The art industry has once again descended on Miami for a week of “parties, paintings, and pills” at Art Basel Miami Beach, with several galleries already reporting sales of works over $1 million.
This year’s edition of ABMB takes place after a “fair and sober” evening auction season, but any concerns about international conflict or an economic recession were quickly mitigated during preview days.
“Sales at the booth have been strong since the opening hours of the fair, signaling an optimistic shift in this year’s sleepier market and economy,” Lehmann Maupin partner Fionna Flaherty said in a press statement. (Sales are self-reported by galleries, making the data difficult to confirm.)
Dealers reported robust attendance from collectors, curators, and museum groups hailing from Aspen to Paris to Hong Kong, as well as sales of works valued as highly as $20 million.
Below, a look at seven works that galleries said sold during Art Basel Miami Beach’s opening days, as well as a major work that could break an artist’s sales record.
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Teresita Fernández at Lehmann Maupin, $1 M.
Image Credit: Courtesy the artist and Lehmann Maupin Lehmann Maupin sold two large wall-based works by American visual artist Teresita Fernández—Dark Earth(Reservoir) (2023) and Dark Earth(Cosmos) (2019)—to “prominent collectors based in the United States and Europe” for a combined total of $1 million. The solid charcoal-and-mixed media aluminum panels are part of the artist’s larger interest in “an expansive rethinking of what constitutes landscape.”
The gallery said it also sold three new works by the South Korean artist Lee Bul from her “Perdu” series to “prominent collectors around the world” for a combined total in the range of $750,000—$800,000.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art recently announced that Lee would unveil four sculptures for the institution’s Fifth Avenue facade niches next September.
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Marlene Dumas at David Zwirner, $9 M.
Image Credit: Photo Kerry McFate/©Marlene Dumas/Courtesy David Zwirner Marlene Dumas’s The Schoolboys (1986–87), is a 5-by-6.5-foot oil painting of four teenagers in school uniforms. The South African artist made the painting in the late 1980s, as part of a small group of portraits exploring the “complexities of identity and the shifting boundaries between her figures’ public and private selves.”
The painting references the format and structure of 17th-century Dutch Golden Age group portraits, which makes sense, since Dumas moved from her native South Africa to the Netherlands in 1976.
David Zwirner also reported that Yayoi Kusama continues to garner interest, with two of her Infinity Net paintings from 2015 selling for $3 million and $3.2 million, as well as an unspecified “major early painting” going for a “high seven figures.” Zwirner also reported sales above $1 million for works by Robert Ryman, Alice Neel, Elizabeth Peyton, and Noah Davis.
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Philip Guston at Hauser & Wirth for $20 M.
Image Credit: ©The Estate of Philip Guston/ Courtesy the Estate and Hauser & Wirth/Photo: Dan Bradica Studio Philip Guston’s large moody Painter at Night (1979) sold on the first day of the fair at Hauser & Wirth “to an exceptional private collection.”
Hauser & Wirth also sold the George Condo oil-on-linen work Smiling Aristocrat (2023) for $2.35 million, a Charles Gaines three-part work for $795,000, and works by Amy Sherald for $850,000 and a Henry Taylor for $1 million to “important American museums.”
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Alicja Kwade at Pace, $500K
Image Credit: ©Alicja Kwade, courtesy Pace Gallery Shortly after Polish visual artist Alicja Kwade joined Pace’s program this past October, her large-scale 2023 sculpture l’ordre des mondes (Totem) sold quickly at Art Basel Miami Beach. The stacked composition includes five chairs and seven spheres made of different types of industrial stone often used for countertops and tiles. The orbs are similar to the ones used in her rooftop installation at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2019.
Pace also sold a work by Isamu Noguchi for $450,000, a painting from Lee Kun-Yong’s “Bodyscape” series for $250,000, and multiple editions of Lynda Benglis’s 2023 bronze sculpture QT for more than $200,000.
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Tracey Emin at Xavier Hufkens for $1.64 M
Image Credit: Courtesy the artist and Xavier Hufkens, Brussels/Photo Harry Weller The title Deep Feeling could describe many of Tracey Emin’s works. The British artist’s portrayals of grief, love, loss, and loneliness across a variety of mediums have often been described as honest, raw, and emotional.
Her actual painting titled Deep Feeling (2023) is an acrylic on canvas that spans nearly 7 by 11 feet. Brussels-based gallery Xavier Hufkens sold it for $1.64 million (£1.2 million). The work evokes the morning after one of the scenes included in Emin’s solo show “Lovers Grave,” which opened November 4 at the new Upper East Side outpost of White Cube.
Emin was named a trustee of the British Museum in November.
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Robert Rauschenberg at Thaddaeus Ropac for $1.7 M.
Image Credit: Courtesy Thaddaeus Ropac Thaddaeus Ropac, meanwhile, sold Robert Rauschenberg’s Copperhead-Bite IX / ROCI CHILE (1985) for $1.7 million. The work is part of the artist’s “Copperhead-Bites” series, a collection of 12 paintings on thin copper sheets produced through silkscreen ink and tarnishing agents.
Copperhead-Bite IX / ROCI CHILE (1985) is described by Ropac as “a play on scale,” with images that “seem to evoke the artists’ personal impression of encounter with Chilean culture.” Measuring more than 8 feet tall and 4 feet wide, the silkscreen ink, acrylic, and tarnish work was featured in the ROCI CHILE exhibition at Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Santiago, in 1985.
Ropac also sold two oil paintings by German painter and sculptor Georg Baselitz: Alles fällt vom Tisch (2020) for $1.62 million (€1.5 million), and Grüße aus Dinard (2023) for $1.29 million (€1,200,000).
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Frank Stella at Yares Art
Image Credit: Courtesy Yares Art While it hasn’t yet been sold, Frank Stella’s Delta (1958), currently on offer by Yares Art, is worth noting for its price tag: $45 million, making it easily the most expensive painting at Art Basel Miami Beach. Gallerist Dennis Yares told ARTnews that two parties were interested in the painting, which had previously been on loan to the National Gallery of Art by the artist’s family.
Stella’s first “Black Painting,” the American artist produced Delta shortly after his graduation from Princeton University. It kicked off the “Black Paintings” series featuring wide black stripes that alternated with unpainted lines of raw canvas. It also appeared in a 2015 Stella retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
“This is the quintessential pivotal piece that Frank decided to keep, because he felt it was the catalyst for everything that derived in his career since,” Yares said, comparing it to Pablo Picasso’s large oil painting Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.
Other factors contributing to Delta‘s price include the auction record set by Point of Pines, sold by Christie’s for $28 million in 2019. Another data point: Sotheby’s sold Stella’s 1962 concentric square painting Honduras Lottery Co. for $18.7 million during an evening auction last month.
Yares said the Stella family set the price, and the painting was brought to Miami to honor the gallery’s 60th anniversary.