Picasso Painting of Muse Dora Maar Comes to Auction for the First Time

A portrait by Pablo Picasso of his lover and muse Dora Maar will be sold at auction for the first time at a Phillips evening sale in May in New York and is estimated to realize as much as US$18 million.

Buste de femme au chapeau, 1939, depicts Maar, whom Picasso met in 1935 and remained with for a decade. Buste de femme remained in Picasso’s personal collection until he died in 1973, when Galerie Beyeler in Switzerland took ownership of the piece and kept it alongside other works from the artist’s Femmes au chapeau series, according to Phillips.

The piece has been in the same collection for the last 30 years, according to Jean-Paul Engelen, president, Americas, and worldwide co-head of modern and contemporary art for Phillips.

According to Phillips, the painting, only 24 inches by 15 inches, employs techniques from Cubism, and contains elements familiar to Picasso’s paintings of Marr, “including his distinctive rendering of her eyes, strong line of her nose, and radical combinations of frontal and profile views.”

Untitled (ELMAR), 1982, by Jean-Michel Basquiat.
Phillips

Phillips’ modern and contemporary evening sale on May 14 will also include three previously announced works by Jean-Michel Basquiat, including a large painting from the early 1980s, Untitled (ELMAR) , 1982, that could sell for more than US$60 million.

Barclay L. Hendricks’ 1977 work, Vendetta.
Phillips

Also in the sale is Barclay L. Hendricks’ 1977 work, Vendetta, with an estimate between US$2.5 million and US$3.5 million. The painting was featured in the artist’s first career retrospective, and toured across the U.S. from 2008 to 2009. Hendricks’ works rarely come to auction, and Engelen expects increased interest given a recent exhibition of the artist’s works at the Frick Collection in New York.

A 1978 Donald Judd “stacks” sculpture set in stainless steel and yellow fluorescent Plexiglas.
Phillips

Lastly, two sculpture “stacks” from Donald Judd will be sold. A 1978 set in stainless steel and yellow fluorescent Plexiglas, described as a “signature” piece by the artist completed when he was near the top of his career, is estimated to sell for between US$5.5 million and US$7.5 million. The second is a 1994 six-part set composed of Cor-ten steel and black Plexiglas finished just before the artist’s death early that year. It carries an estimate of US$2 million to US$3 million.

Millennial women’s wealth is outpacing men’s as a new generation inherits and grows their assets at a wider scale than ever before, according to RBC Wealth Management.

In a survey of roughly 2,000 men and women with at least $1 million in investable assets, millennial women respondents had an average of $4.6 million, compared with $3.8 million for women of all age groups and $4.5 million for all men.

Inheritance is one part of the picture, as baby boomers are expected to transfer $124 trillion to the next generation, but so is the progress millennial women have made in the world of business, investment and lucrative professional careers as they close the gap with men.

“Millennial women are catching up, or have outpaced the males as far as their wealth building,” said Angie O’Leary, head of wealth strategies at RBC. “We know that’s coming from a more diversified set of investments, such as entrepreneurship, real estate and of course, investments [in financial markets].”

Millennial women, now in their 30s and 40s, tend to differ from earlier generations of women more than they do from men in terms of their source of wealth. While investments were the largest driver of wealth across all categories, millennial women cited business ownership, innovation, and executive roles far more than Gen X or boomer women.

More than 60% of millennial women cited business ownership and more than 40% mentioned executive roles, but neither exceeded 22% for either Gen Xers and Boomers. Younger women also grew their fortunes from professional sports or arts 39% of the time, compared with just 6% and 1% for Gen Xers and Boomers, respectively.

In terms of inheritance, the gap between generations was smaller. About 37% of men and 35% of women cited family money as a source of wealth overall, breaking down to 44% of millennials, 30% of Gen X and 33% of boomer women.

With women controlling so much wealth, their spending and investments as a group are evolving and extending into areas previously considered stereotypically male such as real estate, cars and watches, O’Leary said. “Women are starting to look a lot like their male counterparts when it comes to investments, real estate, philanthropy,” she said. “That’s a really interesting emerging female economy.”

In real estate, for example, single women made up 20% of home buyers in 2024 up from 11% in 1981, when the National Association of Realtors began tracking the data. By contrast, single men make up 8% of the market and have never exceeded 10%, according to NAR.

While men and women shared largely similar priorities overall in terms of well-being, relationships, legacy and personal drive, younger generations of women were successively more likely to value drive and personal power, and successively less likely to rank relationships and social bonds—though that could also be a function of age and stage of life.

“This generational shift suggests evolving societal norms and responsibilities, where younger women seek personal achievements, while older cohorts value nurturing connections and community stability, affecting their financial and lifestyle choices,” the report said.

Picasso Painting of Muse Dora Maar Comes to Auction for the First Time

A survey of people with at least $1 million in investable assets found women in their 30s and 40s look nothing like older generations in terms of assets and priorities