Bonhams

Yesterday I finally stepped into the new 57th Street home of Bonhams and had a full NYC sublime moment.

I’ve been collecting for years with Bonhams Cornette de Saint Cyr, so this felt like worlds colliding, Paris discipline, Manhattan drama.

Striking A Chord is all color, tension, and legacy. The raw poetry of Jean-Michel Basquiat. The glossy punch of Andy Warhol. The bite of Banksy. The existential heat of Francis Bacon. Then you turn and there’s form and restraint from Constantin Brancusi, the electric geometry of Lee Krasner, pop clarity from Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Indiana, and that unmistakable text-and-silence cool from Ed Ruscha.

It’s the kind of show that makes you rethink your walls. Collecting isn’t about owning. It’s about living with impact, color that stares back, texture that lingers, work that shifts the temperature of a room.

And yes, a piano played by Elton John just sitting there like it didn’t score half the 20th century.

This city knows how to do sublime.And this is not the last time you’ll find me at a Bonhams preview.