NEW YORK— With the economy still reeling, the May sales in New York will fight a prevailing mood of uncertainty. "There’s caution on both sides, and sellers, buyers and the auction houses have to be realistic," says Guy Bennett, the head of the Impressionist and modern department at Christie’s New York. Overall estimates are a fraction of the houses’ combined expectations of $650 million a year ago. Still, the London sales’ low buy-in rates in February and the $266 million earned that month in the record Imp/mod session of the three-day Yves Saint Laurent-Pierre Bergé bonanza at Christie’s and Bergé & Associés, in Paris, have prompted a faint glow of optimism.

Sotheby’s kicks off the season with a lean and mean Imp/mod evening event on May 5. One of the month’s most expensive lots is a bronze cast of Alberto Giacometti’s rare-to-market attenuated Le Chat, 1959 (est. $16-24 million), which has been tucked away in a private European collection since 1967. The last time a cast from this edition of eight appeared at auction was in 1975, when it sold for $130,000, and most of the rest reside in museums, so anticipation for this piece is strong. The second major offering is Picasso’s Maya with Boat, 1938 (est. $16-24 million), depicting his daughter with his then-secret mistress Marie-Thérèse Walter.

Other lots to watch include Piet Mondrian’s sophisticated abstraction Composition in Black and White, with Double Lines, 1934 (est. $3-5 million), and Edvard Munch’s atmospheric Rowboats in Åsgårdstrand, 1932-34 (est. $1.8-2.5 million). Also in the sale are four Art Deco paintings by the Polish-born Tamara de Lempicka from the collection of the fashion designer Wolfgang Joop, including the fetching Portrait de Marjorie Ferry, 1932 (est. $4-6 million).

Stocking the sessions this year has been a challenge. "We know we have the buyers, but it’s been very hard to convince people to put works up at auction," says Emmanuel Di-Donna, the vice chairman of Sotheby’s Impressionist and modern department. "Hopefully, if the estimates are right, [the lots] should sell well." One strong candidate to do just that is Camille Pissarro’s landscape La Vallée de la Seine aux Damps, jardin d’Octave Mirbeau, 1892 (est. $1-1.5 million), which on its last trip to the block at Christie’s London in 2006, brought £960,000 ($1.8 million). "It’s a great buy for anybody," says Di-Donna.

Like the Sotheby’s session, the Imp/mod auction at Christie’s on May 6 is streamlined. "It’s a tighter sale than we’ve seen in past seasons," says department head Bennett, adding that it also offers a range of prices. At the lower end is Egon Schiele’s Liegende (est. $200-300,000), a 1918 drawing from the estate of the famed dealer and Viennese émigré Serge Sabarsky. Other works of notable provenance are Max Ernst’s Surrealist Malédiction à vous, les mamans, 1928 (est. $7-$9 million), which the consignor acquired in 1974 from Alain Tarica, the Geneva dealer from whom Saint Laurent and Bergé bought many pictures; and Picasso’s Femme au Chapeau, 1971, from the collection of the artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel (est. $8-12 million).

Bracketed in price between the Schiele and the Ernst are Paul Gauguin’s early Nature morte aux tomates, 1883 (est. $1.75-2.25 million), and Henri Matisse’s pre-Fauve Nu à la serviette blanche, 1902-03 (est. $2-3 million), from the estate of the New York department-store heiress Caral Gimbel Lebworth. Also from this estate is the Giacometti lifetime cast Buste de Diego (stèle III), 1958 (est. $4.5-6.5 million).

Lempicka, whose sultry and stylized works seem to be the flavor of the month, is represented at Christie’s by the exceptional Portrait de Madame M., 1932 (est. $6-8 million). Consigned by a European vendor, the painting last sold at Sotheby’s New York in 1989 for $990,000. If it finds a taker here, it stands a fair chance of breaking the artist’s record, set at Christie’s in 2004, when Portrait de Madame Bush, 1929, made $4.6 million.

