Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in On Balance, the ARTnews newsletter about the art market and beyond. Sign up here to receive it every Wednesday.

Amid a sluggish art market and concerns about new tariffs, the design category keeps growing. Earlier this month, as much of the art world was in Basel, the major auction houses each held design sales that outperformed expectations.

Sotheby’s design sales in New York totaled $37.5 million, and Christie’s totaled $23.6 million; Phillips, which staged just one sale in this category this time, brought in $4 million. By comparison, last year, Sotheby’s reported $19.5 million in design sales, Christie’s reported $15.5 million, and Phillips reported $5.1 million across two sales with significantly more lots. Across all three houses, that’s a 62.3 percent year-on-year increase.

Experts told ARTnews there are multiple factors behind the category’s continued momentum for established names and a broad range of artists.

Lewis Wexler, who previously served as Christie’s assistant vice president of 20th-century decorative arts, told ARTnews there has been a “paradigm shift,” with collectors purchasing design in the same way they approach fine art.

“There’s always a demand for lighting, benches, sofas, and things along those lines,” said Wexler, who currently runs an eponymous gallery in New York and Philadelphia. “I think there has been a realization that you can obtain the same quality and caliber in the design world that you can find in the paintings hanging on your walls.”

That awareness has increased due to larger budgets for interior design, notable gallery exhibitions and institutional acquisitions, greater auction data about the investment value of collectible pieces, and the re-evaluation of artists such as Sonia Delaunay and Toshiko Takaezu, both of whom were the subject of major shows in New York last year.

Claire Warner, cofounder of Chicago’s Volume Gallery, which focuses on material-driven art practices and design, told ARTnews that the ongoing “technological revolution” has pushed collectors toward items that are “handmade” and “well-crafted.”

“People’s understanding of this work is becoming much more fluid and not as siloed,” said Warner, who previously worked as a design specialist at the Wright auction house in Chicago.

Betsy Beierle, a senior sales associate at the design gallery Carpenters Workshop, told ARTnews that collectible design has a “cross-market fluidity” that draws buyers from multiple sectors.

“It appeals to art collectors, institutions, people working in design, architecture, fashion, and industrial design,” Beierle said.

Global interest in the category, especially from younger buyers, has also helped many design items exceed high estimates at auction.

At Sotheby’s design sale on June 11, 76 percent of the lots sold above their high estimates. Christie’s and Phillips also noted that a significant number of lots in their sales surpassed high estimates, including the three-pane, six-foot-tall Goddard Memorial Window by Tiffany Studios, which sold for $4.29 million on a $2 million–$3 million estimate. That is the second-highest price at auction for a window from the artist’s studio. Those results are especially notable given the few house and third-party guarantees offered at the sales.

The houses also saw an expanded audience this month, with Sotheby’s and Phillips reporting that more than 20 percent of buyers at their major design sales were new to the houses. Sotheby’s reported a 64 percent increase in bidders compared to last year, and a 76 percent increase in buyers. Phillips noted that millennial and Gen Z collectors made up 20 percent of bidders at its design sales this year.

“At least half the people I sold [Les Lalanne works] to last year are younger than me, which is extremely encouraging,” 56-year-old art dealer Ben Brown told ARTnews, noting his London gallery’s representation of Les Lalanne since 2007 and the ‘Planète Lalanne’ exhibition in Venice, Italy last year featuring more than 150 works. Brown added that he is frustrated that Lalanne works have been categorized as design.

The success of design objects at auction has been apparent even outside of dedicated sales, underscoring their crossover appeal. In May, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Double-Pedestal Lamp from the Susan Lawrence Dana House sold for $7.5 million at Sotheby’s modern evening sale, far exceeding its $3 million–$5 million estimate. But the spike in design interest has been most apparent in the market for works by François-Xavier and Claude Lalanne, as ARTnews reported in April. Four of the top 10 auction sales for works by François-Xavier took place last year, and at Sotheby’s design sale on June 11, Grand Rhinocéros II sold for $16.4 million—his second-highest price at auction.

Meanwhile, the result at Christie’s for the Tiffany Studios window was boosted by recent acquisitions of other large Tiffany windows by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Dealers told ARTnews that institutions have increasingly acquired design works by both established and emerging artists. For example, Carpenters’s Beierle placed Spanish artist Nacho Carbonell’s One-Seater Concrete Tree (2022) with the Cincinnati Art Museum for its outdoor sculpture garden in 2023, and Marcin Rusak’s Van Florum 23 (Hybridae Florales) at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta last year.

According to Volume’s Warner, when the gallery has worked with institutions like the Art Institute of Chicago and LACMA in recent years, curators from multiple departments—including contemporary art, design, American art, fiber art and architecture—have collaborated to acquire design works, with the idea that they may be used across different exhibitions.

The strength of the design category was also reflected in works priced under $500,000, many of which exceeded their estimates and helped set new artist records at auction this year.

American artist and furniture designer Judy McKie is one who has seen that kind of market bump. At Phillips’ design sale in New York on June 10, the top lot was her Fish Bench, which sold for $406,400 with fees, on an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000—setting a new auction record. By comparison, another edition of the same patinated bronze sculpture sold for $327,600 on a high estimate of $100,000 at Rago Auctions in 2023. Other editions of the bench are in the collection of the Longhouse Reserve, at Eastport Park in Boston, and in a public park in Walnut Creek, California.

Despite institutional acquisitions at places like the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, McKie’s prices at auction and in private sales remain relatively accessible.

“Even with the tariffs, the prices are still more easily digested than Les Lalanne,” said Wexler, who has represented McKie for years. “In fact, I literally just sold a monkey chair this week for $110,000.”

Other auction records in design have been set this year for Louis Cane, Maria Pergay, and Jean Puiforcat.

Expectations of even more growth in the future

Multiple dealers told ARTnews they expect prices in the design category to continue rising as buyers get priced out of works by top names; as design furniture, ceramics, and textiles continue their shift from craft to fine art; and as expectations for masterpieces recalibrate.

Aside from the Lalanne effect, Wexler said the prices for McKie’s bronzes are also likely to rise due to limited inventory. “I think that’s also increasing the desire for collectors to purchase the work,” he said.

Brown similarly believes auction estimates for Les Lalanne works remain too low, particularly when comparing limited-edition masterpieces like Grand Rhinocéros II to other works like the Mouton wool and concrete sheep sculptures.

“You can’t have a situation where a masterpiece is worth 10 times a perfectly nice medium-plus object by an artist,” Brown said, noting the sheep were in editions of 250 compared to the Grand Rhinocéros II, which exists in an edition of 8. “When you’ve got a discrepancy of 10 between a good and a great work, there’s something wrong.”

