Big names at surprising prices: explore finds under $50,000 in November’s New York marquee week

Throughout her career, Lee Bontecou pursued drawing alongside sculpture, developing a visual language inspired by nature, machinery and the human body. Working in graphite, she created intricate compositions in which subtle gradations of light and shadow suggest remarkable depth and dimensionality, echoing the spatial concerns of her celebrated sculptural reliefs. Executed in 1963, Teeth dates from a significant moment in Bontecou’s career: the same year she was commissioned to create a monumental sculpture for the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. The work comes from the collection of Agnes Gund, the prominent patron of contemporary art and former president of the Museum of Modern Art.

A pioneering figure of Surrealism, André Masson was among the first artists to experiment with automatism, a technique intended to bypass conscious thought and access the unconscious mind. His fascination with the workings of the psyche found an intriguing parallel in the work of the influential French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Not only was Lacan an avid collector of Masson's work, having previously owned La touffe d'herbe, but he was also the artist’s brother-in-law. Painted in 1948, La touffe d'herbe was executed during the years following Masson’s return to France after his wartime exile in the United States.

In 1937, at the age of 20, Leonora Carrington arrived in Paris, where she began a relationship with Max Ernst and became involved with the Surrealist movement. Dating from this period, these two drawings reflect the movement’s irreverent sensibility. Particularly evocative of this rebellious spirit is a figure peering through a window, accompanied by the declaration: ‘Shit I don’t give a damn Shit.’ Carrington scholar Salomon Grimberg has linked the drawing to Ernst’s involvement in Alfred Jarry’s Ubu enchaîné, a production whose provocative language reportedly brought it to an abrupt end after a single performance.

Best known for his landmark mobiles and stabiles, Alexander Calder was also a prolific painter, producing many works on paper throughout his career. His gouaches share the playful spirit and bold visual vocabulary of his sculptures, translating his fascination with movement, balance and form into two dimensions. The medium’s immediacy allowed Calder to work with remarkable freedom, combining vibrant colour, fluid lines and geometric shapes in compositions that reflect his instinctive approach to abstraction. Executed in 1949, Untitled dates from a particularly productive period in the artist's career, when his distinctive artistic language had become firmly established across a range of media.

In 1946, Pablo Picasso began experimenting with ceramics at the Madoura pottery workshop in Vallauris, France. Fascinated by the possibilities of combining painting and sculpture, he transformed traditional pottery forms into imaginative compositions that played with the relationship between surface, volume and image. Executed two years after coming to Madoura, Danseur is a unique, hand-painted ceramic pitcher that demonstrates Picasso’s ability to convey movement and expression through a few deft strokes of blue and green. The dancing figure recalls the work of his friend and artistic rival Henri Matisse, particularly Matisse’s celebrated La Danse (1910).

One of Sweden’s foremost printmakers of the early 20th century, Axel Fridell developed a distinctive form of realism influenced by Rembrandt van Rijn, James McNeill Whistler and Edvard Munch. His paintings, however, are exceptionally rare. Executed in 1915, when the artist was just 20 years old, this portrait depicts his friend and fellow student at Stockholm’s Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts, Einar Forseth, who would later become renowned for his monumental mosaics in Stockholm City Hall’s Golden Hall. The work comes from the collection of Mickey Cartin, whose wide-ranging holdings reflect a lifelong passion for artistic discovery, particularly the work of lesser-known artists and overlooked traditions.

Once owned by Frank and Barbara Sinatra, this lively drawing by Pierre Bonnard later entered the celebrated collection of Marlene and Spencer Hays, American collectors whose passion for French art led them to assemble exceptional holdings of works by Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard and their contemporaries. Capturing the bustle of a Parisian salon, with paintings and guests competing for attention, the drawing offers an intimate glimpse into the artist’s world. The figure at the far right bears a striking resemblance to Bonnard himself, raising the possibility that the artist included a discreet self-portrait among the assembled guests.

A central figure of Post-Minimalism, Jackie Winsor developed a distinctive sculptural practice that combined geometric forms with unconventional materials and labour-intensive processes. Her work frequently explored the relationship between interior and exterior space, inviting viewers to consider what lies beneath an object’s surface. Executed in 1988–1989, Inset Wall Piece with Stepped Black Interior belongs to a series begun in 1988 in which Winsor embedded sculptural forms into the wall, creating recessed spaces that blur the boundaries between painting, sculpture and architecture. From the collection of Agnes Gund, the work exemplifies Winsor’s enduring fascination with material, space and perception.