Art Basel Paris Opens With Richter and Baselitz Sales Near $10 Million Each and a $100 Million Modigliani on Offer

Four hours was enough for Hauser & Wirth to sell a Gerhard Richter and a Georg Baselitz, each for a price “in the region of” $10 million. That was the opening of Art Basel Paris’s invitation-only Avant-Première at the Grand Palais on Tuesday (Oct. 20), days after nationwide protests in France, per ARTnews and Artnet. The Richter, the 1965 grayscale Rokokotisch (Rococo Table), was an unexpected addition to the booth, ARTnews says.

The biggest number is still unsold. Pace Di Donna Schrader is offering Amedeo Modigliani’s Nu étendu (Lolotte) (1917), a reclining nude valued in excess of $100 million that the gallery says hasn’t been seen in about a century. It was part of Modigliani’s 1917 exhibition at Galerie Berthe Weill, which caused a scandal for indecency and was his only solo show in his lifetime. Artnet reports the family of the collector who bought it in 1920 is selling. Emmanuel Di Donna said the painting would take time to place, but called the fair’s overall sales activity “like drinking from a fire hose.”

Elsewhere, Gagosian reported an eight-figure sale of a 1987 Willem de Kooning without naming a price. White Cube reported 16 sales, including two Julie Mehretu paintings at $7.85 million each, and Thaddaeus Ropac counted 15, among them four Picassos and a 1953 Lucio Fontana for €1.8 million. Because the preview ran only four hours, ARTnews notes, most galleries could report a sale or two.

Read moreArt Basel Paris Opens This Week With Its First Live Nation Project, a Free GENER8ION Installation

A record 12 shared booths, representing 24 galleries, filled out the fair. On the second floor, Layr of Vienna and Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler of Berlin and Munich said they had sold several works, pairing Franz West’s 1983–84 Passstück with Anna Uddenberg’s 2026 sculpture White Noise (Soft Skills), ARTnews says.

The room was less busy than at last year’s debut, ARTnews wrote: aisles full but navigable, with galleries seemingly paring their lists to the most serious collectors. Some dealers and advisers said they knew of collectors who canceled trips over the protests, though American buyers showed up anyway.

It’s definitely a slower pace than about five years ago, but great things do find great homes.

Marc Payot, president of Hauser & Wirth, ARTnews

The protests, over school conditions and the cost of living, put an estimated 500,000 people in the streets on Saturday, Artnet reported. The Grand Palais went into a brief lockdown at 5 p.m. that day while works were being installed, a fair representative confirmed to Hyperallergic, and the building sustained no damage. Artnet said the Louvre, blockaded by art students on Monday, was open again by Tuesday.

There’s something about Paris: its contradictions, its restless energy, its ability to surprise you at every turn.

Xavier Hufkens, dealer, ARTnews

Crossover names were thick on the ground. ARTnews spotted the actors Katie Holmes and Natalie Portman, and Artnet found a 1982 Jean-Michel Basquiat on offer at Van de Weghe for $11 million, next to a $14.5 million Joan Mitchell. The collector Will Paley called the Frieze and Paris fairs “complementary,” with Frieze for “young galleries, young artists, and young collectors” and Art Basel Paris carrying “a higher price point.”

Previews continue through Thursday, and the public days run Friday to Sunday (Oct. 23–25). GENER8ION’s free GOD HATES SPACE installation opens in the Rotonde d’Antin on Thursday, as we reported.