Art Basel Miami Beach 2025—the marquee event of Miami Art Week and final major art fair of the year—opened the first of two preview days on Wednesday, December 3rd. The fair’s flurry of initial transactions included several seven-figure deals, led by David Zwirner’s sale of an abstract Gerhard Richter painting for $5.5 million.
The number of high-value sales on opening day seems to reflect a wave of positive market sentiment, which swelled following the strong performance of last month’s New York auctions. Those sales brought in a total of $2.2 billion, assuaging some lingering fears about the tepidness of the market’s top end earlier this year.
Richter, for his part, has experienced a surge in interest this fall, coinciding with his sweeping retrospective at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. A $23 million Richter work offered by Hauser & Wirth also led the opening sales at Art Basel Paris in October.
While it didn’t clinch the leading sale this time, Hauser & Wirth reported impressive sales, including one $4 million transaction on opening day. Marc Payot, president of the gallery, noted in a press statement that, “In the first three hours of the fair, our sales have already totaled 40% more than we made in the entire week at last year’s Art Basel Miami Beach.”
Here, we round up some of the leading initial sales reported by galleries at Art Basel Miami Beach. Check back on Monday for our full sales report.
