As the doors opened on the first preview day of Art Basel 2025, collectors, curators, and VIPs quickly filled the halls. From blue-chip heavyweights to first-time participants, galleries across all sections reported early sales, with momentum remaining high as institutions made key acquisitions and new exhibitors achieved notable successes.

London’s Annely Juda Fine Art announced the significant sale of David Hockney’s Mid November Tunnel (2006), an oil painting across two canvases depicting a rural road winding through the English countryside, which sold in the range of USD 13,000,000–17,000,000 to a private collection.

At David Zwirner (New York, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Paris) headline figures included a major sculpture Untitled (S.278, Hanging Nine-Lobed, Single-Layered Continuous Form) (c. 1955), by Ruth Asawa, an early example of the artist’s looped-wire works, which Asawa began making in the late 1940s while still a student at Black Mountain College. Nearly ten-feet tall, the sculpture sold for USD 9,500,000. Also on the booth, Gerhard Richter’s Abstraktes Bild (Abstract Painting) (1987) sold for USD 6,800,000. This work dates to one of the most pivotal periods in Richter’s career, belonging to a series he began in 1976 that bridges the two central threads of his practice: painting and photography.

Gladstone Gallery (New York, Brussels, Rome, Seoul) sold Keith Haring’s Untitled (1983) for USD 3,500,000. In the early 1980s, Haring began making large-scale works on wood, and frequently used sumi ink, a traditional black ink used primarily in East Asian calligraphy, with brush painting to render his iconic figures of radiant babies, barking dogs, and dancing silhouettes. The gallery also confirmed the sale of five Haring works on paper, each ranging between USD 275,000–550,000.

At Hauser & Wirth (Zurich, Basel, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris, Somerset, St. Moritz) two large-scale mixed media canvases by Mark Bradford Ain’t Got Time To Worry (2025) and Sin and Love and Fear (2025) each sold for USD 3,500,000 to prominent US-based private collections. The gallery also found a buyer for a rare early work by Alina Szapocznikow, Lampe-bouche (Illuminated Lips), (c. 1966), in colored polyester resin with electrical wiring, which sold for EUR 850,000.

Pace Gallery (New York, Berlin, Geneva, Hong Kong, London, Los Angeles, Seoul, Tokyo) also confirmed the sale of Loie Hollowell’s Pressure in Blue-Purple (2025) for USD 275,000, underscoring the continued excitement around the artist’s abstract, bodily compositions. CEO Marc Glimcher pushed back on pre-fair pessimism: ‘Everyone misread the May auctions. We’ve seen tremendous energy return – our booth is packed, and sales have matched the pace of any strong year.’

At White Cube (London, Hong Kong, New York, Paris, Seoul), a trio of works by Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, all in his signature medium of gunpowder on canvas, sold early on. Red Birds (2022) sold for USD 1,200,000 to a European institution, and two further works by the artist, titled Trish’s Peony No. 2 (2023) and Natural Poppy Flower (2016), were each placed for USD 700,000. The gallery also confirmed the sale of three iterations of Danh Vo’s sculptural installation In God We Trust (2025), on show in the Unlimited sector, which features large-scale works. Vo’s reimagining of the 1777 version of the US flag, comprising 13 milled steel stars and wood logs, were each priced at EUR 250,000. Meanwhile, the mixed-media work, Kumwensia (2023-2024), composed of carbon tattoo on leather, vinyl, and wood by Ibrahim Mahama – a recipient of this year’s Art Basel Awards’ Established Artist Medal – sold for EUR 100,000.

Recognition for Chilean poet and artist, Cecilia Vicuña, who was awarded a medal in the Artist Icon category at this year’s Art Basel Awards, translated into multiple sales across the fair. At Lehmann Maupin (New York, London) her oil painting Jaguar I (1978/2025) sold to Swiss collectors in the range of USD 200,000–250,000. The work combines feline iconography with Andean symbology in luminous yellow ochres and crimson reds. Meanwhile, Xavier Hufkens (Brussels) confirmed the sale of another Vicuña work titled Dar ver Cacaxtla (2023), also oil on canvas, for USD 185,000.

Over in Unlimited, Grimm (Amsterdam, London, New York) sold the 40-feet wide wall-based installation by Claudia Martínez Garay titled Conversiones (2025) to the Pérez Art Museum Miami for EUR 90,000, marking another institutional acquisition on day one. Mural work is central to Martínez Garay’s practice, for which she draws on schoolbook diagrams, mythologies, and colonial chronicles – all symbols of inherited knowledge that still shape how we perceive and misunderstand cultures outside the Western canon.

Another notable sale at Unlimited was American abstract painter Larry Poons’s expressive 2022 acrylic on canvas painting titled The Outerlands for USD 1,200,000 by Yares Art (New York, Los Angeles). Spanning over 40-feet in length, the painting brings together Poons’s experimentation, combining color field, relief textures, and gestural marks created by hand.

Among first-time participants, Edel Assanti (London) made an impactful debut in both the new Premiere section and Unlimited. The gallery presented a solo booth of work by American artist Lonnie Holley, whose practice spans sculpture, painting, and film. All eight works on the booth, including two paintings and six sculptures, sold out on the opening day, with prices ranging from USD 15,000–200,000. Holley’s directorial debut I Snuck Off the Slave Ship (2019) was acquired by a prominent European collector via Unlimited, while additional sculptural and painted works were placed in respected foundations and private collections across the US, Europe, and Asia.

At Soft Opening (London), following the announcement of Rhea Dillon as a recipient of this year’s Baloise Art Prize (alongside Lebanese-Canadian artist Joyce Joumaa who shows with Montreal-based Eli Kerr), Dillon’s seven sculptural works sold out. Titled Leaning Figures, they examine material and colonial histories and Black feminist epistemologies and were each priced between GBP 14,000–15,000. Director Antonia Marsh remarked: ‘So thrilled to have won the Baloise Art Prize with Dillon’s presentation. We found the energy of the fair to be excited and inquisitive.’