Brown said he expects more people to understand the appeal of Les Lalanne through his gallery’s upcoming exhibition on the French couple, René Magritte, and Surrealism, opening this fall in New York.

“When you’ve got Lalanne standing next to Magritte and standing up for themselves and looking strong, I don’t think anybody’s doubting that Magritte is a great artist,” Brown said.

It’s hard to make tax sexy, but Italy is doing its best.

On Monday, the Italian government announced it will cut the country’s VAT on art sales from 22 percent—the highest in the European Union—to just 5 percent. The slashed rate, set to go into effect later this week, will now be the lowest in the EU. Germany and France are the closest, with 7 percent and 5.5 percent VATs on art sales, respectively.

The move was approved in a cabinet meeting on Friday, reported the Financial Times, and comes after a pressure campaign from Italian galleries, artists, auction houses, and art market players. Italy’s culture minister, Alessandro Giuli, said in a statement that the tax break should bring relief to “the entire art ecosystem, one of the most vital bastions of our cultural identity.”

While the new legislation will come into force within days, it needs to be approved by the parliament within 60 days to remain in permanent effect.

A study published earlier this year by consulting and market intelligence company Nomisma estimated that cutting the VAT could see galleries, antique dealers, and auction houses in Italy generate €1.5 billion in three years. It also predicted that the Italian economy could swell by up to €4.2 billion as a result. On the flipside, Nomisma warned that if the VAT remained at 22 percent, the country’s art market risked shrinking by almost 30 percent.

The lower VAT on art transactions arrives on the back of a new EU rule called Directive 2022/542 that aims to standardize member states’ notoriously complex VAT system. It allows members to reduce taxes on art sales provided the rate remains at 5 percent or over. However, to do so, they must scrap their previous, more tedious taxing system.

In February, Italy government, led by right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni, said that it would not budge on its 22 percent rate, saying that it was concerned it would be bowing to pressure from well-heeled collectors, rather than helping rescue the industry. But the U-turn comes after mounting pressure from the culture sector.

At Milan’s Miart fair in April, several dealers circulated an open letter addressed to Meloni; it was signed by 600 artists and said the high VAT threatened to turn Italy into a “cultural desert.” Also, last year, the Apollo Group, an association of Italian antiquarians, art galleries, collectors, art logistics companies, and auction houses, issued a statement calling on the Italian government to lower VAT for the sale of art.

“[If the tax is not reduced] any collector who wanted to import or buy work in the European Union would certainly not do so in Italy,” read a paper published by Apollo.

The policy change seems to have caught many Italian dealers by surprise. Last week, at Art Basel in Switzerland, several such dealers merely shrugged their shoulders when asked if they thought change might be coming to the VAT. Maurizio Rigillo, cofounder of Galleria Continua, which has a space in Rome, told ARTnews last Wednesday. “We hope the VAT will come down, it would be fantastic. It’s a massive disadvantage for us. At the moment, Italian collectors are buying elsewhere in Europe.”

Despite Italy’s status as a historical cultural powerhouse, its art market has lagged behind its European neighbors. Clare McAndrew, the founder of Art Economics, told ARTnews that according to her “conservative” estimates, art sales in Italy hit somewhere between $381 million and $425 million last year. By comparison, the 2025 edition of the Art Basel UBS Art Market Report found that art sales in the UK totalled $10.4 billion in 2024, while France realized $4.2 billion.

“[Italy’s high VAT] arguably undermines the Italian art market relative to countries like Germany and France, where VAT rates have been strategically lowered by virtue of the EU Directive,” the report reads.

High sales tax is one thing holding Italian galleries back, but strict legislation regulating the trade of cultural goods is another. Releasing the VAT handbrake should help to mitigate the 10 percent decline that Italy’s art market suffered in 2024 (as per the Art Basel UBS report).

Andrea Festa, the founder of an eponymous contemporary art  gallery overlooking Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo across the River Tiber, told ARTnews that Italy’s high VAT on art sales put Italian galleries at a “competitive disadvantage.”

“We operate in a globalized art world where it’s increasingly common—and necessary—for artists to collaborate with multiple galleries across different countries. This made the disparities in national VAT rates impossible to ignore,” he said. “Moreover, until very recently, Italy had one of the highest import tax burdens on artworks in Europe. That rate has now been reduced to 10 percent, which is certainly a welcome shift, even if it still leaves us behind many of our European peers. In a moment when the art market has contracted, this kind of fiscal reform is not just helpful, but vital.”

Gallerist Davide Mazzoleni, whose eponymous gallery has spaces in London and Turin, plus a soon-to-open gallery in Milan, said a tax reduction is a “game-changer for Italian dealers.”

“Lowering VAT to 5 percent will significantly increase market turnover and generate a substantial overall economic impact,” he added. “VAT reform was therefore not merely desirable, but essential for the long-term sustainability and international competitiveness of Italy’s art system.”

Catarina Antonaci, the associate director of Richard Saltoun Gallery in Rome, told ARTnews that “she is pleased she can now offer collectors more favorable conditions—it’s undoubtedly a strong incentive for our market.” ( Saltoun also has spaces in London and New York.)

Luigi Fassi, director of Turin’s Artissima art fair, said the Italian government finally understands “the need for a drastic reduction in VAT to help maintain the completeness of Italian galleries.”

Just days before the lower VAT was announced, he told ARTnews: “The response from collectors will be significant, as anticipation is running high. In this regard, the Italian art system is showing strong unity. There is a shared desire to play an active role and to keep the extraordinary tradition of Italian collecting alive.”

Italian auction houses are also expected to reap the benefits of the reduced VAT. Agnese Bonanno, the head of marketing and communications at Il Ponte Auction House in Milan, told ARTnews in an email that “harmonizing VAT rates with European standards substantially enhances the structural competitiveness of the Italian art market, attracting both international collectors and market operators to invest in the country, while simultaneously promoting greater circulation of works of art.”

For decades, Art Basel in Switzerland was the only fair that mattered—the undisputed apex of the art market calendar. But in 2025, that certainty has splintered. With a bloated and chaotic global fair circuit and new contenders arriving every year (oh, hello Art Basel Qatar), even loyalists have started to ask: is Basel still top dog?

For the galleries that brought the right material, it would seem so. David Zwirner sold a sculpture by Ruth Asawa for $9.5 million and a Gerhard Richter painting for $6.8 million. Gladstone sold an untitled Keith Haring from 1983 for $3.5 million, while White Cube moved a Georg Baselitz for €2.2 million. Thaddaeus Ropac also did especially well, with a Baselitz going for over $2 million.