The May 12 contemporary sale at Sotheby’s is remarkable for its sculpture offerings. Among these is Robert Gober’s Untitled, 1990 (est. $2.5-3.5 million), a hyperrealistic male torso — inspired in part by a Hieronymus Bosch painting and found sheet music — that is cast in beeswax with wood, oil paint and human hair and whose back is mysteriously tattooed with notes of the scale. Standing in sharp contrast to Gober’s conceptual sobriety is Jeff Koons’s Baroque Egg with Bow (Turquoise/Magenta), a piece of serious eye candy from his "Celebration" series of 1994-2006 (est. $6-8 million).

As a strong work with a reasonable price tag, Cy Twombly’s early abstraction MYO, 1951, in oil-based house paint and earth on canvas (est. $250-300,000), represents what the auction houses are betting today’s buyers are searching for. "We tried to approach the sale conservatively," says the Sotheby’s New York department head Alex Rotter. "Not everything in an evening sale has to be a million dollars." In addition to moderating its prices, the house is shying away from overexposed artists, apart from Koons, offering not a single Damien Hirst piece or Richard Prince "Nurse." It does, however, have one of Prince’s "Joke" paintings, Can You Imagine, 1989, whose estimate, $600,000 to $800,000, says Rotter, "is back to years ago. We are in a new market."

For its postwar and contemporary sale on May 13, Christie’s has similarly adapted to the new economy. "We’ve been just ruthless and walked away from any number of deals if clients’ expectations were too high," says Robert Manley, the head of the firm’s evening sales. "We’re insisting on putting on attractive estimates." The house has some prime guarantee-free material from the estate of the Los Angeles collector Betty Freeman, most prominently the David Hockney evocation of California dreaming, Beverly Hills Housewife, 1966-67 (est. $7-10 million; see page 76). Other Freeman highlights are Roy Lichtenstein’s Frolic, 1977 (est. $4-7 million), which quotes a Picasso 1932 beach scene as well as Lichtenstein’s own 1962 Pop classic Girl with Ball, and Sam Francis’s important early abstraction Grey, 1954 (est. $2.5-3.5 million), which debuted in the Museum of Modern Art’s famed 1956 "Twelve Americans" exhibition, in New York.

Leading the various-owners portion of the evening is Richard Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park No. 117, 1979 (est. $4-6 million), a luminous, fresh-to-market painting, from his most desirable series, with pentimenti of erased lines and a carefully worked surface. The last major canvas from the series to come up, the 1971 Ocean Park No. 44, sold below its estimate for $5.2 million at Sotheby’s New York last November. If this one manages to match expectations, it would break the artist’s current record, $6,760,000, set in May 2007 at Christie’s New York by the figurative Berkeley #5, 1953. "It’s exactly what people are looking for in a Diebenkorn," says Manley. "You just can’t find them with this dynamic color and in such good condition." The session also contains a work by another notable California artist, John Baldessari: the text-based Painting for Kubler, 1966-68 (est. $1.5-2 million).

The contemporary week concludes on May 14 at Phillips de Pury & Company. "We’re taking a sober perspective and concentrating on bringing out the best product," says Michael McGinnis, the Phillips head of contemporary art. Among other highlights, the house is offering the Gober cereal-box sculpture, Untitled, 1993-94 (est. $2.5-3.5 million), Cecily Brown’s Suddenly Last Summer, 1999 (est. $600-800,000), and the Philip Guston still life Anxiety, 1975 (est. $1-1.5 million). Dan Flavin’s Untitled ("Monument" for V. Tatlin) 22, 1964, in white fluorescent lights from an edition of five (est. $400-600,000), and Banks Violette’s Not Yet Titled (Microphone Stand), 2006 (est. $60-80,000), round out the mix.

"New York Sales Preview" originally appeared in the May 2009 issue of Art+Auction.