Richter and Baselitz Lead Art Basel Paris Sales at $10 Million Each

Two 1965 paintings — Gerhard Richter's Rokokotisch (Rococo Table) and Georg Baselitz's Der Hirte (The Shepherd) — topped reported sales at Art Basel Paris 2026, each fetching around $10 million from Hauser & Wirth. Not bad for a fair opening amid street protests and tear-gas-scented headlines.

The fair ran under heightened security after demonstrations by high school students against crumbling educational infrastructure in a Paris suburb turned fiery, with thousands in the streets and some property damage. Dealers noticed. Some collectors stayed home. Most did not, judging by the receipts.

The priciest object on the floor was Amedeo Modigliani's 1917 Nu étendu (Lolotte), a reclining nude offered by Pace DiDonna Schrader and valued in excess of $100 million. As of Wednesday evening, no buyer had been announced. Its mere presence said something: dealers still trust top collectors to fly into Paris regardless of the uproar outside.

What did dealers say about the opening?

Dealer Emmanuel Di Donna told ARTnews at Tuesday's Avant-Première preview (the VVIP opening, in fair-speak) that the experience was like "drinking from a fire hose." The VIP preview followed on Wednesday.

"This opening afternoon has been very strong and collectors came ready to make decisions quickly," dealer Thaddaeus Ropac said in an emailed statement. "Despite any worries about the demonstrations, some deciding not to travel to Paris, we already feel that it's the most international art fair of the year."

The fair arrived a week after Frieze and Frieze Masters in London. Hauser & Wirth president Marc Payot said in a statement: "In the past 24 hours, we've sold super-rare works by Fontana, Gauguin, Modigliani and Morandi that we first introduced at Frieze. And in Paris, we are placing equally exceptional works on our stand—true masterpieces of the second half of the 20th century by Richter, Calder, Bourgeois, Twombly, Baselitz and Szapocznikow, along with new works by George Condo, Jenny Holzer, Henry Taylor, and Camille Henrot."

Which works sold for $1 million and up?

Here is every reported seven-figure sale as of 9 p.m. Paris time on Wednesday:

• Hauser & Wirth: Richter's Rokokotisch (Rococo Table) (1965), circa $10 million; Baselitz's Der Hirte (The Shepherd) (1965), circa $10 million; a Mark Bradford, $4 million; George Condo's Woman with Designer Shirt (2026), $2.95 million; Lucio Fontana's Concetto spaziale (Spatial Concept) (1961), $1.9 million; Philip Guston's Untitled (1969), $1.5 million; Henry Taylor's "WTF's my 40 acres & my mule, you lying…" (2023–26), $1 million.
• David Zwirner: a Gerhard Richter painting, $8.5 million; Robert Ryman paintings, $4 million and $1.3 million; a 1957 Joan Mitchell painting, $3.8 million; a new Marlene Dumas painting, $3 million; a Josef Albers painting, $3 million; a Luc Tuymans painting, $2.4 million; an On Kawara painting, $2 million; a Ruth Asawa sculpture, $1.2 million.
• White Cube: Julie Mehretu's Rise of the New Suprematists (2001) and Mumbaphilia (J.E.) (2018), $7.9 million each; El Anatsui's sculpture MivEvi I (2025), $2 million; Tracey Emin's You Were Part of me (2022), $1.3 million.
• Pace: Jean Dubuffet's La chaise (1964), over $5 million; Lee Ufan's From Line No. 79061 (1979), $2 million.
• Sprüth Magers: George Condo's The Mechanical Man (2026) to a US collection, $2.2 million; his Coney Island (2026) to a European collection, same price.
• Le Minotaure: an untitled 1922 Wassily Kandinsky watercolor, $2.2 million.
• Thaddaeus Ropac: Fontana's Concetto spaziale (1953), a painting with Murano glass fragments, $2 million.
• Gladstone: Cecily Brown's This must be the place (2017–21), $1.5 million; Victor Man's Pink Chair (2012), $1.3 million.
• Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois: Niki de Saint Phalle's multimedium sculpture Cat Head Totem (2000), between $800,000 and $1.2 million.
• Lisson Gallery: Anish Kapoor's sculpture Clear to Dark Brandy (2026), $1 million.
• Mennour: Lee Ufan's Response (2026), $1 million.

What does this tell us about the market?

The pattern is familiar: blue-chip canvases from the 1950s through the 1980s moving fast at steady prices, with Richter — two sales, $18.5 million combined — the fair's bellwether. Ropac's "most international art fair of the year" line may be salesmanship, but the sales list backs half of it.

The open question is the Modigliani. If Pace DiDonna Schrader finds a buyer above $100 million while Paris burns a few arrondissements over, the top of the market will have made its point about resilience.