The top selling work, however, came not from a mega but London’s Annely Juda Fine Art, which reported selling David Hockney’s Mid November Tunnel (2006) for a price in the range of $13 million-$17 million.

This year, Art Basel, now in its 55th edition, opened under clear skies and heat—80 degrees Fahrenheit and climbing. For the 289 exhibitors participating, it’s the last chance to reframe a summer season defined by tepid auctions and cautious collecting.

In a soft, unpredictable market, the smart dealers have realized that the most effective strategy is to hedge their bets by casting a wide range of price points, periods of art history, and artistic styles. As art adviser Gabriela Palmieri put it, “Uncertainty in the world is mirrored by the uncertainty over what will motivate even the most discerning collectors. The response has turned Art Basel into a place where more really is more.”

Galleries that have previously relied on previews and multiple reserves (they still do) are now betting on volume and visibility as well. Robert Diamant, a partner at Carl Freedman Gallery in Kent, England, which isn’t showing at the fair this year, told ARTnews on the sidelines that collectors are increasingly snubbing more “academic works” rooted in art history in favor of “colorful things.”

Moody Rothko Steals the Show

Talk of the conflicts raging in Ukraine, Gaza, Israel, and Iran is hot on fair-goers’ lips, but that hasn’t deterred wealthy collectors from lounging in the fair’s sunbaked courtyard while sipping champagne and slurping back oysters. Art Basel is a bubble.

Was the heat making buyers lethargic? David Nolan, founder of his eponymous New York gallery, thought so. “It was a little slower than usual, however, business remains healthy overall,” he told ARTnews. “We’ve made some sales to new clients, though the majority have been to clients known to us.”

Hauser & Wirth, Switzerland being their home turf, naturally came out with force by headlining its booth with a hypnotic, moody Mark Rothko from the early 1960s. The painting wasn’t on any of the PDFs circulated by the gallery ahead of the fair. “There’s only so much you can see on a screen—nothing replaces the moment you stand in front of a work in real life,” Iwan Wirth, the gallery’s cofounder, told ARTnews.

The work, No. 6/Sienna, Orange on Wine (1962), was first shown in the 1964 exhibition that introduced Abstract Expressionism to Switzerland, “Bilanz Internationale Malerei seit 1950” at the Kunsthalle Basel, just on the other side of the Rhine from the Messeplatz. While the gallery wouldn’t share the price, works from this same year have sold for between $30 million and $50 million at auction in the last 20 years, including at Christie’s in 2022.

When asked if Basel’s Art Basel still has the sway it once did, Wirth gave a confident “yes,” adding that “a lot of people start collecting here because it’s a great introduction to the art world. It always has been.”

Many of the gallery’s mid-career stars—such as Rashid Johnson and Mark Bradford—are presenting new work that looks backward, toward early influences, modernist touchstones, and overlooked figures in art history. One of Johnson’s new “Quiet Paintings” revisits the material-heavy techniques of his earlier career—scraping and layering into thick surfaces, while tilting its hat to influences from art brut and Sigmar Polke. Titled Spectrum (2025), it sold for $1 million on Tuesday. The gallery also sold two works by Bradford for $3.5 million each, two George Condo’s for $2.45 million each, and a Louise Bourgeois for $1.9 million.

Hedging Bets, Alleviating Risk

Pace’s booth at Art Basel is organized with a deliberate split: fresh contemporary works are shown along the outer walls, while the gallery’s historical masterworks anchor the interior. The presentation spans a wide price range—from under $30,000 to a $30 million Picasso—making clear that the gallery is covering all corners of the market.

Among the contemporary highlights are Pam Evelyn’s Focal Length (2025), which sold for $85,000, and Kylie Manning’s Jetty (2025), bought for $115,000. Inside the booth, near the $30 million Picasso is a major Joan Mitchell, both works on reserve at the close of Art Basel’s first preview day.

Pace reported over strong first-day results, including Agnes Martin’s Untitled #5 (2002), which sold for over $4 million, and Emily Kam Kngwarray’s Anooralya – Yam Story (1994), which went for $450,000. Other key sales included Arlene Shechet’s Fictional First Person (2025), snapped up for $150,000 and Elmgreen & Dragset’s The Visitor (2025), sold to Leipzig’s G2 Kunsthalle for $300,000.

Pace’s least pricey offering was Li Hei Di’s artwork Triple Flood (2025), which sold for $28,000. Over at Marianne Boesky’s booth, prices started at a similar point. Boesky told ARTnews that she is “insulating” her booth from the “challenges impacting the secondary market” by offering “primary market material at attractive price points between $30,000 and $1.8 million.”

Gagosian, too, is casting a wide price net with a selection of works from roughly $30,000 to over $30 million. Its booth, curated by the Venice Biennale and MCA Chicago veteran Francesco Bonami, straddles secondary market gems and new works by Jadé Fadojutimi, John Currin, and Sarah Sze. These are hung next to notable pieces by Christo, Picasso, and a grisly Richard Avedon image of Andy Warhol’s mangled torso.

It would be absurd not to mention that the entrance to Gagosian’s booth has a retooled version of Maurizio Cattelan’s infamous Him (originally a kneeling Hitler effigy). For the reworked version, dated 2021, titled No, Cattelan has covered the dictator’s face with a paper bag, keeping his piously interlaced digits and infamous herringbone suit.

Brisk Sales and ‘Less Americans’

Thaddaeus Ropac reported brisk sales by early afternoon including James Rosenquist’s Playmate (1966), which sold for $1.8 million to a European institution; 1981’s Lipstick (Spread) by Robert Rauschenberg for $1.5 million; and Claire McCardell 9 (2022) by Alex Katz for $800,000. The gallery also sold three works by Baselitz including Hier jetzt hell, dort dunkel dunkel (2012) for €1.8 million, or about $2.07 million. (Baselitz, along with Lucio Fontana, will be the first two artists shown at Ropac’s new Milan gallery when it opens in September.)

David Zwirner had sold 68 works from its stand by 5 p.m. The most notable ones were a $9.5 million Asawa and a $6.8 million Richter, as well as two new works by Dana Schutz, which sold for $1.2 million and $850,000. Zwirner also has on offer a Richter that, according to a well-informed adviser, is priced at $28 million. (A Zwirner rep said the gallery is not disclosing the price of that artwork.)

Over at White Cube’s booth, shortly after the first groups of collectors had entered the Messe, a stern Jay Jopling, the gallery’s founder, told ARTnews it was “a bit early to reveal any prices, but we’ve already sold loads of stuff.” They included David Hammons’s Untitled (2012) and Red Birds (2022) by Cai Guo-Qiang. Jopling declined to disclose prices.

