Jeff Koons, one of the most prominent living artists, is set to sell an extensive collection of artworks valued at over US$100 million in an upcoming November auction in New York. The sale, organized by Christie’s auction house, features pieces spanning approximately 500 years of art history and includes nine paintings by renowned artists such as Pablo Picasso, Édouard Manet, and Cornelis van Haarlem. Although Christie’s has identified the consignor only as a “distinguished private collector,” auction experts familiar with the transaction have confirmed that Koons is the seller.
Among the key highlights is Picasso’s 1969 painting Le Baiser, which Christie’s global president Alex Rotter described as the top lot, with an estimated value around US$40 million. The work is part of Picasso’s late period focused on intertwined couples, exploring themes that straddle passion and violence. This motif resonates with Koons’s own artistic explorations—for instance, his early 1990s Made In Heaven series, which featured explicit images of Koons and Ilona Staller, a Hungarian model also known as Cicciolina, who was briefly married to him. Koons has spoken about that series as an attempt to “remove all guilt and shame in any form.”
Koons acquired the Picasso painting initially in 2008 at a Sotheby’s auction for US$17.4 million, which adjusts to about US$27.1 million in today’s dollars. He later bought another Picasso from the same series in 2011 for US$10.5 million, roughly US$15.6 million after adjusting for inflation. In a 2024 interview with the European channel Arte, Koons expressed a deep admiration for Picasso’s later works, calling the artist “a shaman torchbearer” who offered a vision of a more fulfilling life.
Despite Koons’s household name status, his standing in the art market has softened since reaching a peak in 2019 when his 1986 stainless steel Rabbit sculpture sold for US$91.1 million at Christie’s. Data from the independent database Artdai indicates that auction prices for Koons’s works have declined by nearly 60% over the past decade, although this does not account for private sales. In addition, Koons has changed gallery representation multiple times in recent years, leaving David Zwirner and Gagosian in 2021 for Pace Gallery, before returning to Gagosian in 2025.
A source close to the Christie’s transaction suggested Koons’s decision to sell the collection was driven by a desire to reinvest the proceeds into his ongoing artistic practice. Koons himself declined to comment on the sale. The auction is expected to be a marquee event in the upcoming New York art season.