Rashid Johnson’s large-scale “Anxious Man” (2014), executed in his signature black soap, wax, and spray enamel on ceramic tile, heads to Sotheby’s Contemporary Curated sale on October 7, 2026, with a $400,000–$600,000 estimate. The work belongs to the artist’s most recognizable and commercially resilient series, which has driven multiple seven-figure results in recent years and benefits from his ongoing mid-career survey “A Poem for Deep Thinkers” at the Guggenheim through early 2026. Strong institutional placements, consistent sell-through rates, and the proximity of the auction to the exhibition’s visibility are the main factors shaping trader views on whether the hammer price clears key thresholds above the low-end estimate. Recent secondary-market prints from the series have performed solidly but remain far below the scale of this piece.