The gallery’s global sales director, Daniela Gareh, later told ARTnews that “it’s been a strong first day—we’re particularly pleased with the institutional placement of several key works.” They include three editions of Danh Vo’s In God We Trust (2025) that went for $250,000 each. Two were sold before the fair kicked off and another on Tuesday. Guo-Qiang’s Red Birds went to an unnamed European institution for $1.2 million.

Mathieu Paris, the gallery’s global sales director, told ARTnews that “there are definitely less Americans at the fair this year.”

White Cube also sold a Baselitz portrait of the artist’s wife made in 2023 for 2.2 million euros, a large-scale work by Tracey Emin for over $1 million, and an acrylic on canvas painting by the late Sam Gilliam for $975,000.

‘Great Atmosphere’

Art Basel’s CEO Noah Horowitz said this year’s edition felt more focused—less party chatter, more serious engagement with the art itself. He pointed to a broader generational and geographic mix on the fair floor, and noted that for younger collectors, Basel remains “a rite of passage” regardless of what anyone says. Basel’s bid to stay culturally relevant while navigating a market in flux can be seen clearly in the Unlimited sector. Once dominated by older European men, now reflects a wider range of perspectives, Horowitz said, from American artists like Diane Arbus, Lorna Simpson, and Felix Gonzalez-Torres to artists from Lebanon, Greece, and Russia.

Andreas Gegner, a senior director at Sprüth Magers, told ARTnews that “we are having a fantastic first day at the fair—the atmosphere is great.” The gallery’s sales included Barbara Kruger’s Untitled (WAR TIME, WAR CRIME), from 2025, for $650,000; HORIZON. Shortness of Breath (2025) by Sterling Ruby for $350,000; and Rosemarie Trockel’s Golden Brown (2005) for $850,000.  

Not all works were flying off the shelves, though. It was tougher going for Mazzoleni Gallery, with spaces in London and Turin, which was struggling to find a buyer for a shredded Lucio Fontana made out of copper titled Concetto spaziale (1962). In fact, the gallery, which is displaying a selection of Italian masters, was still waiting to confirm a deal, but said there had been “lots of interest.”

(Mazzoleni later confirmed that it sold two neon works by Marinella Senatore for $65,000 each on Wednesday, and another of her works for $80,000 plus three Salvo paintings ranging from $100,000 to $350,000 each on Thursday.)

Ashkan Baghestani, Sotheby’s vice president and head of sale, told ARTnews that “if you look around the fair, there’s obviously still a lot of wealth in the world, despite what’s going on.”

He continued, “The May sales were really positive for us, all the small collections we had did well, anything under $2 million did super well. There was depth of bidding, records for artists, quality of property, so I think this brings positivity going into Art Basel.” He added that he’s looking forward to seeing how Art Basel’s new fair in Doha plays out in February. “I’m excited. It’s smaller, very well curated, it will be interesting.”

Louise Hayward, a London-based partner at Lisson Gallery, told ARTnews that Art Basel “still represents the climax of the year for us.” By midday, the gallery’s confirmed sales included Dalton Paula’s Xica Manicongo (2025) for $200,000, Lee Ufan’s Response (2025) for $850,000, and Olga de Amaral’s Lienzos C y D (2015) for an undisclosed sum.

ARTnews asked a despondent Kenny Schachter, the artist and Artnet News columnist, if he thought the fair had lost any gravitas over the last few years. “I measure my life by how many Art Basels I have left, so if I go by the ‘Gagosian scale,’ I’d say I have about 17 remaining, and it’s not getting any better—it needs more vitality,” he said, noting that Basel Social Club, a startup fair a 20-minute walk from the Messeplatz, had “invigorated me. You want to see new ways of thinking. The art world is the most staunchly conservative industry, nothing prepared me for how backward-looking it is. It’s so resistant to change, and that’s disappointing.”

So, did Basel’s first VIP day mark a rebound, a reprieve, or a launch of a new maximalist strategy? Depends on who you ask—and how much they sold.

Back in 1970, when Art Basel was founded, there were just a handful of major fairs. Today, however, by some estimates, there are more than 300 art fairs. But even still, Art Basel remains the main fair for many of the dealers showing in Switzerland this week.

David Fleiss, the cofounder of Paris’s Galerie 1900-2000, participated in the 1970 and 1971 editions of the fair, before taking a long hiatus until the ’90s. He’s been going ever since. “The fair is the fair for us. We meet the best collectors and the best museum curators we can meet in any fair,” he said. “It is still the fair where you can see the best works galleries have to offer.”

Art Basel was founded in 1970 by Swiss art dealers Ernst Beyeler, Trudl Bruckner, and Balz Hilt, and has now turned into a global behemoth, with editions also held in Hong Kong, Miami Beach, Paris, and soon even Qatar. Yet the Swiss edition is the one people cannot miss, and dealers told ARTnews that it seems poised to remain that way.

Technically, Art Basel was not the first fair in the city: the Basel Gallery Association staged a fair in 1968, though it only featured local galleries. Bruckner pushed for a larger fair with international representation, eventually bringing on Beyeler and Hilt, who then partnered with the local trade fair Mustermesse.

The first Art Basel had 110 exhibitors—90 galleries and 20 publishers—hailing from Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and the US. There were both primary market and secondary market dealers at the fair, which cost 5 Swiss Francs (about $20 in 2025 US dollars) to attend.

Austrian dealer Thaddaeus Ropac saw the fair in its early days, visiting for the first time in 1981 and making his debut as an exhibitor in 1985. As Ropac recalled to ARTnews, while Basel had already become the most important art fair at that point, it still faced strong competition from the Cologne Art Fair, due to Germany’s then-booming art market. He recalled Art Basel as a more “Eurocentric” gathering of “a small familiar group of people.”

Things used to be a bit more improvisational at Art Basel, according to Ropac, who remembered one year when he spotlit the work of Sturtevant, an artist known for copying others’ pieces. When Ropac was late with the transport for her work, Sturtevant insisted on bringing the work herself and found herself stuck at Swiss customs, which doubted that she was the maker of these objects.

“I had to rush over with catalogs and documentation to prove her identity and that she was the creator of the work,” Ropac said. “Only then did the customs officials become more forgiving. It was chaotic but very memorable.”

Art Basel has become intertwined with the lives of many dealers. Iwan Wirth, cofounder of mega-gallery Hauser & Wirth, first attended the fair in 1987 at just 17 years old—one year after he opened his first gallery. He visited the fair with Swiss painter Bruno Gasser, the first artist he ever showed, and Andy Jillien, his first collector. The gallery made its Art Basel debut a decade later, in the first year it was eligible.

