Art Basel’s Vernissage was a very busy place judging from Judd Tully’s sales report on ArtInfo.com:
Per Skarstedt
- Barbara Kruger’s seminal 1987 Are we having fun yet?, a massive 12-by-8-foot photograph silkscreen on vinyl, sold for $700,000
- Christopher Wool’s Untitled painting, an enamel on silkscreen ink on linen from 2002, to an American collector for $800,000
- Cindy Sherman’s naughty, leather-masked Untitled #264 (1992) — the only one from the edition of six in her “Sex Pictures” series that’s still in private hands — to a Swiss collector for $500,000.
- George Condo’s 2005 bronze The Madman, a 29-inch-high piece from an edition of four, sold to an American collector for $375,000, and a 72-by-60-inch oil on linen painting, The Colorful Banker, went to a Swiss collector for $225,000
Xavier Hufkens
- Louise Bourgeois’ 2009 A Baudelaire (#7) — a major and late etching, watercolor, gouach, and pencil on paper that was enclosed in a large white frame — to a European collector for over $650,000
Hauser & Wirth
- a striking red-and-scarlet-hued 1998 fabric and steel sculpture […] encased in a wood-and-glass vitrine, sold for $850,000.
- Matthew Day Jackson […] Lumpen Proletariat, the unique piece — which resembles the visages of both the artist and moon-landing astronaut Neil Armstrong — sold for $150,000.
- two complete sets of Paul McCarthy’s patinated bronze suite of Snow White’s dwarfs for a cumulative $3 million. (Sneezy and Dopey were priced at $750,000 apiece.)
Cheim & Read
- Louise Bourgeois: an untitled 1996 installation of sewn mannequins hanging on a kind of metal clothesline-like armature for $1.5 million, and Les Fleurs, a stunning 2010 suite of 28 gouache on paper works, also for $1.5 million.
- untitled Joan Mitchell abstraction from 1952-53 for approximately $2 million, as well as a 1958 Sam Francis drawing from Mitchell’s personal collection for $125,000.
- Ghada Amer’s 2008 Green Paradise painting for $100,000.
Gagosian
- Student Nurse sold for $4.2 million, according to a source unaffiliated with the gallery.
Krugier Gallery
- an American collector bought Pablo Picasso’s unique 1960 plaster maquette Personnage.
Collectors Storm Art Basel, Driving a Bull Market (ArtInfo.com)
