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$1.1 Billion in Art Sold in Less Than Three Hours

A single evening only brought in $1 billion at auction one other time, Paul Allen’s estate in 2022.

Christie’s May 18 evening sale was headlined by:

  • Pollock: $181.2M, nearly 3x his previous record

  • Brancusi: $107.6M, second highest sculpture price ever

  • Rothko: $98.4M, a new record for the artist

Obvious outliers, but the evening capped a spring auction season that totaled $2.5 billion (roughly 2x last year). This follows a Q1’26 that saw the postwar contemporary art market grow 23.1%.

Masterworks offers investors the opportunity to invest in blue-chip contemporary and post-war art. Since 2017, it has offered over 500 artworks and raised over $1 billion in total investments.

29 exits to-date have delivered net annualized returns like 16.5%, 17.6% and 17.8% on sold works held over 12 months.

Join 70,000+ members in adding art to their portfolios.

Skip the waitlist here.

Skip the waitlist here.

*According to Masterworks data. Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Investing involves risk. See important disclosures at masterworks.com/cd

Est. 2026  ·  Vol. I  ·  The Daily Grievance
Grump News
"The worst thing that happened to me today that you NEED to know about. And some other news stuff."
Thursday, July 2, 2026 No. 018  ·  Price: Your Time
Morning Edition
❖   The Gripe   ❖
A Personal Affront, Reported Faithfully

I tried to check my own bank balance and the website asked me to prove I am not a robot. It showed me nine blurry squares and asked which ones had a bus. I got two of them wrong. There needs to be an easier version that they administer in the early hours of the morning before my coffee kicks in.

❖   The Damage Report   ❖
Today's News, Ranked By How Much It Ruined My Mood
🔥 Most Enraging
Two people climbed a thousand feet up the Empire State Building to unfurl a banner about love and power, and one proposed at the top before the police showed up. That is too much effort to let me know that you're asking someone else a question.
😩 Most Exhausting
The lakes are turning brown, and the fish everyone likes to catch are losing to the fish nobody wants. Even the water is getting murkier and harder to see through. Good. If it turns purple, the price for lake houses might finally go down.
😤 Unreasonably Annoying
A man in a twenty-pound vest did two hundred lunges in three minutes and set two world records for it. I did two lunges last spring reaching for a dropped remote and I am still discussing it with my physical therapist.
🤷 Somehow Also Happening
Uber released its list of the strangest things people left in their cars this year, and it includes an ankle monitor and a bag of breast milk. Somewhere a man is having a very bad week without his ankle monitor, and a baby is patting itself on the back for sharing.
❖   And Some Other Stuff   ❖
Briefly, And With Limited Enthusiasm
▸ The James Webb telescope mapped an alien world with two completely different twilights, one on each side — A telescope found a planet with two different sunsets, one on each side, because it never turns around. I understand it completely. I too have a good side and a side I keep to the wall.
▸ Seattle set a Guinness World Record for the largest dim sum party — Seattle set a world record for the largest dim sum gathering, which is a lovely way to say a great many people showed up hungry in one place. I support any record that ends with everyone getting to eat.
▸ Researchers in Texas and Korea built a reusable material that captures and destroys toxic 'forever chemicals' more than 1,000 times faster than current methods — Scientists built something that pulls the 'forever chemicals' out of water and destroys them a thousand times faster than before, and it can be reused again and again. I will believe it when I can drink from a garden hose again.
Go forth and be unimpressed.
— The Grump  ·  (and Larry)
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