For Wirth, one of his most cherished memories is watching his eldest son, Elias, then a young boy, playing in the gallery’s booth. “He was climbing and hiding inside aluminum barrels that were part of an artwork by Jason Rhoades,” he told ARTnews. “We have pictures of Elias sitting inside there and smiling like the happiest Art Basel visitor ever.”

Dominique Lévy of Lévy Gorvy Dayan was, like Elias, introduced to Basel as a child. She first attended Basel at around four years old, in the early ’70s, with her mother, who was close friends with Beyeler and lived in Lausanne. She did not attend the event as a professional until several decades later, when she was the director of Anthony D’Offay in London, managing American artists like Ellsworth Kelly and Jasper Johns. She has been a longtime exhibitor through the many iterations of her eponymous gallery and, in her estimation, has not missed a single edition.

“Off and on, I’ve been attending for most of my life,” she told ARTnews, saying that to show at the fair in the early days was to be “part of the inner circle. It was essential.”

As Art Basel has become a global brand, with many iterations, the calculus has grown more complicated for galleries, Lévy said, as dealers have to increasingly weigh which edition is the best fit for their program. Still, she sees one major dividing line between pre- and post-Covid Basel.

Before the pandemic, she said, “I couldn’t imagine selling art unless I was wearing high heels. We kept ice packs in the back of the booth for our feet. Now? I live in sneakers. That little change says a lot about how the world—and the fair—has shifted.”

Basel has retained its allure over the decades arguably because so many dealers and artists have watched it change their careers. Such was the case for New York dealer David Nolan, who told ARTnews that he first exhibited at Basel in 1993 with works by American painter William N. Copley, who died three years later. On opening day, Nolan sold six paintings by Copley and called the artist in Key West. Copley told the dealer to get some champagne and they popped bottles simultaneously to celebrate. From that point on, the two repeated the ritual each night of the fair. From the jump, Nolan saw the influence a successful Basel could have, with Copley invited shortly after to mount a retrospective at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hannover, with more museum exhibitions following.

For Mathieu Paris, a longtime director at White Cube and a participant of Art Basel for nearly 20 years, what has always stood out about the Basel fair is that influence, which told ARTnews stems from the cultural ecosystem in the Swiss city, from the Kunstmuseum and Fondation Beyeler to, especially, the Kunsthalle.

“When you look back at its exhibition history, it’s striking how many now-renowned artists had early, formative shows there,” Paris said of Kunsthalle Basel.

And there’s no doubt that Basel’s success over the years has meant a lot of change. To the eye of Marianne Boesky, who first participated in 2000 with a presentation of sculptor Rachel Feinstein in the Statements sector, the fair has become more global and diverse, particularly in recent years, in both its participants and exhibitors.

Paris, of White Cube, did have one gripe about the new Basel, however: “If I had to note one regret over the years, it would be a nostalgic one: I still miss the days when the old-town butcher was the only official supplier of the iconic Art Basel bratwurst.”

Even in a sluggish auction market, the design category—in particular when boasting notable works by Tiffany Studios, Les Lalanne, and Alberto Giacometti—continues to be a bright spot at auction, with Christie’s two recent sales totaling $23.6 Million.

“You’re also appealing to such a broad range of collectors. You’re no longer just in this like, niche group of people,” Carpenters Workshop senior sales associate Betsy Beierle told ARTnews. “Even in a hesitant market, when something’s rare and when something’s scarce, that is definitely going to outweigh any kind of sluggish performing that’s going on.”

On June 12, the single-owner sale ‘American Avant-Garde: The James D. Zellerbach Residence by Frances Elkins’ totaled $8.1 million, while the auction house’s Design sale yielded $15.4 million.

The top lot for the day was the three-pane, six-foot-tall Goddard Memorial Window by Tiffany Studios with an estimate of $2 million to $3 million. After bids between a Christie’s specialist on the phones and an online bidder, the latter won with a hammer bid of $3.5 million, or $4.285 million with fees.

This was the second-highest price realized for a notable work from the artist’s studio, after the Danner Memorial Window sold for $12.5 million with fees at Sotheby’s Modern Art evening sale last November, smashing the old record of $3.4 million for a ‘Pond Lily’ lamp sold by Christie’s in 2018. The Goddard Memorial Window was sold to support the continued advancement of St. Luke’s Church’s missions and endowment.

The result for The Goddard Memorial Window also followed two recent acquisitions of monumental landscape works by Tiffany Studios at major art institutions. In 2023, the Metropolitan Museum of Art acquired the three-part, 10-foot-tall, 7-foot-wide Garden Landscape. Last month, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas, announced it had acquired the monumental landscape stained glass window Mountain Landscape (Root Memorial Window).

Out of 34 lots, the vast majority of total for the single-owner sale came from its top two offerings: a pair of Important and Rare ‘Oiseau’, Curved Version, circa 1937 by Alberto Giacometti, both with estimates of $2 million to $3 million. The first of the five-foot-wide plaster bird sculptures realized $2.954 million, while the other sold for $2.833 million, both amounts including fees.

The other two lots from the design sale which surpassed seven figures were works by French sculptor Claude Lalanne. The bronze and copper chandelier Unique ‘Structure végétale aux papillons, souris et oiseaux’ Chandelier, 2000 hammered at $1.5 million, or $1.865 million including fees, on a high estimate of $1.8 million.

Other examples of Structure végétale chandeliers by Claude Lalanne with similar estimates had sold for $2.4 million to $4.4 million at design sales in Paris in 2021 and 2022. While demand for works by Claude Lalanne and her husband François-Xavier Lalanne continues to grow among new collectors, Bierele said the results on June 13 reflected a shift to a “more thoughtful” art market.

“We’re seeing it at art fairs,” she said, noting her decade of experience at Pace Gallery, as well as a director at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago and as a private consultant before joining Carpenters Workshop in 2022. “People are taking their time, and it’s refreshing. It’s a reset. That’s absolutely what’s happening.”

L’Enlèvement d’Europe, designed in 1990, depicts the Greek god of Zeus transformed into a bull with the princess Europa on his back. The first edition of 6.5 foot-tall, 6.5 foot-long bronze sculpture attracted bids from two specialists on the phones and an online bidder before it hammered at $900,000, or $1.134 million including fees, on a high estimate of $1 million.

When the same edition of L’Enlèvement d’Europe last appeared at auction at Sotheby’s New York on December 18, 2013, it sold for $485,000 with fees, on a high estimate of $350,000.

