Art Basel Paris opened its fourth edition this week with steady confidence and robust sales. Across the fair’s 206 participating galleries, blue-chip works achieved significant results, with single transactions reaching up to USD 23 million. The debut of Avant-Première, a new Tuesday preview, brought an early burst of energy, while the VIP preview that followed confirmed strong demand across both Modern and contemporary sectors.

Avant-Première

This year marked the debut of Avant-Première, an intimate preview that allowed galleries to invite their most trusted clients for an exclusive visit on Tuesday, ahead of the fair’s VIP Preview. The event generated impressive momentum, with total reported sales estimated around USD 90 million.

Late paintings by 20th-century masters dominated the action in Pace’s booth on Tuesday, with three major sales reported. Amedeo Modigliani’s pensive portrait Jeune fille aux macarons (Young Woman with Hair in Side Buns) (1918) – painted during the artist’s late-in-life sojourn in the south of France – sold for just under USD 10 million. Agnes Martin’s Children Playing (1999), from the Canadian-American artist’s ‘Innocent Love’ series, has also found a home. Begun when Martin was in her 80s, the series saw her exploring childlike exuberance with a slightly looser, more lyrical hand. Pace sold the acrylic and graphite work for USD 4.5 million.

Another female painter made waves when Pace sold Emily Kam Kngwarray’s abstract acrylic Alatji – Wild Yam (1992) sold for USD 550,000. The late Kngwarray was a driving force in contemporary Australian Aboriginal art and is currently the subject of a major retrospective at Tate Modern in London, on view until January.

Another institutional show has been the talk of Paris this week. Spanning more than six decades of work, Gerhard Richter’s landmark retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton opened to packed halls and strong reviews. Reflecting that city-wide momentum, Hauser & Wirth showed Abstraktes Bild (1987) – a large, multilayered canvas made with Richter’s iconic squeegee-blurring technique. The work sold during Avant-Première for USD 23 million, one of the fair’s top reported prices. Another canvas from the same late-1980s period, presented by David Zwirner, found a buyer for USD 3.5 million, underscoring Richter’s gravitational pull on both institutions and the market.

Zwirner’s booth remained lively, with additional sales including a monumental hanging copper-and-brass sculpture by the late Ruth Asawa for USD 7.5 million, and a Martin Kippenberger painting for USD 5 million. Adding to the strong performance among European painters Christophe Gaillard sold Simon Hantaï’s Tabula (1975) – a blue, grid-based composition created through the artist’s signature pliage (folding) technique – for a price in the range of USD 930,000–985,000.

VIP preview

If Avant-Première signaled confidence, the VIP preview on Wednesday confirmed it. The transition from intimate previews to the fair’s full opening saw totals climb well into the hundreds of millions.

Hauser & Wirth set things in motion early with the sale of a seminal work by Bruce Nauman. The American artist’s Masturbating Man (1985) – a neon sculpture featuring flashing, overlapping silhouettes of a male figure caught in repeated motion – sold for USD 4.75 million. Another commanding male figure appeared at Thaddaeus Ropac’s booth, where Georg Baselitz’s Cowboy (2024) – a bronze sculpture with a roughly hewn surface and elongated, weight-bearing limbs – sold for USD 4.06 million.

Alongside these sculptural highlights, painting held strong. At White Cube, Julie Mehretu’s Charioteer (2007) – a dynamic field of swirling marks layered over faint architectural outlines – sold for USD 11.5 million. Yares Art also reported robust results, placing Frank Stella’s 260-cm-wide Sacramento Mall Proposal #5 (1978) for USD 4 million.

Premise

The Premise sector – now in its second year and dedicated to highly curated, often historical presentations – brought together artists who have redefined their fields, with notable female standouts. Pavec devoted its booth to Marie Bracquemond, a long-overlooked French Impressionist whose light-kissed paintings of gardens and domestic scenes are gaining renewed recognition. Seven works sold on the fair’s first day, each priced between USD 45,000 and 60,000. At Tina Kim Gallery, collectors responded enthusiastically to the tactile, abstract textiles of Lee ShinJa, one of Korea’s early fiber-art pioneers. Four of Lee’s works sold: one for USD 70,000, two for USD 90,000, and another for USD 150,000.

Public Program

The energy extended beyond the Grand Palais into the city itself. Throughout the fair’s outdoor Public Program, monumental works attracted steady attention from both collectors and passersby. Just outside the Grand Palais on Avenue Winston Churchill stands Usagi Greeting (440) (2025), a bronze sculpture by Leiko Ikemura featuring her recurring rabbit-human hybrid figure Usagi – a symbol of suffering, resilience, and renewal. Lisson Gallery reported its sale for just over USD 925,000.

A short walk away at the Cour de l’Hôtel de la Marine on Place de la Concorde, Almine Rech is presenting Joël Andrianomearisoa’s Les Herbes folles du vieux logis (2020–2025), a large-scale textile installation exploring the cultural significance of Madagascar’s textile traditions. Part of a series honoring a Malagasy poet, the work sold on Wednesday for USD 250,000.

As the week unfolds, strong institutional buying, renewed collector confidence, and a notable emphasis on female and non-Western artists signaled a market continuing to broaden in scope.