenes of the South of France by Alfred Sisley and Pierre Bonnard in the Morning Session to vibrant works by Richard Prince, Michaela Yearwood-Dan, and Beatriz Milhazes in the Afternoon Session.
The Morning Session
The Morning Session is led by two major works by Robert Rauschenberg from his celebrated Urban Bourbon and Borealis series, offered on the heels of the artist's centennial, recently commemorated with exhibitions worldwide, including the presentation at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York. Both series overlap with the Rauschenberg Overseas Cultural Interchange, an ambitious humanitarian project that marked a critical moment in the artist's career. Climb (Urban Bourbon) (1993), painted on aluminum, combines Rauschenberg's own silkscreened photographs with vivid, gestural brushstrokes and collage elements, and carries an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000. South Haunt (Borealis) (1990), which employs a then new technique of chemical corrosions on copper to produce a luminous glow across the metal support, is estimated at $300,000 to $500,000. Post-War offerings are further strengthened by Roy Lichtenstein's Small Wall Explosion (1965), estimated at $500,000 to $700,000, and James Rosenquist's In Honor and Memory of Robert F. Kennedy from the Friends of Eugene Mc Carthy (1968).
The session also features a significant selection of works from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Alfred Sisley's Bords du canal à Moret-sur-Loing (1894) reflects the artist's sustained engagement with the landscape surrounding Moret-sur-Loing, where he first moved in 1880, and is estimated at $300,000 to $500,000. In a more intimate register, Pierre Bonnard's La fin du repas (1907), which depicts Marthe, the artist's wife and one of his most enduring sitters, seated at a table at the end of a meal, carries an estimate of $650,000 to $850,000. The sale includes additional property from The Collection of Ambassador John L. Loeb Jr., which debuted at Phillips' Evening Sale of Modern & Contemporary in London this past March, with highlights including two further paintings by Anna Ancher alongside intimate landscapes by Vilhelm Hammershøi. Further collections include A Life in Color: Property from the Estate of Tina Hills, highlighted by Hans Hofmann's The Great Interieum (1951), estimated at $400,000 to $600,000, as well as works by American artists from The Tanenbaum Family Collection. Important works on paper by Jean Dubuffet span Phillips' May sales, all dating from a discrete period of 1954 to 1961, among them Barbe de captation des ondes (1959), estimated at $300,000 to $500,000.
The Afternoon Session
Leading the Afternoon Session is Firelei Báez's magnitude and bond (2018), created for her acclaimed Joy Out of Fire exhibition organized by the Studio Museum in Harlem and estimated at $300,000 to $500,000. Drawing on archival research conducted at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the monumental painting reinterprets images of the dancer, choreographer, and anthropologist Katherine Dunham, referencing her 1938 ballet L'Ag'Ya, in luminous, saturated fields of color. The top lot of the session is Richard Prince's High Times (2017), a standout painting from the artist's eponymous series, estimated at $600,000 to $800,000. Channeling the spirit of Prince's downtown New York years through a visual language shaped by Surrealism, Art Brut, and Outsider Art, the work turns his strategy of appropriation inward, monumentalizing motifs from his Hippie Drawings of 1998 to 1999 on canvas.
Additional highlights include David Hammons' Untitled (Body Print) (1977), revealed to the public for the first time in decades and estimated at $300,000 to $500,000, created by pressing a grease-coated body directly onto paper before fixing the impression with pigment. Michaela Yearwood-Dan's The girls take their places (2024), created for York Art Gallery in response to Claude Monet's Water-Lily Pond of 1899, carries an estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. The Afternoon Session also presents a strong group of works by Latin American women artists, including Olga de Amaral, Carmen Herrera, Adriana Varejão, who is co-representing Brazil at the 2026 Venice Biennale, and Beatriz Milhazes, whose Paraty (2001 to 2002) is estimated at $300,000 to $500,000. Rounding out the session are Rashid Johnson's Color Men (2016) and Jonas Wood's Untitled (Self Portrait with Green Hat) (2009), each estimated at $300,000 to $500,000.
Selected highlights
The auction viewing runs from 9 to 19 May 2026, with the Morning and Afternoon Sessions held on 21 May 2026 at 432 Park Avenue, New York. The sale arrives as Phillips marks its 230th anniversary in 2026. Founded in London in 1796 by the auctioneer Harry Phillips, the house celebrates more than two centuries at the forefront of the global market for Modern & Contemporary Art, Design, and Luxury, and today holds its principal auctions in New York, London, Geneva, and Hong Kong.
Estimates do not include the buyer's premium; prices achieved include the hammer price plus buyer's premium.
(Press Release)
