At the 23rd edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, 283 galleries have filled the Miami Beach Convention Center for the final big test of the market this year. Following a robust season of auctions in New York two weeks ago, with sales totalling $2.2bn, organisers and dealers say they are cautiously optimistic that collectors will buy with renewed confidence, particularly the blue-chip material that had moved more slowly in the last three years. While auction results are not necessarily a barometer for the broader market, especially for primary market dealers, early sales during Wednesday\u2019s VIP preview suggested growing momentum.<\/p>\n
The most valuable sale reported as we went to press was from David Zwirner. The gallery says it sold an abstract painting by Gerhard Richter for $5.5m, as well as the Alice Neel painting Pregnant Nude (1967) for $3.3m. Two Homage to the Square paintings by Josef Albers from 1955 and 1964 sold for $2.5m and $2.2m, respectively. The gallery says it sold a new painting by Dana Schultz to an American museum for $1.2m and a circa 1969 wire sculpture by Ruth Asawa for $1.2m.<\/p>\n
Within the first three hours, Hauser & Wirth reported sales 40% higher than the gallery\u2019s total from the fair last year. \u201cChristmas came early for our team this morning,\u201d Hauser & Wirth\u2019s president Marc Payot said in a statement early Wednesday afternoon. \u201cThe pace seems almost leisurely on the surface, but business is consistently brisk. We\u2019re already fielding inquiries about the works that will be newly installed tomorrow when we switch things up for the second day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The gallery announced 27 sales. Leading the group were George Condo\u2019s Untitled (Taxi Painting) (2011) at nearly $4m and Louise Bourgeois\u2019s Persistent Antagonism (1946-48) sold for $3.2m, though neither actually appeared at the stand\u2014both were pre-sold after the gallery\u2019s preview was sent to clients. The gallery also sold Bourgeois\u2019s Mr. Follett: Nursery-Man (1944) for $2.5m. Other seven-figure sales included a work from Ed Clark\u2019s Paris Series (1990) and Henry Taylor\u2019s monumental painting Every Brotha Has a Record (2020), each for $1.2m, along with Rashid Johnson\u2019s towering planter Standing Broken Soul \u201cNowhere Man\u201d (2025) for $1m.<\/p>\n
At Thaddaeus Ropac\u2019s stand, Alex Katz\u2019s Orange Hat 2 (1973) led sales at $2.5m, followed by his later canvas Wildflowers 1 (2010), for $1.5m. Georg Baselitz\u2019s Selbstportrait 1953, 18.V.97 (1997) sold for \u20ac1m, while Robert Longo\u2019s Untitled (Formula One Car Crash) (2025) found a buyer for $750,000.<\/p>\n
At Pace, Heroines, Beyonc\u00e9, Serena and Althea (2020) by Sam Gilliam sold for $1.1m, followed by Lynda Benglis\u2019s Fanfaronade (1979) for $400,000. Almine Rech sold a painting by Pablo Picasso for a figure between $2.8m and $3m, and a James Turrell for a figure between $900,000 and $1m.<\/p>\n
\u201c2025 has been a rough year,\u201d says Vincenzo de Bellis, Art Basel\u2019s chief artistic officer and global director of fairs. \u201cBut the second part of the year, it was picking up in Basel already. Then, especially September, October, November\u2014reporting what galleries have shared with me\u2014were significantly better than 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gladstone Gallery reported selling Robert Rauschenberg\u2019s Tarnished Honor (Copperhead) (1989) for $1.5m. Olney Gleason sold Robert Indiana\u2019s Eat (1962) for $135,000, two wall panels by Diana Al-Hadid for $110,000 each and a Robert Motherwell painting for $100,000. Spr\u00fcth Magers reported selling Anne Imhof\u2019s Pink Cloud (2025) and Rosemarie Trockel\u2019s Gogol (2011) for \u20ac250,000 each. Perrotin sold four works by Lee Bae, each priced between $60,000 and $200,000. The gallery also reported selling a painting by Daniel Arsham for around $95,000. K\u00f3 sold The lost cat (1973) by Nike Davies-Okundaye for $100,000 to the Toledo Museum of Art.<\/p>\n
The New York-based gallery Berry Campbell sold Yvonne Thomas\u2019s Caribbean Shore (1959) for $375,000; Mary Abbott\u2019s Hill Dancers (1948) for $275,000; Elaine de Kooning\u2019s Catskill Series (1965) and Shuyangh Cave (Cave No. 144) (1988) for $75,000 each; and an untitled circa 1971 work by Betty Parsons for $65,000.<\/p>\n
During last month\u2019s auctions, Lynne Drexler\u2019s Keller Fair II (1960) sold for more than $2m (with fees) at a Christie\u2019s day sale, more than doubling its $800,000 low estimate and setting a record for the artist\u2019s work at auction. That result bodes well for Berry Campbell, which is offering Drexler\u2019s Blue Bay (1968), priced at $950,000.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is also a really good example from the 1960s, so we definitely are using that reference,\u201d says gallery co-owner Christine Berry. \u201cPeople are coming in here and saying, \u2018Oh, that was a good price, right? Since this price is less than that price, even better.\u2019\u201d The Drexler had drawn strong interest by Wednesday afternoon, though a sale had not yet been finalised. Berry says the gallery has been \u201csteadily busy\u201d since September.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s our niche market or our price points, which seem to be in the middle of a lot of [Art Basel exhibitors], but things are going well,\u201d Berry says. (The gallery specialises in overlooked Abstract Expressionist women artists.)<\/p>\n
At Matthew Brown\u2019s stand, Carroll Dunham\u2019s Box Creatures (1995) sold for $350,000 ahead of the artist\u2019s upcoming drawing retrospective at the Art Institute of Chicago. Lisson Gallery sold an untitled 2015 work by Anish Kapoor for \u00a3500,000, along with two textile works by Olga de Amaral, a tapestry by Otobong Nkanga and two wall-based word pieces by Jack Pierson, who has a solo show just up the road at the Bass Museum of Art.<\/p>\n
The Miami-based dealer David Castillo, one of the fair\u2019s longtime local participants, sold a large-scale painting by Studio Lenka for $50,000 within the fair\u2019s first 45 minutes. The night before, all 20 paintings in the artist\u2019s solo show at Castillo\u2019s brick-and-mortar space had sold out.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s definitely been a shift over the last few months in the art market, where things are more buoyant again than they were the last couple of years. People are definitely expecting sales,\u201d Castillo says.<\/p>\n
That sense of buoyancy, he adds, has been reflected in the works dealers are bringing and the purchases collectors are making. \u201cThe people coming here want the big and the bold,\u201d Castillo says. \u201cPeople are passionate. They\u2019re not just buying it to put it in storage.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the 23rd edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, 283 galleries have filled the Miami Beach Convention Center…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[65887,12581,307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60,65886],"class_list":{"0":"post-174621","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-art-basel-miami-beach-2025","9":"tag-art-market","10":"tag-arts","11":"tag-arts-and-design","12":"tag-artsanddesign","13":"tag-artsdesign","14":"tag-design","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-miami-beach"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}