Thanks to what appears to be one of the fastest recoveries in art-market history, plus the appearance on the block of two major Los Angeles collectors’ estates, the May sales are bristling with potentially record-breaking Impressionist, modern, and postwar works.

The old bull market died after the November 2008 sales, which saw Christie’s and Sotheby’s hemorrhaging red ink because of ill-timed and risky financial guarantees on lots that failed to sell. Chastened, the two houses dramatically shrank the size of their evening sales and dropped guarantees and other special favors for sellers. Their tough love seems to have worked: Both realized high sell-through rates in New York last November and in London this February, in auctions buoyed by buyers hungry for property.

Hoping to ride this upward trend, Christie’s is opening the season on May 4 with an Impressionist and modern evening sale that features a rare set of trophies. Among them are Pablo Picassos fetching 1964 Femme au chat assise dans un fauteuil (est. $10-15 million), showing his wife Jacqueline soon after his former mistress and muse, Françoise Gilot, published her tell-all book, Life with Picasso; and Edvard Munchs shimmering pastoral summer scene Fertility, 1988-1900 (est. $25-35 million), from a Scandinavian private collection, making its first appearance at auction. The highlight in the Impressionist category is the large Pierre-Auguste Renoir Femme nue couchée, 1903 (est. $7-9 million).

The stars of the sale, however, are 30 lots, estimated at $150 million-plus, from the estate of the L.A. collector and philanthropist Frances Lasker Brody, who died last November at age 93. Chief among the Brody treasures is Picasso’s extraordinary 1932 Nude, Green Leaves, and Bust (est. $70-90 million), depicting the naked Marie-Thérèse Walter. The rarely exhibited picture presents the painter’s beautiful mistress in stereo, the foreground dominated by her reclining form, in vibrant blue, pink, and green, while in the background an imposing sculpture echoes her profile. The canvas — which Brody and her husband, Sidney, acquired from the Paul Rosenberg Gallery, in New York, in 1951 for a then-pricey $19,800 — first appeared publicly in the 1932 Picasso retrospective at the Galerie Georges Petit, in Paris, where it opened the eyes of the artist’s estranged wife Olga to his torrid affair with the model. Its only other public airing occurred in 1961, when Brody, then president of the UCLA Art Council, loaned it to an exhibition at the university marking Picasso’s 80th birthday. The artist’s Nu au fauteuil noir, also from 1932 and also depicting a recumbent nude Marie-Thérèse, sold at Christie’s New York in November 1999 for $45.1 million; this picture could double that mark.

Another Brody standout is Henri Matisses stunning 1924 Nice-period oil Nu au coussin bleu (est. $20-30 million), portraying a nude seated on an upholstered chair in the artist’s ornately appointed apartment in Nice, whose intensely patterned oriental carpet and textured wallpaper set off the figure’s boldly rendered contours. The painting, acquired by the Brodys in 1964 from the New York dealer Sam Salz, is similar to Matisse’s La pose hindou, 1923, which in May 1995 brought a then-record $14.9 million in the famed Stralem collection sale at Sotheby’s New York.

The most notable Brody sculpture is Alberto Giacomettis 25½-inch-high lifetime bronze portrait bust of his brother, Grande tête de Diego, 1954, which could attract some of the same bidders who helped push the artist’s Walking Man I to a record-smashing $104 million at Sotheby’s London in February. A second Giacometti, Le chat, also from 1951, may be less well received, considering that a bronze from the same edition of eight failed to sell at Sotheby’s last May. However, this kitty’s more modest estimate — $12 million to $18 million versus $16 million to $24 million — and superior provenance could make a difference.

To capture the long-anticipated Brody estate, Christie’s broke with recent practice and guaranteed it for a secret, although assuredly whopping, sum. "We’ve always said if something exceptional came up, we’d consider a guarantee," says the house’s Impressionist and modern head, Conor Jordan.

Sotheby’s, whose $181.7 million tally at last November’s Impressionist and modern evening sale clobbered the $65.6 million haul at Christie’s, seems unfazed at losing this prize to its rival. "In terms of guarantees," sniffs department head Emmanuel di Donna, "it’s not something our ceo [Bill Ruprecht] wants to pursue actively." Meanwhile, the house promises some fireworks of its own in its evening sale on May 5.

The cover lot is Henri Matisse’s sublime Bouquet pour le 14 Juillet 1919 (nature morte), which is estimated at $18 million to $25 million. Set in Nice like the Brody Matisse, the large canvas depicts the painter’s materials, with two wooden stretchers visible against a patterned wall and bookcase and a green artist’s portfolio leaning nearby. It has had only two owners, the first of whom was Gaston Bernheim de Villers, a relation of Matisse’s primary dealer at the time, who acquired the work the year it was executed and whose family held it until 1982, when it was sold at Hôtel Drouot for FF6.8 million ($1 million). "It was painted right after the First World War," says di Donna, "and there’s a feeling in it of joy and renewal."

