Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- With auction estimates projected to break a billion dollars, the New York art market swings into what is poised to be the biggest selling season in history. Major works by Gauguin, Modigliani and Warhol are expected to draw scores of deep-pocket buyers.

Sotheby's and Christie's impressionist, modern-art and contemporary-art auctions begin Nov. 7 and run through Nov. 16. Sales for a similar stretch tallied $725.6 million a year ago.

Historically, art has arrived on the auction block courtesy of the three Ds: death, divorce or disaster. Not so this season, when ``discretionary selling'' has become the norm.

``People think it's a good time to sell,'' said New York art dealer David Nash. ``The prices things have sold for over the past three to four sale seasons are very encouraging for people to put their works on the market.''

The auction houses also say that the buying pool has grown. Russian billionaires, Asian collectors and a recent influx of hedge-fund managers are all vying with traditional American and European collectors.

``Our bidder lists are more diverse than ever before,'' said David Norman, head of Sotheby's impressionist and modern art department. ``You almost wonder what currencies to put on the board,'' he said, referring to the large electronic displays in sale rooms that convert bid prices into various denominations.

Likely One-Day Record

The largest single auction total was reached in May 1990 at Sotheby's New York, when an evening sale of impressionist and modern artworks totaled $286 million. (The following year the art market tumbled). Christie's Nov. 8 sale of impressionist and modern art is expected to fetch from $338 million to $488 million, a big jump from last year's November total of $160.9 million and significantly more than the record.

Many are taking advantage of the soaring market to cash out. High-profile sellers include composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, dealer William Acquavella, Ronald S. Lauder's Neue Galerie and actor Sean Connery.

``People are taking a profit,'' said Michael Findlay, director of Acquavella Galleries. ``The sellers have decided that whatever is going to happen next is enough for them. If the market softens, it will appear to have been very smart. I think they are selling because they have looked at levels and the levels are healthy.''

Plenty to Buy

The result is that auction houses are flush with all kinds of material, grades A, B and even D. Highlights include composer Andrew Lloyd Webber's Blue Period Picasso, ``Portrait de Angel Fernandez de Soto'' (1903), showing a debonair lad sipping absinthe. Lloyd Webber bought the painting at Sotheby's New York in 1995 for $29.1 million, and it is now estimated to sell at Christie's on Nov. 8 for $40 million to $60 million.

New York dealer Acquavella has decided the time is right to sell ``Nature morte aux fruits et pot de gingembre,'' a brushy Cezanne still life (about 1895) that he bought at Christie's London in 2000 for $18.2 million. The work is now expected to sell for $28 million to $35 million at Sotheby's on Nov. 7.

Connery is parting with five pieces, including a 6-by-9-inch Picasso still life purchased at Sotheby's New York in 2002 for $245,500. It is now expected to fetch as much as $450,000.

Even museums are taking advantage of the buoyant market to pare their collections. The Toledo Museum of Art is selling impressionist landscapes by Renoir and Alfred Sisley (estimated to bring as much as $2.7 million). The New York Neue Galerie is selling three major works by Austrian artist Egon Schiele, though the museum did not identify itself as the seller in the auction catalog. The Schieles are expected to fetch as much as $45 million, money to be applied to the purchase price of the recently acquired ``Adele Bloch-Bauer I'' by Gustav Klimt.

Art Appreciation

Contemporary art sales are also dotted with profit-making possibilities. A 6.5-by-7-foot 1977 Willem de Kooning painting estimated to sell for about $15 million was acquired by the seller for around $2 million in the early 1990s, according to Brett Gorvy, deputy chairman of Christie's postwar and contemporary art department.

Pop art -- especially work by Andy Warhol -- abounds. Both major houses have put Warhol portraits on their catalog covers; Christie's has a 1962 ``Orange Marilyn'' from the famous Marilyn Monroe series begun in 1962, soon after the actress's mysterious death.

This is the third time ``Orange Marilyn'' has appeared at auction in eight years -- hardly fresh goods in gallery terms but a potent lure for new collectors hoping to assemble instant collections.

Marilyn Guarantee

The aqua-eyed temptress sold for $2.75 million at Christie's New York in 1998 and $3.75 million in May 2001. It is now estimated to go for as much as a whopping $15 million. Christie's is so confident in its pricing that the seller has been given a guarantee -- an increasingly common inducement in which the seller gets a secret minimum price even if the work doesn't sell. (Another ``Orange Marilyn,'' twice as large, holds the Warhol auction record: $17.3 million at Sotheby's New York in 1998.)

Another newly important source of auction material is Holocaust-restituted artwork. Christie's won the season's plum consignment: four major Klimt paintings returned to private ownership after a lengthy court battle with the Austrian government. The works -- ``leftovers'' after Lauder scooped up the best one for his Neue Galerie -- are expected to sell for as much as $90 million total.

Christie's also landed the superb 1913 ``Berlin Street Scene'' by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, recently returned to heirs of the original owners by the Brucke Museum in Berlin. The painting, of angular dandies and prostitutes, is estimated to sell for more than $25 million.

So what do longtime market watchers predict for the next few weeks?

``We're going to see huge prices. There's an awful lot of money out there,'' New York dealer Richard Feigen said.

But others wonder if cracks will appear. ``The market is deeper than we have given it credit for, but at these prices, it's going to be another test,'' said dealer Andrew Fabricant, director of Richard Gray Gallery. ``These estimates are pushing the limit.''

(Lindsay Pollock is author of ``The Girl With the Gallery,'' a history of the first modern-art gallery in Greenwich Village, published this month by PublicAffairs. She writes on the art market for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Lindsay Pollock at lindsaypollock@yahoo.com.

Last Updated: November 2, 2006 00:13 EST