It’s been a whirlwind 2026 already. The year kicked off with a bang at Art Basel Qatar and barrelled forward into a spring marked by a much-talked-about Venice Biennale, a jam-packed week of fairs in New York, and a blockbuster series of sales at the auction houses. For the indefatigable collectors, dealers, and—yes—journalists that constitute the art world, there’s one more marquee event before summer takes hold: Art Basel’s flagship fair in the otherwise tranquil Swiss canton of Basel.
The Swiss edition of Art Basel still carries a reputation for presenting the most museum-quality work, even if that reputation has waned somewhat as fairs in Paris, and now the the Gulf, take hold. This year, the fair introduced
Basel Exclusive, a new opt-in program in which exhibitors agree to withhold at least one top work from the pre-fair PDFs and previews, in the hopes of generating some you-had-to-be-there-to-see-it buzz. Of the 240 exhibitors in the main galleries section, 193 have opted in to the initiative, according to the fair.
Thus, there are bound to be some big-ticket artworks missing in our preview. Nevertheless, with a focus on art dealers with reputations for bringing the freshest (and highest-priced) secondary market works, here’s some of what will be hanging on the walls in Basel.
Berry Campbell
New York’s Berry Campbell will be exhibiting at the Swiss edition of the fair for the first time in June. For its debut, the gallery is bringing a star-studded lineup, including a 1968 painting by Lynne Drexler, Eventide, priced at $975,000, and Elaine de Kooning’s 1963 portrait of former ARTnews executive editor Thomas B. Hess, for $465,000.
The de Kooning offering is something a preview for the gallery’s upcoming solo exhibition by the artist set to open October 29. The show, her first since a retrospective at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s in 2015, will survey the full breadth of her 40-year career, bringing together early abstractions, portraits of figures like John F. Kennedy, and more.
— Harrison Jacobs, Brian Boucher, Sarah Douglas, Daniel Cassady, ARTnews
June 11, 2026
