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Hauser & Wirth made the deal of the gallery’s history with Picasso’s late work “Le peintre et son modèle dans un paysage,” which was offered for $35 million.
Keystone
$35 million for a Picasso. But many other works by Picasso, David Hockney, Louise Bourgeois, and other blue-chip artists also sold for millions in the first few hours of Art Basel.
A major Picasso at Hauser & Wirth, with other paintings by the great Spanish master on display not far away at Gagosian: It’s striking that the major galleries—which usually specialize in contemporary art—are placing a strong emphasis this year on the blue-chip artists of Classical Modernism.
They are likely buoyed by the positive outlook in the high-end sector of the art market, as indicated by the Art Market Report published by Art Basel and UBS. And rightly so, as the sales report from the first few hours confirms: According to the report, Hauser & Wirth sold Picasso’s late work “Le peintre et son modèle dans un paysage” for $35 million.
Hauser & Wirth also achieved several other sales in the millions: among them, a work by Cy Twombly for $5 million and a painting by Louise Bourgeois for $2.5 million. “It was the strongest first day ever,” gallery founder Iwan Wirth is quoted as saying in the sales report.
According to the report, the Akmine Reich Gallery also sold a Picasso for over $6 million. In addition to the Picassos and other masters of Classical Modernism, works by the recently deceased star artist David Hockney also fetched high prices. The Gray Gallery sold Hockney’s “Studio Interior #2” from 2014 for $8.5 million.
The current retrospective at the Kunstmuseum Basel appears to have sparked a surge of interest in the work of the American artist Helen Frankenthaler, who died in 2011: The Thaddaeus Roppac Gallery sold one of her paintings “in the region” of $3 million, according to the report. Xares Art Gallery reported a sale price of $2 million for a Frankenthaler painting.
From a visitor’s perspective, a tour of Art Unlimited—the section dedicated to large-format to massive works—is well worth the effort this year. It was curated for the first time by Ruba Katrib, Director of Curatorial Affairs at MoMA PS1 in New York.
Works there, too, sold for millions: Niki de Saint Phalle’s “Blue Obelisk” for 1 million euros and a work by Isa Genzken for 1.2 million euros—both to European museums.
The Art Basel art fair opens its doors to the general public on Thursday and runs through Sunday.
16.06.2026, 15:20
16.06.2026, 20:56
