Frieze London and Frieze Masters ran in The Regent’s Park from 14 to 18 October, and by the close the organisers and most dealers were reporting a good week. The fairs drew 95,000 visitors from 108 countries and regions, among them delegates from a record 426 institutions in 51 countries. Attendance from India and China more than doubled in 2025, and attendance from Hong Kong, Korea, the UAE and Brazil was also up. American and Canadian visitors returned in numbers, as did Germans and French. Frieze London, in its 24th edition, had 176 galleries from 43 countries and regions. Frieze Masters, in its 14th edition, had 142 from 33 nations.
The top prices came from two very different corners. At Frieze Masters, Hauser & Wirth sold Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Still Life of Flowers in a Stoneware Vase (c. 1607 to 1608) on the first day for around £5 million. At Frieze London, David Zwirner placed a new Michaël Borremans for $1.5 million. The seven-figure sales were few, though. The report’s weight is in the middle of the market, where dealers described steady, broad buying. Andreas Gegner of Sprüth Magers said sales were strong and consistent, especially in the mid-price range and for emerging and mid-career artists.
Frieze London
Established galleries brought new studio work and sold it. Zwirner also placed Dana Schutz for $900,000, Lisa Yuskavage for $450,000 and Portia Zvavahera for $300,000, and sent new paintings by Sasha Gordon ($400,000) and Yu Nishimura ($170,000) to museums in Europe and Asia. Hauser & Wirth sold Avery Singer’s Solver (v.3) (2026) for $800,000 and George Condo’s Figure Composition (2026) for $600,000. Gagosian devoted a solo booth to Albert Oehlen. Thaddaeus Ropac sold Martha Jungwirth’s Untitled (Berggasse 19) for €560,000, Antony Gormley’s Aside (2025) for £500,000, an Adrian Ghenie for €380,000, Megan Rooney’s Radio Silence for £280,000 and a 1963 terracotta by Leoncillo for €300,000. White Cube sold eleven works by Ilana Savdie, including The Harbingers, to a museum for $325,000, and Pace sold out its booth of new paintings by Marina Perez Simão.
Sprüth Magers sold Kara Walker’s The Second Thanksgiving (2025) to a US collection for $400,000. Xavier Hufkens sold a historic Richard Serra work on paper for $750,000, a suite of Louise Bourgeois works on paper for $400,000, and a small Bourgeois sculpture for $215,000. Karma sold Gertrude Abercrombie’s Little Silo (1953) for $350,000 and William Turnbull’s Siren (1986) for $250,000, and sold out Jacob Littlejohn in his London debut. GRIMM sold Caroline Walker’s Lifeguard (2026) for £175,000 and a new Louise Giovanelli to a prominent US collection for £120,000. Timothy Taylor placed Sean Landers for $120,000 to $180,000, and Lehmann Maupin sold a McArthur Binion for $150,000. Kukje reported sales across generations of Korean artists, with every Han Youngsoo photograph sold, while Johyun placed Lee Bae’s Issu du feu-au13 (2003) for $215,000.
London’s longer-standing galleries did well too. Maureen Paley placed work by Wolfgang Tillmans, Merlin James, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, and Hannah Starkey, among others, and The Approach sold something by every artist on its stand, including Turner Prize nominee Kira Freije. Pippy Houldsworth sold two Shaqúelle Whyte paintings at £50,000 each. Carl Freedman had what it called one of its strongest fairs, placing more than twenty works by Studio Lenca, one with a major US institution.
The entrance stands, once the preserve of established names, are now open to a wider range of galleries, and several used the space for sell-outs. Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel cleared its Márcia Falcão booth on opening day. Pilar Corrias, back after two years away, sold out Rachel Rose, Sholto Blissett and Georg Wilson by the end of day one, and placed works with four institutions. Casa Triângulo, also returning, sold out Fernanda Galvão. First-timer Carvalho placed Rachel Mica Weiss’s whole series of fibre works within the opening hours, deliberately favouring UK and European buyers because the US waiting list is long.