“It didn’t explode, but I think it’s still fair to say it’s a strong result,” Beierle said, noting the piece’s monumental size, and the first time the artist used the lost cast wax method on a singular sculpture. “A real Lalanne collector is going to want that piece to put a feather in their cap.”

After François-Xavier Lalanne’s Grand Rhinocéros II blasted past its high estimate of $5 million and sold for $16.4 million at Sotheby’s design sale the day before, there were bidding wars for two of the French sculptor’s smaller works at Christie’s, including one in a familiar shape.

Rhinocéros bleu, 1981 zoomed past its high estimate of $70,000 to hammer at $260,000, or $327,600 with fees. Le Métaphore (Canard-Bateau), circa 2002 did even better, surpassing its high estimate of $120,00 by more than 400% after hammering at $530,000 or $667,800 with fees.

Beierle said the results reflected the cheeky, charming, surrealist and fun themes appealing to a growing number of collectors, while being “a little bit easier to live with” compared to Grand Rhinocéros II.

“I think you can very much easily say that you have a rhino, but you can clearly pack that one up and move it to another home, rather than the desk, which obviously is going to be a quite a different lift,” she said with a laugh.

The Armory Show has announced the more than 230 exhibitors set to participate in its upcoming edition, scheduled to run September 5–7 at the Javits Center in New York, with a VIP preview on September 4.

This edition marks the first under the direction of Kyla McMillan, who joined the Armory Show last July, after its 2024 exhibitor list had been announced. Among the changes that McMillan will introduce are a new floor plan, an additional section, and a reconfiguration of its section for large-scale works.

“The 2025 edition of The Armory Show will build on our legacy with a program rooted in New York’s cultural vitality and shaped by dialogue between American and international perspectives,” McMillan said in a statement. “This upcoming edition looks to provide expanded points of access for a range of collectors. Through newly imagined formats, the fair will foster deeper connection and discovery.”

This year’s edition will see more than 20 exhibitors returning after a hiatus, including White Cube, Andrew Kreps, Esther Schipper, and Instituto de Visión. Additionally, some 55 galleries will be participating for the first time, including Skarstedt, Megan Mulrooney, ILY2, Superposition Gallery, Martha’s, and JO-HS.

Other leading galleries who will show at the fair are 303 Gallery, Ben Brown Fine Arts, James Cohan, Garth Greenan Gallery, Mariane Ibrahim, Kasmin, Sean Kelly, Victoria Miro, Nara Roesler, Michael Rosenfeld, Silverlens, Templon, and Vielmetter.  

The floor plan revision will see the fair’s Solo section, for single-artist presentations, intermixed within its main Galleries section. Galleries in the Solo section include Catharine Clark Gallery, Luis de Jesus, SMAC Gallery, and Spinello Projects.

Dealer Ebony L. Haynes, senior director at David Zwirner and 52 Walker, will organize a new section, called Function. This section will look at how “artists both engage with and puncture the tenets of design,” according to a release. Haynes has lined up nine galleries for the section, including 56 Henry, Corbett vs. Dempsey, House of Gaga, Marinaro, and Silke Lindner, winner of this year’s Gramercy International Prize, which comes with a free booth for a New York gallery that has never before participated in the Armory Show.

The Platform section this year will be led by Souls Grown Deep, the nonprofit dedicated to promoting Black artists from the American South, with its chief curator Raina Lampkins-Fielder organizing the large-scale works that will be on view. (The participating artists and their galleries will be announced at a later date.)

The Focus section, organized by Jessica Bell Brown, executive director of the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, will also look at artists from the American South. Galleries taking part include Timothy Hawkinson Gallery, The Hole, K Contemporary, What If The World, and Wolfgang Gallery.

The Armory Show will also include two additional sections. Rebecca Camacho Presents, 1969 Gallery, Fragment, kó, Kendra Jayne Patrick, and Hannah Traore Gallery will feature in the Presents section, for galleries less than 10 years old. And the Not-for-Profit section will include the Lower East Side Printshop, Tierra del Sol Gallery, and the Storefront Center for Art and Architecture, which has won the fair’s Armory Spotlight award.  

Additionally, Carnegie Museum of Art director Eric Crosby will lead the fair’s eighth Curatorial Leadership Summit.

In a statement, Kristell Chadé, the executive director of fairs for Frieze, which has owned the Armory Show since 2023, said, “the Armory Show holds a singular place in New York’s cultural and commercial landscape, engaging the city’s seasoned collectors and institutions. In appointing Kyla as Director, we recognised her curatorial intelligence and her clear understanding of what drives a fair’s success. Her leadership reinforces The Armory Show’s identity as a distinctly American fair, shaped by New York’s pace, rigour and reach.”

The full exhibitor list follows below.

