Sales Delight Dealers & Daughters
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

MIAMI BEACH —Keanu Reeves, wearing a gray suit and sneakers, walked rapidly alongside his art adviser, apparently in search of a specific gallery. “Where’s the map?” he said with urgency.
It was a typical moment at the Art Basel Miami Beach fair, which opened yesterday at noon to VIP guests. More than 200 galleries are exhibiting work until Sunday in a configuration of booths that feels like an endless labyrinth.
There was lots of art to look at and, at least for New Yorkers, a lot of people to greet. The contingent from New York’s art world was strong: the president of the Museum of Modern Art, Marie Josée-Kravis, the chairman of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Leonard Lauder, and the president of the Guggenheim, William Mack.
“My impression is that everybody serious is here,” the art dealer Jeffrey Deitch said.
Dealers reported strong sales.
“We’ve hit pay dirt. People knew what we were bringing and got here quickly. Some, not quickly enough, and they were disappointed,”a director of the Jan Krugier gallery, Martin Summers, said.
Some of the most expensive works of the fair were the Picassos at the Krugier’s booth. Mr. Lauder admired a $30 million bronze bust,”Tête de femme,” as of yet unsold.
“The best is still here,” Mr. Summers said.
Sperone Westwater sold its Susan Rothenberg at a “good price,” its director, Angela Westwater, said. It also sold a Mike Kelly for $750,000 and a Tom Sachs for $150,000.
“We’ve sold a lot of important things very quickly. I’m thinking of stopping selling,” PaceWildenstein’s owner, Arne Glimcher, said. Those works sold were by Kiki Smith, Alex Katz, and Joel Shapiro.
Gmurzynska, a Zurich gallery, sold all its Louise Nevelson wood sculptural works, for about $200,000 each. It also had a reserve on a Yves Klein that the director of the Guggenheim Museum, Lisa Dennison, described as “A-plus museum quality, one of the ah-ha works of the fair.”
Larry Gagosian had many New York visitors at his booth, including Linda Macklowe and her daughter and son-inlaw, Liz and Kent Swig. Mr. Swig later said he had bought two pieces at the fair.
Just an hour into the fair, James Cohan Gallery had sold 70% of its work, including a brightly colored painting by Ingrid Calame, admired for a few moments by designer Jamie Drake, who said he was shopping for himself and for clients.
Michele Oka Doner stopped by Marlborough Gallery, which sold a painting of hers and several other works in the $1 million range, but not yet its Francis Bacon painting, valued at $9.5 million.
“It used to be people did not buy art so eagerly, but now they’re buying eagerly — and judiciously, too. They know what they’re doing,” a director of Marlborough Gallery, David Robinson, said.
Mitchell Innes & Nash sold its work by up and coming artist Natalie Frank, and, to their surprise, work of abstract artists that is currently on view in their New York gallery.”If you look around, there’s so much figurative work. Abstract may be the next thing,” Lucy Mitchell-Innes said.
L&M Arts director Robert Mnuchin wasn’t sharing news of specific sales, but his was one of the only galleries where prices were listed on the labels. There was an Andy Warhol marked at $1.6 million and a Takashi Murakami at $1.2 million.
“These aren’t marked up. These are what we believe to be the appropriate price in the marketplace today. We started doing it two years ago in Basel, and it was very well received,” Mr. Mnuchin said.
Patricia Cisneros and Laura Parsons both spent time in the exhibit of Latin American constructivists at Adler & Conkright.
The associate curator of design at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Jane Adlin, was present; she planned to see ceramics at Matthew Marks Gallery. Her curatorial leadership will be on display at the Met with “One of a Kind: The Studio Craft Movement,” which opens December 22.
Samuel and Linda Lindenbaum toured the fair with their daughter Laurie Lindenbaum to teach her about collecting. “So far we’ve done mostly the stars,” Mr. Lindenbaum said at lunch in the VIP guest lounge. “The afternoon is going to be about the best of what’s brewing.”Their last stop, five hours after they began, was Deitch Gallery.”Let’s just say she’s bought a lot of art, but she hasn’t written any checks herself,” Mr. Lindenbaum said of his daughter’s progress.
Other New Yorkers spotted at the fair: Calvin Klein looking at a Carroll Dunham painting at Skarstedt Gallery; the director of the Brooklyn Museum, Arnold Lehman, looking at photographs by Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, Nan Goldin, and Jeff Koons on display at Carolina Nitsch Contemporary Art; Katherine Ross arriving with her daughter sleeping in a stroller (and without her husband Michael Govan, who was at a board meeting of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art); Francine LeFrak and Richard Friedberg strolling by a Robert Rauschenberg in front of Knoedler Gallery; Dana and Patrick Stubgen; Dayssi Olarte de Kanavos; Richard and Jennie DeScherer, and Beth Rudin DeWoody.