Former Focus exhibitors fared well as regulars. Union Pacific sold out. The Sunday Painter sold two large Emily Kraus paintings at £45,000 each. Oliver Osborne’s The Things Around You (2026) went to the Arts Council Collection, as did work by Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings from Arcadia Missa. Edel Assanti returned with a reconstruction of Marcin Dudek’s childhood bedroom and placed works at $160,000 to $230,000.
In Focus, several booths sold out on opening day, among them Gianni Manhattan, a. SQUIRE and Harlesden High Street. Bukia Vakhania sold every Tamo Jugeli at $40,000 each. Diez sold Jessica Wilson’s Sweet Nothing to the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, the artist’s first museum acquisition. Chemould CoLab, a first-time exhibitor, placed three large textile works by Jayeeta Chatterjee at $13,000 to $26,000, the largest of which was with an Indian institution. Ehrlich Steinberg sold Ella Fleck’s presentation to a European family collection for £14,000, and a second edition of the three-monitor piece went to a Californian collector. Eli Kerr sold nearly all of Simon S. Belleau at £4,000 to £12,000. In Artist-to-Artist, Alice Amati and Goodman Gallery sold out Paul Robas and Unathi Mkonto, and Bolanle Contemporary sold all its Eilen Itzel do Espírito Santo, with one painting going to an American institution and another to a British one.
Elsewhere, Vadehra Art Gallery sold out, Athr sold Ahmed Mater’s Gun Gas (2026) for around £40,000, and Fort Gansevoort placed Myrlande Constant’s Lasirène Diamant (2025) with a European institution for around $175,000. Southern Guild sold eight works on the opening day, including a Zanele Muholi at $120,000.
Frieze Masters
After the Brueghel, the highest prices were for modern works. Waddington Custot sold Jean Dubuffet’s Le malentendu 23 décembre 1976 for £950,000 and two Eduardo Chillida works for £280,000 and £140,000. In the curated section Queering Modernism, David Zwirner and Victoria Miro sold four Alice Neel paintings at $1.6 million to $1.8 million each, one to a major museum. Piano Nobile placed a major Henry Moore in the region of £1 million, a Barbara Hepworth painting for about £250,000 and a Vanessa Bell portrait for about £150,000. Vito Schnabel sold Condo’s Call Me Now (1988) for $925,000, an early Ai Weiwei for €450,000 and Ron Gorchov’s Tarzan for $400,000. Bastian sold a Max Pechstein for around €700,000 and a Renoir for around €500,000, and Jahn und Jahn placed a 1960s Dan Flavin for around €350,000. Osborne Samuel placed more than ten works at six figures each.
Asian art had a strong showing. Carlton Rochell sold a 2nd-century Kushan sandstone Avalokiteshvara for over $1 million and a 15th-century Tibetan Arya Manjushri for close to $1 million. He said the fair was its most successful ever, noting the emergence of serious private collectors from India. Aina Gallery set a world record for Biren De, and DAG made ten sales on opening day.
Antiquities and older material moved well. Tomasso sold a Roman mosaic top incorporating flooring from Hadrian’s Villa for around £200,000 and a porphyry charger for about £125,000. Rupert Wace placed an Egyptian figure of Ptah, and Charles Ede sold a sarcophagus cover. Kunstkammer Georg Laue sold a mother-of-pearl still life by Dirck van Rijswijck, and Colnaghi offered a Tiepolo caricature, Leonor Fini’s mask sketches, and a self-portrait with cats. Marc Selwyn placed eight Lee Bontecou works, and Daniel Katz sold David Bomberg’s 1947 painting of St Ives. Textiles included a 17th-century17th-century Kirman carpet and four ivory silk satin panels, which sold for over £100,000 in the first two hours.
In Spotlight, Richard Saltoun’s presentation of Manina led to two museum acquisitions at prices up to £150,000, and Tafeta sold twelve sculptures, including one to a US institution. Ab-Anbar sold Bahman Mohassess’s works to a London foundation and a photography museum, and Andrew Edlin sold an early-1990s Beverly Buchanan shack to a museum board president, with the shack destined for the museum’s collection. D Lan Galleries sold George Tjungurrayi, including a monumental 2005 painting, to a European foundation.
