Top galleries are placing plenty of works for prices above $1 million at Art Basel Paris 2026. Dealer Emmanuel Di Donna told ARTnews at the Avant-Première preview on Tuesday afternoon (aka the VVIP opening) that the experience is like “drinking from a fire hose.” That was followed by the VIP preview on Wednesday.
This all came off without a hitch amid heightened security as protests roiled Paris after demonstrations by high school students against crumbling educational infrastructure and absent teachers in a local suburb literally caught fire, with thousands taking to the streets, with some resulting property damage.
The priciest work on display, on offer from Pace DiDonna Schrader, is a rare 1917 painting of a reclining nude woman by Amedeo Modigliani, Nu étendu (Lolotte), valued in excess of $100 million. As of Wednesday evening local time, there was no word on whether the piece had found a buyer, but its presence testified to dealers’ faith that top collectors would be in attendance despite the uproar in the streets.
“This opening afternoon has been very strong and collectors came ready to make decisions quickly,” said dealer Thaddaeus Ropac in an emailed statement. “Despite any worries about the demonstrations, some deciding not to travel to Paris, we already feel that it’s the most international art fair of the year.”
The fair came on the heels of Frieze and Frieze Masters, the contemporary art and 20th-century art fairs that took place in London last week. Hauser & Wirth president Marc Payot said in an emailed statement, “In the past 24 hours, we’ve sold super-rare works by Fontana, Gauguin, Modigliani and Morandi that we first introduced at Frieze. And in Paris, we are placing equally exceptional works on our stand—true masterpieces of the second half of the 20th century by Richter, Calder, Bourgeois, Twombly, Baselitz and Szapocznikow, along with new works by George Condo, Jenny Holzer, Henry Taylor, and Camille Henrot.”
Here’s every sale that has been reported as of 9 p.m. Paris time for $1 million and up.
The top prices were commanded by Hauser & Wirth, which sold Gerhard Richter’s 1965 work Rokokotisch (Rococo Table) and Georg Baselitz’s 1965 Der Hirte (The Shepherd), each for a price in the region of $10 million.
David Zwirner sold a Gerhard Richter painting for $8.5 million.
White Cube sold Julie Mehretu’s 2001 painting Rise of the New Suprematists and her 2018 painting Mumbaphilia (J.E.) for $7.9 million each.
Pace sold Jean Dubuffet’s painting La chaise (1964) for a price over $5 million.
Zwirner sold Robert Ryman paintings for $4 million and $1.3 million.
Hauser & Wirth sold a Mark Bradford for $4 million.
Zwirner sold a 1957 Joan Mitchell painting for $3.8 million.
Zwirner sold a new Marlene Dumas painting for $3 million.
Zwirner placed a Josef Albers painting for $3 million.
Hauser & Wirth found a home for George Condo’s Woman with Designer Shirt (2026) for $2.95 million.
Zwirner sold a Luc Tuymans painting for $2.4 million.
Le Minotaure sold an untitled 1922 Wassily Kandinsky watercolor for $2.2 million.
Sprüth Magers sold George Condo’s painting The Mechanical Man (2026) to a US collection for $2.2 million. The gallery sold his painting Coney Island (2026) to a European collection for the same price.
Zwirner found a new home for an On Kawara painting for $2 million.
Pace sold Lee Ufan’s From Line No. 79061 (1979) for $2 million.
White Cube sold an El Anatsui sculpture, MivEvi I (2025), for $2 million.
Thaddaeus Ropac placed Lucio Fontana’s Concetto spaziale (1953), a painting with Murano glass fragments, for $2 million.
Hauser & Wirth sold Lucio Fontana’s 1961 work Concetto spaziale (Spatial Concept) for $1.9 million.
Gladstone sold Cecily Brown’s painting This must be the place (2017–21) for $1.5 million.
Hauser & Wirth sold Philip Guston’s Untitled (1969) for $1.5 million.
Gladstone sold Victor Man’s painting Pink Chair (2012) for $1.3 million.
White Cube sold Tracey Emin’s painting You Were Part of me (2022) for $1.3 million.
Zwirner sold a sculpture by Ruth Asawa for $1.2 million.
Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois sold Niki de Saint Phalle’s multimedium sculpture Cat Head Totem (2000) for a price between $800,000 and $1.2 million.
Hauser & Wirth sold Henry Taylor’s painting “WTF’s my 40 acres & my mule, you lying…” (2023–26) for $1 million.
Lisson Gallery sold Anish Kapoor’s sculpture Clear to Dark Brandy (2026) for $1 million.
Mennour sold Lee Ufan’s Response (2026) for $1 million.