Dealers Report Steady Sales at Armory Show Despite Global Turmoil

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery sold a Joan Mitchell painting for more than $2 million to a private collection on the opening day of the Armory Show, according to a fair spokesman. The sale anchored a first day of steady reported business at the Javits Center, where museum curators, art advisors and New York's wealthiest collectors browsed booths on Thursday.

The fair, which runs through Sunday, opened Wednesday to its most exclusive tier of VIPs, who returned the following day to buy. A fair spokesman said celebrities including Jodie Foster, David Alan Grier, Piper Perabo, Paul Rudd and Karl-Anthony Towns also attended.

The serenity inside the glass-encased venue contrasted sharply with the week's news. Mortgage rates topped 7% this week, prompting warnings from Fed officials that more rate hikes may be needed. President Trump and other world leaders traded barbs at the United Nations over the Iran War, where a Senate resolution calling for an end to the conflict failed. Protests erupted outside the UN after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed the war in Gaza was the "opposite of a genocide."

Collectors showed no such concerns on the fair floor.

"They don't care," Michael Borghi, a dealer with Hollis Taggart, told Hyperallergic while holding an abstract Stuart Davis painting he had sold for more than $100,000. "They're really rich individuals, they don't care."

Other reported sales spanned six figures across mediums. Edwynn Houk Gallery sold a László Moholy-Nagy gelatin silver print for $320,000. Gazelli Art House placed a Lilly Fenichel canvas with a European museum for $200,000, and Norr Cohan — formerly James Cohan Gallery — sold Yinka Shonibare's "The Landscape Project (Cotton Plantation)" for more than $180,000.

Nara Roesler sold Sheila Hicks's "The soft side of my nature" (2025) for $260,000, while 303 Gallery placed two Rob Pruitt paintings at $155,000 each and a Doug Aitken lightbox for $150,000. Galerie Maximillian sold Rashid Johnson's "Untitled (Large Mosaic)" (2025) for about $175,000 within the first hour of the fair, the Armory announced late Thursday evening.

Michael Rosenfeld Gallery also reported sales of collages by Louise Nevelson and Hannelore Baron, according to the fair spokesman.

The figures come from dealers and fair representatives rather than independent verification. As Hyperallergic noted, it remains impossible to confirm whether these transactions occurred at the fair itself or through a PDF circulated months earlier. With the fair open through Sunday, dealers will find out whether the opening day's momentum holds through the weekend.