A 232-year-old auction house just bet big on New York. Bonhams moved its U.S. headquarters into a 42,000-square-foot space on West 57th Street that feels less like a back-office salesroom and more like the kind of place you'd stumble into and lose an afternoon.
The building's centerpiece is an 80-foot glass atrium that opens onto a grand staircase and triple-height gallery. But the real draw is what they've restored: the historic Steinway Rotunda, that old New York glamour that reminds you the building itself has a story. Two sizable auction rooms flank the main space, designed to host the kind of sales that draw serious collectors.
What's on view
For the opening, Bonhams is showing "Striking a Chord," a collection of 20th and 21st-century work that includes a rare Constantin Brancusi sculpture, La Muse endormie II, alongside pieces by Francis Bacon, Lee Krasner, and John Chamberlain. The title plays on the building's Steinway history—the idea that art can hit you the way music does.
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Elsewhere in the building: a preview of postwar design from New York dealer Evan Lobel's collection—pieces by Philip and Kelvin LaVerne, Karl Springer, Stephen Rolfe Powell—plus a diamond-dust Andy Warhol portrait of Sid Bass. And then there's "Heavyweights & Headliners: Legends in Sports and Rock," featuring photographer George Kalinsky's archive: signed gloves and robes from the 1971 "Fight of the Century" between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali at Madison Square Garden.
The move signals Bonhams' confidence in blending fine art, design, and sports memorabilia under one roof. Whether the opening-week energy sustains will depend on whether collectors see this as more than a beautiful new building—whether it becomes a destination.
