Bonhams celebrated the opening of its New York flagship at Steinway Hall, gathering art, design, fashion, luxury, and cultural figures to mark a significant new chapter for the global auction house.
Notable attendees included Aminatou Sow, Brendan Fallis, Dan Rosen, Emilia Petrarca, Jalil Johnson, and many more.
Revealing Bonhams' headquarters as a new cultural destination for New York, guests wandered the auction house after hours, moving from Steinway Hall's historic rotunda and soaring 80-foot glass atrium to the newly built gallery spaces above, designed to host exhibitions, auctions, and year-round cultural programming. Sitting on a stretch of West 57th Street long synonymous with art, music, and design, the new flagship draws on the cultural pulse of the corridor while opening Bonhams to a wider, more public-facing audience, with a space where seasoned collectors, first-time visitors, and creative communities converge.
Guests were among the first to preview highlights from Bonhams' upcoming Spring 20th and 21st Century Art auctions, including original works by Banksy, Yoshitomo Nara, René Magritte, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir, offering a snapshot of the breadth that defines Bonhams across more than 60 specialist categories, from fine art and design to jewelry, watches, motorcars, and beyond.
Guests toasted the evening with flutes of Perrier-Jouët Blanc de Blancs champagne and canapés by chef Flynn McGarry, while specialty cocktails from Pernod Ricard’s prestige portfolio of spirits drew inspiration from works on view made available from the iconic Atrium Bar and designated Código 1530 Tequila Bar. Signature serves included the “Renoir” crafted with Monkey 47 Gin, the “Lichtenstein” with Absolut Vodka, the “Brancusi” with Redbreast 12-Year-Old, alongside pours from the acclaimed Midleton Irish Whiskey Collection.
Midway through the celebration, Lilly Chan, Bonhams US Managing Director, convened guests under the building's central atrium to toast the opening and Bonhams' future. In her remarks, she welcomed friends and collaborators to what she described as Bonhams' new home in New York and a second home, she hoped, for the creative community gathered in the room:
"This building is more than a new address for Bonhams. To open our U.S. flagship inside Steinway Hall, on one of the most storied cultural corridors in the world, alongside the people shaping culture today — and with more than 60 categories of expertise under one roof — says everything about where Bonhams is headed. Whether you're a longtime collector or you've never set foot in an auction house, our doors are open, and tonight is just the beginning.”
The evening marked more than the unveiling of a building, offering a first look at a new chapter for Bonhams, one rooted in connecting the curious across every corner of culture. Designed to make the house's specialist depth genuinely visible and accessible, the flagship will host year-round programming, exhibitions, and cultural dialogue that exists independently of any sale, drawing connections between disciplines, eras, and audiences. Steinway Hall itself becomes the metaphor: a place where the past inspires the present, where cultural fluency meets specialist expertise, and where Bonhams is positioning itself not as the auction house people turn to once a transaction is in motion, but as the one they trust to understand collecting and culture as a whole.
Electronic duo Paperwater provided the evening's soundtrack with a DJ set, which briefly paused for a surprise live performance by trumpeter Spencer Ludwig in Bonhams' third-floor gallery space.
The evening established the new headquarters as a dynamic destination for collectors, creatives, and the wider public, ushering in a new era for Bonhams that honors more than 230 years of expertise while signaling where the house is headed: culturally connected, accessible to the next generation of collectors, and as fluent in the conversation of today as it is in the legacy of the past.
Image credit: Bre Johnson/BFA
