As the world’s major auction houses prepare for next month’s spring sales in New York, clues are starting to trickle out about the masterpieces they’ve wrangled to resell. The latest reveal: Christie’s will offer up a group of Gerhard Richter paintings from the $65 million estate of famed New York dealer Marian Goodman, who died in January.

Gerhard Richter’s 1999 ‘Abstract Painting’ hanging in late art dealer Marian Goodman’s New York apartment.Gerhard Richter’s 1999 ‘Abstract Painting’ hanging in late art dealer Marian Goodman’s New York apartment.

The set is led by Richter’s 1982 “Candle,” a pensive view of a white, flickering candle that the house expects to sell for at least $35 million. “Poppy,” a multicolored abstract from 1995 created using the German artist’s signature squeegee gesture is expected to sell for around $15 million. The evening sale will also include several newer abstracts, dated to 2008 and 2009.

Goodman’s Richters should serve as a key test of the artist at a time when demand for his work at auction has proven volatile—but could benefit from the broader comeback of the global art market. Younger collectors will need to show the same willingness to pay a premium for Richter as older bidders did during his peak from 2012 to 2014, when he was outselling Claude Monet, Alberto Giacometti and Mark Rothko combined. In 2014, Richter’s works sold for $313.6 million at auction, according to ARTDAI, an art market intelligence platform.

Richter, 94, is known for experimenting with ways to refresh traditional painting categories, including portraits, still lifes and abstracts. Having fled the former East Germany months before the Berlin Wall went up, he has created several distinct bodies of work, including haunting, blurred portraits that evoke smudged newsprint and layered abstracts made using an oversize squeegee the size of a car bumper. His late 1980s abstracts have historically sold the best, with a collector in 2015 paying a record-setting $46.5 million for one of his 1986 untitled abstracts.

Richter’s market has been on a roller coaster since, cooling off after that 2015 record but then rallying in 2021 when 156 of his artworks sold at auction for $231.4 million combined, according to ARTDAI. Last year there was another dip, as 217 of his works came up for auction but only sold for $64.8 million combined.

“Candle” is poised to test the upper boundaries of his market. In the early 1980s, Richter painted 24 views of white, flickering candles that initially proved a commercial flop, with none selling when he debuted them. Collectors eventually caught on. In 2011, one sold at auction for $16.5 million; candles from the series have since been scarce at auction. Christie’s contemporary art specialist Johanna Flaum said the rarity of the now-coveted series “makes them most sought after.”

Goodman was among the prescient few to buy from the “Candle” series, hanging her 3-foot-long version in her Manhattan dining room for decades after buying it shortly after it was painted in 1982. She displayed “Poppy,” a squeegee abstract in cheery red and blue hues, in her living room, with an untitled version in subtler white and green hues from 2009 hanging in her bedroom.

Her daughter Amy Goodman said her mother crisscrossed Europe looking for overlooked artists to champion in New York at a time when most local galleries remained devoted to homegrown pop art and minimalism. Her eponymous gallery opened in 1977 and her tastes ran the gamut, her daughter said, but today Marian Goodman is revered among the art establishment for promoting a swath of significant artists including Marcel Broodthaers, Gabriel Orozco, Steve McQueen and Julie Mehretu.

Richter, arguably her biggest early find, has been represented by David Zwirner since 2022.

“Her love and belief in beauty felt like a real force in the world,” said Amy Goodman about her mother, whose namesake galleries in New York, Paris and London are now run by several partners.

Write to Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com