Art Basel 2010 was a roaring success!  A record $3,000,000.00 was paid for a Wifredo Lam painting from Cernuda Gallery.

Art, fashion and celebrity all merged during Art Basel making it the most exciting place to be the first week in December!!  The Gagosian Gallery, as always, made quite a splash with Rauschenberg, Jeff Koons and other major works. Larry Gagosian hosted a number of prestigious events not the least of which was an evening at the W hotel. On December 2 Larry invited guests to a cocktail party and reading of the latest novel by Steve Martin (An Object of Beauty) which was followed by a star studded dinner.  As Martin is an avid art collector and good friend of Gagosian, the invitees were collectors, celebrities and artists including Ben Stiller, Lance Armstrong and Julian Schnabel.

We’ve included a few of the memories we enjoyed during the exciting, daunting and exhausting week of Art Basel. The photos include an  amusing and surreal sculpture by Robert Williams of a Gigantic Stamp collector shown at the Tony Shafrazi Galler, super sized images of Marilyn Monroe and John Lennon by Alex Guofeng Cao of China Square Gallery and  a photo of our first meeting with the incredible Julian Schnabel, and a view  of Acquavella’s booth of contemporary art including Jim Dine, Andy Warhol and a Robert Indiana sculpture.

While the ancillary fairs (Art Miami, Red Dot, Art Asia etc.) presented many up and coming emerging artists, the mainstay of the Art Basel Fair were the established 20th century icons such as Picasso, Dali, Matisse, Man Ray, Miro and Chagall.