Art World Weekly Digest — Late October 2026

Hey friends,

What a week. Art Basel Paris sold like crazy, then shut its doors two days early. A Monet set a French auction record. France handed out its top art prize, Québec opened a whole building for one painter, and a French abbey found secret Redon doodles hiding behind the walls. Grab your coffee (or your cauldron brew, it is almost Halloween) and let's go.

Art Basel Paris: big sales, then an early goodnight

Visitors to Art Basel Paris 2026 at the Grand Palais. Photo © Art Basel. Via The Art Newspaper.

Last week Art Basel said the fair was "proceeding as planned." Well, about that. The fifth edition opened at the Grand Palais with anti-ram barriers and guards with dogs after a weekend of riots in France, The Art Newspaper reports. Inside, though, collectors were shopping hard. Galleries reported more than 300 works sold for about $147 million in the first two preview days, according to the fair's figures, per Artnet. White Cube sold two Julie Mehretu paintings at $7.85 million each, Gagosian placed a late Willem de Kooning for more than $10 million, and Hauser & Wirth sold a Gerhard Richter and a Georg Baselitz for around $10 million apiece. The priciest thing in the room was a 1917 Modigliani nude, Nu étendu (Lolotte), offered at more than $100 million by Pace Di Donna Schrader. Also spotted: a 10-foot bronze stack of Jeff Koons corks, which is apparently a portrait of embracing couples "if you squint the right way," per TAN. I am squinting. I see corks.

Then on Thursday afternoon the news dropped: the fair would close at 7 p.m. Friday and stay closed all weekend over planned demonstrations, to protect visitors, staff and artworks, per Artnet. "The main thing is that people are safe and art is safe," said Gladstone's Max Falkenstein. The Louvre, Musée d'Orsay, Musée de l'Orangerie, the Picasso Museum and the Grand Palais exhibition spaces all closed on Saturday too, ARTnews reports. Safety first, always. The art will still be there.

A Monet iris breaks the French auction record

Meanwhile, across town, Claude Monet's Iris (1924 to 1925) sold for €50 million ($56.2 million) at Sotheby's Paris on Oct 22, the most expensive artwork ever sold at auction in France, ARTnews reports. Six bidders fought over it for 45 minutes, and it landed with a private buyer in Asia, way past its €22 to 30 million estimate. It led the collection of Jeanne Schlumberger, whose sale made €74.4 million ($83.7 million) with every lot sold. Bonus plot twist: three early Cézannes were pulled from the sale so his hometown, Aix-en-Provence, can try to buy them for the Musée Granet. Love a hometown hero moment.

Brognon Rollin win the Prix Marcel Duchamp

Installation view of Brognon Rollin's "5,376 years, 1,892 months, 1,110 days, 1,201 hours." Photo: Romain Darnaud. Via ARTnews.

France's top art prize goes to the duo David Brognon and Stéphanie Rollin, ARTnews reports. The winner gets €35,000. Their nominee show piece is a set of coin-pusher machines (yes, the arcade kind) filled with sobriety tokens like the ones Alcoholics Anonymous members get for milestones. That is such a gentle, gut-punch way to talk about time, waiting and resilience. With the Pompidou closed, this year's five nominees are showing at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris through Feb 7, 2027.

Québec opens a whole pavilion for Jean Paul Riopelle

Jean Paul Riopelle, The Tower (1969-70), at the entrance to the Espace Riopelle-Michael Audain Pavilion, Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec. Photo: David Cannon, MNBAQ; © Estate of Jean Paul Riopelle / CARCC, Ottawa, 2026. Via The Art Newspaper.

The Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec opened its C$84 million ($61 million) Espace Riopelle-Michael Audain Pavilion on Oct 22, The Art Newspaper reports. Designed by FABG Architectes to evoke Riopelle's rustic home studio, it spans more than 5,000 square meters and includes a circular gallery built just for his 40-meter-long triptych L'Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg (1992). Philanthropist Michael Audain says Riopelle was the first to paint entire landscapes using only a palette knife, and even had a set of knives made for it. Palette knife people, this one is for you.

Secret Redon sketches turn up in a French abbey

The deinstallation of Odilon Redon's La Nuit (1910-11) revealed a drawing by the artist hidden for over a century at Fontfroide Abbey, Narbonne. ©Fondation Louis Vuitton / Dmitry Kostyukov. Via ARTnews.

Remember the Gustave Fayet show at the Fondation Louis Vuitton from a couple of weeks ago? Here's the sequel. When Redon's murals were taken down from the library of the Abbaye de Fontfroide for the first time in over a century to travel to that show, a set of previously unknown test drawings by Redon turned up on the walls underneath, ARTnews reports. "It was a great surprise, nobody imagined the existence of these sketches," said the abbey's director, Fayet's grandson Alexandre d'Andoque de Sériège, who suspects it was "really just a painting for fun." Doodling on the walls when no one's looking: a tale as old as art.

Quick hits

• A big gift to Tate: Collector and scholar Charles Greig donated 50 works by artists who lived and worked in India in the 18th and 19th centuries, including Sita Ram and Johan Zoffany, with a Tate Britain show expected in 2028, per ARTnews.

• More room to learn in Philly: Comcast cofounder Julian A. Brodsky and Lois G. Brodsky gave $20 million to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a new education center that will more than triple its education space, per ARTnews.

• Monets on the mound: The Milwaukee Art Museum and the Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg bet a Monet each on the Brewers vs. Rays World Series. The winning city gets to borrow the loser's painting, per ARTnews. Best museum trash talk ever.

• In memoriam: Celebrated Indian artist Jogen Chowdhury died in Kolkata on Oct 25 at 87. He was known for figurative works that used cross-hatching to distort the human body, per ARTnews.

Looking ahead

• Christie's Klimt, Hong Kong preview Oct 27 to 29, then Christie's New York's Nov 17 evening sale, where Gustav Klimt's landscape Litzlbergkeller (1915 to 1916) is estimated at $60 to 80 million and guaranteed to sell, per ARTnews. Neue Galerie in New York also reopens Nov 12.

• Abu Dhabi auctions, with Christie's first fine art sale in the city on Nov 1 and Sotheby's first, Breaking Ground, on Dec 10, per ARTnews.

• Sotheby's New York, Nov 18, with a 1944 Edward Hopper sailboat painting, high estimate $30 million, per ARTnews.

• Rubaiya Qatar, a new quadrennial opening Nov 21 across Doha with more than 120 artists, per ARTnews.

• Art Basel Miami Beach, Dec 4 to 6, per Art Basel.

That's the roundup! Spot a story you think belongs in next week's digest? Drop it in the comments or send it my way. I always love a good tip.

See you next Tuesday,

Leanore