Two other pictures that could generate excitement are Claude Monets 1890 landscape Effet de printemps à Giverny (est. $10-15 million), of two small haystacks in a field of wildflowers, and Amedeo Modiglianis handsome circa 1916-17 oil Jeanne Hébuterne au collier ($8-12 million), a heavily impastoed portrait bearing distinctive rub marks from the back of the artist’s brush, as well as the authoritative stamp of inclusion in Ambrogio Ceronis catalogue raisonné. Boldly signed on the lower right, it last sold at auction in 1944 at Parke-Bernet, in New York, for $925, less than the price of a new Cadillac at the time.

Also among the modern fare on offer are Isamu Noguchis rare 1926 bronze female figure Undine (est. $600-800,000) and Lyonel Feiningers widely exhibited, ecstatic 1934 canvas Der rote Geiger (est. $5-7 million), portraying a violinist in a red coat set against a modernist cityscape.

Christie’s leads off the contemporary season on May 11 with 30 postwar works from the estate of the best-selling author and filmmaker Michael Crichton, who died in November 2008 at age 66. Leading the pack — which includes works by Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, and Picasso, among others, and is expected to earn more than $60 million — is Johns’s rare and beautifully textured Flag, 1960-66, in encaustic and printed-paper collage on paper and canvas (est. $10-15 million). The writer bought this relatively petite (just 17½ by 26¾ inches) version of the classic image directly from the artist in 1973 and hung it over the fireplace in the master bedroom of his Beverly Hills home. It is bound to shatter Johns’s auction record of $17.4 million, set by Figure 4, 1959, at Christie’s New York in May 2007. The last time a painting from this series appeared at auction was in November 1989, when Two Flags, 1972-73, sold for a then-record $12.1 million. Earlier this year the hedge fund manager Steven Cohen reportedly acquired a much larger 1958 iteration from Jean-Christophe Castelli, the son of the legendary dealer, for more than $100 million.

Joining the stunning Crichton estate lots on the block are Piero Manzonis spare Achrome, 1958 (est. $3-4 million), and Yayoi Kusamas abstract No. G.A. White, 1960 (est. $1-1.5 million). There are also several Andy Warhol works, including Double-Self Portrait, 1965 (est. $5-7 million), formerly in the Robert Scull collec- tion, and the nine-part, 81-inch-square Holly Solomon, 1966 (est. $8-12 million), repetitive photo-booth images of the collector, occasional film actress, and future art dealer. The most excitement, though, surrounds Warhol’s diptych Silver Liz, 1963 (est. $10-15 million), showing the screen siren with turquoise eye makeup and fire-engine-red lipstick on one panel and as one of Warhol’s silver-coated "blanks" on the other. "Two years ago [it] would have been estimated at $15 million to $20 million," says department head Robert Manley, but today restraint is the rule. With luck, Liz will outshine expectations just as the artist’s 200 One Dollar Bills did last season at Sotheby’s, sweeping past its high estimate of $12 million to make $40 million.

Warhol is featured as well in the contemporary sales at Sotheby’s, on May 12. Headlining the evening is the artist’s eerily and magnetic purple-on-black Self-Portrait, 1986, one of the five supersized fright-wig works he executed the year before his unexpected death. The only other one in private hands belongs to Peter Brant, who bought his (in red on black) at Phillips in New York in May 2002 for $3.2 million. A monumental 108 by 108 inches, this painting, consigned by the fashion guru and film director Tom Ford, is expected to fetch between $10 million and $15 million.

In addition to Pop, Sotheby’s is offering Postminimalist works such as Richard Serras lead floor-and-wall sculpture Corner Prop, 1969-76 (est. $2-3 million). The rarefied field of Abstract Expressionism is also handsomely represented. Carrying the relatively modest estimate of $18 million to $25 million is the radiantly hued Mark Rothko canvas Untitled, 1961. The artist’s prices have fallen steeply from their peak in 2007, when the so-called Rockefeller Rothko made a staggering $70 million at Sotheby’s; the last two of his major pictures to come to auction were estimated at around $30 million and were bought in. "People want Rothko paintings," says the Sotheby’s contemporary-art department head, Alexander Rotter, "but they didn’t want to spend $30 million plus, so the indication is to be careful." Another ace in the Ab-Ex lineup is Jackson Pollocks densely patterned work on paper Number 12A, 1948: Yellow, Gray, Black (est. $4-6 million), which was featured in the famed 1949 Life magazine story "Jackson Pollock: Is He the Greatest Living Painter in the United States?"

Phillips de Pury & Company closes out the season on May 13. What the evening will hold, however, is largely still up in the air, pending resolution of the court battle raging over which auction house will get to bring the hammer down on approximately $17 million worth of artworks that cnet Network founder Halsey Minor is being forced to liquidate to settle a debt owed to the private bank ML Private Finance. Minor has chosen Phillips to sell the property, which includes Mark Tanseys 1995 Redeployment (est. $1.5-2.5 million) and Barnaby Furnass Duel (July 4th), 2004 (est. $400-600,000), at its new 57th Street quarters, but ML Private favors Christie’s. All of which adds the spice of suspense to a guaranteed thriller season.

"New York Sales Preview" originally appeared in the April 2010 issue of Art+Auction. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Art+Auction's May 2010 Table of Contents.