Art Basel 2026: A $35 Million Picasso and Thoughtful Dealmaking
The opening day of Art Basel’s VIP preview suggested that collectors are regaining confidence, though with greater selectivity. Sales appeared steady, though far removed from the frenzy of the speculative boom years. Buyers are once again willing to say “yes,” but these decisions now seem to reflect careful consideration rather than the exuberance that characterised previous editions of the fair. Caution, however, has not prevented major galleries from reporting strong first-day results.
One of the fair’s headline sales came from Hauser & Wirth, which placed Pablo Picasso’s late painting Le peintre et son modèle dans un paysage (The Painter and His Model in a Landscape), executed in 1963, for $35 million. The gallery also sold two works by Cy Twombly for $5 million and $2.5 million respectively, alongside a work by Louise Bourgeois for $2.5 million.
David Zwirner also reported strong results, with primary market sales exceeding $10 million. Among the transactions were three works by Josef Albers, sold for a combined $2.3 million, as well as Isa Genzken’s Untitled (2018), an installation evoking an aircraft interior, presented in the Unlimited sector and acquired by a European museum for €1.2 million, approximately $1.3 million. The gallery also reported dozens of secondary-market transactions, although their prices were not disclosed.
Thaddaeus Ropac generated nearly $9 million in sales within the first hour of the preview, including the placement of Pierre Soulages’s Peinture 146 x 97 cm, 31 janvier (1954) and Helen Frankenthaler’s Sudden Wave (1982), both sold for around $3 million. Interest in Frankenthaler’s work may also have been supported by the major retrospective currently on view at Kunstmuseum Basel through 23 August.
Among other notable transactions were the sale of a Picasso painting by Almine Rech in the $6 million–$6.5 million range and David Hockney’s Studio Interior #2, offered by Gray Gallery and acquired for $8.5 million. The sale came just days after the artist’s death.
Unlimited, curated this year by Ruba Katrib, chief curator and director of curatorial affairs at MoMA PS1 in New York, is once again among the fair’s key attractions. The section has already generated sales, including Niki de Saint Phalle’s Blue Obelisk (1992) and Isa Genzken’s Untitled (2018). Beyond these early transactions, notable presentations include Drama by Swiss artist Tobias Spichtig, who studied at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste (ZHdK), and Goshka Macuga’s Exhibition M: A Re-enactment (2023–2026), a mixed-media installation and live performance that revisits Exhibition M, a project originally created for MoMA’s Cullman Education and Research Building in New York.
Early signs suggest that the fair’s new initiative, Basel Exclusive, has found an audience. Conceived to restore the immediacy of encountering artworks in person — an experience often diminished by online transactions — the format saw a work by Vietnamese-American artist Tuan Andrew Nguyen, reserved specifically for the programme, sell for $185,000 within fifteen minutes of the fair’s opening.
Zero 10, Art Basel’s global initiative dedicated to art of the digital era, also made its European debut in Basel in an expanded presentation co-curated by digital strategist Eli Scheinman and artist Trevor Paglen. Its largest edition to date brought digital, generative, media-based, and cross-disciplinary practices into the fair, positioning them not as a peripheral category but as an increasingly visible part of the contemporary art landscape. The section attracted interest from collectors, curators, and institutions. Reported sales included John Gerrard’s STANDARD (2022), sold by Fellowship for $500,000 to a major private US collection; multiple works by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer presented by bitforms and Max Estrella; and 12 works by Vera Molnár placed with collectors in Europe and the United States by Interface Gallery and Oniris Gallery.
Among those visiting the fair were Jessica Morgan, director of the Dia Art Foundation, and Scott Rothkopf, director of the Whitney Museum of American Art. While multi-million-dollar transactions involving blue-chip names such as Picasso, Hockney, and Albers continue to attract the greatest attention, collectors are also showing interest in works priced between $200,000 and $2 million.
Younger galleries in the Statements sector are also reporting sales. As market observers note, visibility increasingly depends on a gallery’s ability to take risks and surprise audiences.
Two significant events marked the gala dinner held during Art Basel, honouring both the long-standing contribution to the art world and the unexpected end of one of the fair’s oldest traditions. The evening’s main announcement was the presentation of the inaugural Gallery Legacy Award to New York’s Paula Cooper Gallery. Established last year, the award seeks to address a long-standing gap in recognising galleries that have spent decades shaping artists’ careers and the art market, often outside the spotlight of individual distinctions. The recipient was selected by a jury of nine international collectors and art-world figures, including Italian collector Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo and Indian-American collector Komal Shah. The winner received a hand-blown glass sculpture inspired by the form of a breath suspended in mid-air, symbolising the singularity of every creative act. The award was designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jacques Herzog in collaboration with Glassworks Matteo Gonet.
A distinctive feature of the Gallery Legacy Award is its emphasis on continuity between generations of galleries. The recipient is invited to nominate a younger gallery, which receives up to $50,000 to support its participation in the following year’s fair. Paula Cooper selected Chapter NY, a New York gallery founded in 2013.
The evening’s second announcement was met with greater surprise. Art Basel confirmed the discontinuation of the Baloise Art Prize for emerging artists, which had been awarded annually since 1999. The prize, worth CHF 30,000, approximately $37,000, was accompanied by the acquisition of works by the laureates and their donation to major European institutions, including the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt and MUDAM in Luxembourg.
Taken together, Art Basel 2026 suggests a market that has regained confidence, albeit in a more measured form. Trophy works continue to attract buyers, yet collectors appear increasingly willing to look beyond established names, while galleries are finding new ways to reward long-term commitment and foster the next generation.