Louise Bourgeois remains among bestsellers at Art Basel
Galleries have already reported numerous sales in the millions on the first day of Art Basel. The artist Louise Bourgeois remained the bestseller. The declared top seller was a sunflower painting by Joan Mitchell, which sold for $20 million (CHF18 million).
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According to the Art Basel Sales Report, the painting was sold by the David Zwirner Gallery. The New York gallery also sold another painting by Mitchell (1925-1992) for $1.3 million.
Among other million-dollar sales, the German artist Gerhard Richter, whose Abstract Painting from 2016 sold for $6 million, was also highly prized at Zwirner. Three paintings by his German colleague Georg Baselitz went for between $1.2 million and $2 million at Thaddeus Ropac from Salzburg.
The Zurich gallery Hauser & Wirth also declared itself extremely successful on the first Art Day, reporting half a dozen million-dollar sales. These included a small marble sculpture by Louise Bourgeois (Woman with Packages), which sold for $3.5 million.
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This was quite a bit less than the spider sculptures of previous years, for which prices in the double-digit million range had been paid. However, $16 million was paid at the gallery for an untitled work on paper by Arshile Gorky (1904-1984).
A sculpture by Bourgeois also went over the gallery counter at Xavier Hukens from Brussels for $1.2 million.
The sales at Pace (New York etc.) were particularly special. There, an extensive art sofa landscape by Jean Dubuffet invited visitors to sit down. Three editions of his Banc-Salon from 1970 to 2024 were sold for €800,000 (CHF770,000) each.
Translated from German by DeepL/ts
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