GALLERIES

Exhibitor	Location(s)
303 Gallery	New York
ACA Galleries	New York
Aicon	New York
Aicon Contemporary	New York
Aki Gallery	Taipei, Leipzig
Dastan	Toronto, Tehran
Albertz Benda	New York, Los Angeles
A Lighthouse called Kanata	Tokyo
Alisan Fine Arts	Hong Kong, New York
Alzueta Gallery	Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Casavells
Ames Yavuz	Sydney, Singapore, London
Anant Art	Noida
El Apartamento	Madrid, Havana
Archeus / Post-Modern	London
Bastian	Berlin
Richard Beavers	New York
Berggruen Gallery	San Francisco
Berry Campbell	New York
Bienvenu Steinberg & C	New York
Blouin Division	Montreal, Toronto
Peter Blum Gallery	New York
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery	New York, Los Angeles
Rutger Brandt Gallery	Amsterdam
Ben Brown Fine Arts	London, Hong Kong, Palm Beach
Buchmann Galerie	Berlin, Lugano
CARVAHLO	New York
Casterline|Goodman	Chicago, Nantucket, Aspen
James Cohan	New York
Cristea Roberts Gallery	London
DAG	Mumbai, New Delhi, New York
De Buck Gallery	New York
Dep Art Gallery	Milan, Ceglie Messapica
Dirimart	Istanbul, London
Duane Thomas Gallery	New York
Anat Ebgi	Los Angeles, New York
Galeria Estação	São Paulo
Max Estrella	Madrid
Experimenter	Kolkata, Mumbai
Eric Firestone Gallery	New York, East Hampton
Galerie la Forest Divonne	Brussels, Paris
Galerie Forsblom	Helsinki
Fredericks & Freiser	New York
Frestonian Gallery	London
Galerie Thomas Fuchs	Stuttgart
Galleria Studio G7	Bologna
Galeri st	Istanbul
Gazelli Art House	London
Goya Contemporary Gallery	Baltimore
Garth Greenan Gallery	New York
Hales	London, New York
Halsey Mckay Gallery	East Hampton, New York
Harper’s	East Hampton, New York, Los Angeles
Edwynn Houk Gallery	New York
Huxley Parlour	London
Mariane Ibrahim	Chicago, Paris, Mexico City
Lyndsey Ingram	London
Instituto de Vision	New York, Bogota
Fox Jensen Gallery	Sydney, Auckland
Johnson Lowe Gallery	Atlanta
Johyun Gallery	Busan, Seoul
Galerie Judin	Berlin
Kasmin	New York
Sean Kelly	Los Angeles, New York
Anton Kern Gallery	New York
Michael Kohn Gallery	Los Angeles
Andrew Kreps Gallery	New York
Tim Van Laere Gallery	Antwerp, Rome
Galerie Christian Lethert	Cologne
Library Street Collective	Detroit
Locks Gallery	Philadelphia
Loft Art Gallery	Marrakech, Casablanca
Luce Gallery	Turin
Galerie Ludorff	Düsseldorf
Galerie Ron Mandos	Amsterdam
Miles McEnery Gallery	New York
Nino Mier Gallery	New York, Brussels
Yossi Milo	New York
Francesca Minini	Milan
Massimo Minini	Brescia
Victoria Miro	London, Venice
Nature Morte	Mumbai, New Delhi
Nazarian / Curcio	Los Angeles
Galeri Nev	Ankara
Nicodim Gallery	New York, Los Angeles, Bucharest
Galleria Lorcan O’Neill	Venice, Rome
Pablo’s Birthday	New York, Verbier
Paragon	London
Pilevneli	Istanbul, Bodrum
Poligrafa Obra Grafica	Barcelona
ProxyCo	New York
Mucciaccia Gallery	Rome, London, Cortina, Singapore
Everard Read	London, Franschhoek, Johannesburg, Cape Town
Retro Africa	Abuja
Yancey Richardson Gallery	New York
Nara Roesler	Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, New York
Gallery Rosenfeld	London
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery	New York
Saatchi Yates	London
Richard Saltoun Gallery	New York, Rome, London
SECCI	Pietrasanta, Milan
Secrist | Beach	Chicago
Silverlens	New York, Manila
Skarstedt	Paris, London, New York
Fredric Snitzer Gallery	Miami
Sorry We’re Closed	Brussels
Southern Guild	Cape Town, Los Angeles
Marc Straus Gallery	New York
TAFETA	London
Hollis Taggart	New York
Tandem Press	Madison
Tang Contemporary Art	Bangkok, Seoul, Beijing, Hong Kong, Singapore
Templon	Paris, New York, Brussels
Ting Ting Art Space	Taipei
Two Palms	New York
Uffner & Liu	New York
Van de Weghe	New York
Vielmetter Los Angeles	Los Angeles
Vigo Gallery	London
Weinstein Hammons Gallery	Minneapolis
Wetterling Gallery	Stockholm
White Cube	Hong Kong, Paris, London, New York, Seoul
Wooson Gallery	Seoul, Daegu
Zidoun-Bossuyt Gallery	Paris, Dubai, Luxembourg
Whitestone Gallery	Beijing, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Taipei, Karuizawa

SOLO

Exhibitor	Location(s)
Albuquerque Contemporânea	Belo Horizonte
Arróniz	Mexico City
Baró Galeria	Abu Dhabi, Palma De Mallorca
Catharine Clark Gallery	San Francisco
Gallery Espace	New Dehli
Luis De Jesus Los Angeles	Los Angeles
ILY2	Portland, New York
Nueveochenta	Bogota
Pi Artworks	Istanbul, London
RoFA Projects	Potomac
Clubhouse Gallery	Wellington
Ronchini	London
Public Gallery	London
RX&SLAG	Paris, New York
Esther Schipper	Berlin, Paris, Seoul, New York
Semiose	Paris
SMAC Gallery	Stellenbosch, Cape Town, Johannesburg
Spinello Projects	Miami
Gallery Sofie Van de Velde	Antwerp

FUNCTION

Exhibitor	Location(s)
Andrew Kreps Gallery	New York
Marinaro	New York
James Fuentes	New York, Los Angeles
House of Gaga	Guadalajara, Los Angeles, Mexico City
Corbett vs. Dempsey	Chicago
Nicelle Beauchene Gallery	New York
Silke Lindner	New York
56 Henry	New York
Móran Móran	Los Angeles

FOCUS

Exhibitor	Location(s)
Crisis	Lima
Timothy Hawkinson Gallery	Los Angeles
The Hole	New York, Los Angeles
K Contemporary	Denver
LA Loma Projects	Los Angeles
Martha’s	Austin
Galerie Myrtis	Baltimore
Patrick Mikhail	Montreal
Marianne Boesky Gallery	New York, Aspen
The Pit	Los Angeles
Howard Greenberg Gallery	New York
What If The World	Cape Town, Tulbagh
Wolfgang Gallery	Atlanta

PRESENTS

Exhibitor	Location(s)
1969 Gallery	New York
1 Mira Madrid	Madrid
Gallery 495	Catskill
Pietro Alexander Gallery	Los Angeles
Jack Barrett	New York
Alexander Berggruen	New York
Rebecca Camacho Presents	San Francisco
Dimin	New York
Dio Horia Gallery	Athens
EDJI Gallery	Brussels
EUROPA	New York
Hesse Flatow	East Hampton, New York, Amagansett
Fragment	New York
Harkawik	Los Angeles, New York
JDJ	New York
JO-HS	New York, Mexico City
Massey Klein	New York
kó	Lagos
Lyles & King	New York
Mrs.	New York
Megan Mulrooney	Los Angeles
Newchild	Antwerp
Pangée	Montreal
Patel Brown	Toronto, Montréal
Kendra Jayne Patrick	Bern
PM/AM Gallery	London
Povos	Chicago
Marinaro	New York
RAINRAIN	New York
Niru Ratnam	London
Andrew Reed Gallery	New York, Miami
Reservoir	Cape Town
Sapar Contemporary	New York, Almaty
Sarai Gallery	Mahshahr, London, Tehran
Seven Sisters	Houston
Sheet Cake Gallery	Memphis
marrow gallery	San Francisco
Baert Gallery	Los Angeles
VETA by Fer Francés	Madrid
Shrine	New York
Sim Smith	London
Superposition Gallery	New York, Miami, Los Angeles
Swivel	New York
Hannah Traore Gallery	New York
YveYANG Gallery	New York

NOT-FOR-PROFIT

Exhibitor	Location(s)
Brodsky Center at PAFA	Philadelphia
Fine Arts Work Center	Provincetown
Lower East Side Printshop	New York
New York Academy of Art	New York
Brandywine Workshop and Archives	Philadelphia
Storefront for Art and Architecture	New York
Tamarind Institute	Albuquerque
Tierra del Sol Gallery	Los Angeles

Marian Goodman Gallery will now represent the estate of Ana Mendieta, the pioneering Cuban-born multidisciplinary artist. The gallery will mount its first Mendieta exhibition in November in New York, ahead of a major Tate Modern retrospective next year.

