Two 1965 Paintings Sell for About US$10 Million Each at Art Basel Paris
Two 1965 paintings by German artists sold for about US$10 million each at Art Basel Paris 2026, the Paris edition of the large art fair where galleries show and sell work from their own booths. Hauser & Wirth, a gallery group, sold Gerhard Richter's Rokokotisch (Rococo Table) and Georg Baselitz's Der Hirte (The Shepherd), according to ARTnews. ARTnews gave the prices as "in the region of" US$10 million, and it listed them as the top reported sales as of 9 p.m. Paris time on Wednesday.
Several other works changed hands at the fair. David Zwirner, a New York gallery, sold a Richter painting for US$8.5 million. White Cube, which has spaces in London, sold two Julie Mehretu paintings for US$7.9 million each. Pace sold Jean Dubuffet's La chaise (1964) for more than US$5 million.
Zwirner also sold two Robert Ryman paintings for US$4 million and US$1.3 million, and a 1957 Joan Mitchell painting for US$3.8 million. Hauser & Wirth sold a Mark Bradford work for US$4 million and a George Condo, Woman with Designer Shirt (2026), for US$2.95 million. Sprüth Magers sold two Condo works, The Mechanical Man (2026) and Coney Island (2026), for US$2.2 million each, one to a US collection and one to a European collection.
The most expensive work on offer may still be unsold. Pace DiDonna Schrader offered Amedeo Modigliani's 1917 painting Nu étendu (Lolotte), an Italian-born artist's reclining nude, at a price above US$100 million. ARTnews reported that no sale had been reported as of Wednesday evening in Paris. Artnet News had already reported on the first day of the fair that one dealer was offering a Modigliani at more than US$100 million.
The fair opened with an "Avant-Première" (a French term for an early preview) and VVIP preview on Tuesday, for the most important collectors. A general VIP preview followed on Wednesday. The openings coincided with protests in Paris over conditions in schools. ARTnews reported that the artist Alicja Kwade removed a sculpture amid the protests.
Earlier in the week, the gallery Gagosian described the pace of sales as "like drinking from a fire hose," meaning a flood that is hard to keep up with. It declined to give prices for its sales, ARTnews reported.
For the people who make a fair run, the week means crates, installers and insurance paperwork arriving on schedule. For buyers, the prices show what collectors paid for these works in Paris, not what the works are worth in any final sense. The fair's sales figures are still being reported as they come in.