As part of the agreement, the estate will continue to work with Alison Jacques in London and Prats Nogueras Blanchard in Barcelona and Madrid, but will depart Galerie Lelong, which represented Mendieta’s work for over three decades.

“With exciting new projects ahead and increasing momentum around the work, we realized that we needed a larger gallery—one that could help us carry Ana’s legacy into the future and meet the demands of this next chapter,” said Raquel Cecilia Mendieta, the artist’s niece, who has been the estate’s administrator since 2013.

“It’s a huge honor for us to work with the estate of Ana Mendieta,” Junette Teng, a partner at Marian Goodman Gallery, told ARTnews. “Her work is deeply personal and universally resonant, while also conceptually rigorous, which makes her a natural fit for our program. She really expanded the possibilities of what art could be.”

Mendieta, who was born in Havana in 1948 and sent to Iowa during the Cuban Revolution, is best known for her multidisciplinary “earth-body” works exploring themes of migration, spirituality, and humanity’s relationship with the natural world. She used site-specific materials to insert the human form into nature, often incorporating her silhouette or employing her body as a canvas. She then documented these ephemeral interventions with photographs and Super 8 footage, which are exhibited today.

During her lifetime, Mendieta earned a Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and two grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work was commissioned by private collectors and acquired by institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Following Mendieta’s untimely death in September 1985, at the age of 36, her older sister Raquelín worked with a committee of the artist’s friends and peers to organize a 1987 retrospective at the New Museum in New York. In 1991, Mendieta’s estate began its long partnership with Lelong, which had just opened a New York branch, led by Mary Sabbatino, its vice president and partner.

“Mary Sabbatino and I developed a relationship that was more than just a partnership—we became like family,” Raquelín Mendieta told ARTnews in an email. “I’m extremely grateful to Mary for recognizing the importance of Ana’s work early on, and for all of the wonderful years of collaboration between the estate and the gallery.” To date, the artist’s work has appeared in over 600 group shows and over 55 solo exhibitions, including 16 museum retrospectives.

In recent years, public awareness around Mendieta’s life and work has grown, due in part to a wave of media projects developed without the estate’s support. Last November, Mendieta’s work set a new auction record at Christie’s, where an untitled 1985 wood sculpture sold for $756,000, marking the third record for her art set in 12 months.

Raquel Cecilia believes that contemporary viewers are responding to the universal, timely questions in her aunt’s work: “‘Who are we? Where do we come from? Where do we belong?’”

“There’s a search for some kind of spiritual and cultural grounding” in today’s cultural and political landscape, added Rose Lord, a partner at Marian Goodman.

But all of this attention means new demands on both the estate and the gallery representing it; licensing and loan requests have surged, and, Raquel Cecilia said, “we have museums who are interested in installing some of Ana’s site-specific works, which we’ve never done before.” In July 2026, the Tate Modern will present a significant retrospective of the artist’s paintings, photographs, films, sculptures, and earthworks, bringing several pieces to the UK for the first time.

“Ana would have been very excited and proud to be in a gallery that represents Robert Smithson and [Giuseppe] Penone, amongst other artists there who are aligned with her work,” Raquelín wrote about Marian Goodman’s roster. “She also would have felt gratified to know that her work has resonated for so many years and continues to reach new audiences—that the public has engaged not only with her art, but with the ideas behind it.”

The global art market may still be sluggish, but strong demand for rare pieces by François-Xavier Lalanne helped one signature sculpture sell for $16.422 million at Sotheby’s today.

“Even in this horrible climate, I will be surprised if this doesn’t do well,” art advisor Laura Lester told ARTnews prior to the sale. “There’s always trophy hunters out there.”

Grand Rhinocéros II (2003), a life-size sculptural gold patinated bronze, brass, and leather desk in the shape of the animal, was the featured lot for Sotheby’s Important Design day sale in New York on June 11. It measures more than four-feet wide, 8.5-feet in length, and is two feet in height. The pre-sale estimate was $3 million to $5 million.

The sculpture was the first edition out of eight, and was acquired by the current owners in 2003 from Galerie Mitterand in Paris. The last time Grand Rhinocéros II appeared at auction, the seventh edition sold for €5.5 million with fees on a high estimate of €3 million at Sotheby’s Paris on May 22, 2022.

Bidding for Lot 105 today started at $2.5 million. After 45 bids placed online and by Sotheby’s specialists on the phone over 13 minutes, Grand Rhinocéros II blasted past its high estimate to hammer at $13.75 million, or $16.422 million with fees, to a bidder on the phone.

Today’s auction result for Grand Rhinocéros II is the second-highest for François-Xavier Lalanne. The artist’s record is held by Rhinocrétaire I, which sold for $19.4 million with fees, well past its high estimate of $6.4 million, at Christie’s Paris in October 2023.

The price for Grand Rhinocéros II also exceeds last month’s sale of François-Xavier Lalanne’s Bar aux Autruches (1967-1968) for €11.1 million ($12 million) after an 11-minute bidding war at Sotheby’s Paris on May 20. The bar in the shape of two life-size ostriches and a large egg had an estimate of €3 million to €4 million.

The results are further evidence of ongoing, strong demand for works by François-Xavier and his wife Claude Lalanne by collectors across the categories of design, fine art, post-war and contemporary, impressionist and modern art. “If there was the Venn diagram of all of those collectors, Lalanne is like that little, tiny place where they all meet in the middle,” Lester said. “You just have such a broad cross section of collectors who would be interested in something like this, and they’re very hard to come by.”

It’s worth noting the decline in the artists’ primary market after the sale of more than 700 pieces from the private collections of Les Lalanne and their two daughters, Dorothée and Marie by Sotheby’s and Christie’s during various sales in Paris and New York between 2019 and 2024.

“Now that everything has been dispersed and [François-Xavier and Claude are] both gone, it’s just like you have to wait for them to come up at auction. You really, really do,” said Lester, who had worked with the Lalanne estate when she was a director at Kasmin gallery. “Despite the price tag, despite what a monumental item this is, there’s going to be someone for it.”