Acquisitions and prizes
Institutional buying was a defining feature, helped by the fairs’ own funds. The Frieze Tate Fund acquired Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s Peace Unknown and Luis Fernando Zapata’s Barge. The Contemporary Art Society’s Collections Fund, marking its tenth anniversary, bought works by Karimah Ashadu, Gala Porras-Kim, and Silät, with Claudia Alarcón for The Whitworth. The new Dasha Shenkman Focus Fund bought three works by Okiki Akinfe for Abbot Hall in Kendal. A second new fund, from The Women’s Art Collection and Female Artists of the Mougins Museum, acquired Moumita Basak, Atong Atem and IyunOla Sanyaolu, each a first entry into a public UK collection. The Arts Council Collection bought works by Hannah Quinlan and Rosie Hastings, Laurie Smith, Oliver Osborne, and Armando D. Cosmos, and the Spirit Now London Acquisition Prize went to Annette Messager and Stanislava Pinchuk, with the works to be donated to the V&A’s Photography Centre.
Ella Fleck won the Camden Art Centre Emerging Artist Award, with an exhibition planned for 2028. Myriam Mihindou and Phillida Reid took the £15,000 Fluxus-CPGA Prize. Unathi Mkonto, nominated by Yinka Shonibare, won the £10,000 Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation Prize and a 2027 commission. Valentine, a collaboration between ROH, Misako & Rosen and LC Queisser, won the Galleries Stand Prize for its presentation of the late Balinese artist Oototol.
What the dealers said:
The tone was upbeat. Iwan Wirth said he had been at every Frieze Week since the start and had never seen London so busy. Xavier Hufkens joked that London weather is unreliable and Frieze is not. Carl Freedman reported a record year, with two institutional acquisitions and a major commission confirmed for 2027. Rupert Wace noted rising interest in Egyptian antiquities from a younger generation. Several US dealers remarked on how many American curators and collectors had made the trip. Kristell Chadé, the fair’s executive director, said that London, at its best, makes you feel anything is possible, and that this had been one of those weeks.
The guest list was as long as ever, with collectors from Peter Brant to Anita Zabludowicz, museum directors from the Whitney to the Uffizi, and a good number of artists, as well as film and fashion names.
More Sales:
Leading international galleries reported strong sales of new work from artists’ studios. Highlights included Gagosian’s solo booth of Albert Oehlen paintings, Avery Singer’s Solver (v.3) (2026) at Hauser & Wirth for $800,000, and George Condo’s Figure Composition (2026) for $600,000. David Zwirner placed new paintings by Michaël Borremans for $1.5 million, Dana Schutz for $900,000, Lisa Yuskavage for $450,000 and Portia Zvavahera for $300,000. Thaddaeus Ropac sold Martha Jungwirth’s Untitled (Berggasse 19) (2026) for €560,000, Antony Gormley’s Aside (2025) for £500,000, a new painting by Adrian Ghenie for €380,000 and Megan Rooney’s Radio Silence (2026) for £280,000. It also placed a 1963 terracotta by the Italian sculptor Leoncillo for €300,000. White Cube sold 11 works by Ilana Savdie, including The Harbingers (2026) to a museum for $325,000, Syncitia No. 2 (2026) for $260,000, and Gabriel Orozco’s Lion Fish (2024) for $300,000. Pace Gallery sold out its entire booth of new paintings by Marina Perez Simão. Sprüth Magers sold Kara Walker’s The Second Thanksgiving (2025) for $400,000 to a US collection, with further works by Henni Alftan, Thomas Demand and Barbara Kruger going to collections in Scandinavia, continental Europe and the UK. Xavier Hufkens placed a historic work on paper by Richard Serra for $750,000, a suite of works on paper by Louise Bourgeois for $400,000 and a small Bourgeois sculpture for $215,000.
Karma sold Gertrude Abercrombie’s Little Silo (1953) for $350,000 and William Turnbull’s Siren (1986) for $250,000, and sold out their paintings by Jacob Littlejohn in his London market debut, one of them to an institutional collection. GRIMM sold Caroline Walker’s Lifeguard (2026) for £175,000 and a new painting by Louise Giovanelli to a prominent US collection for £120,000. The gallery also placed a work by Hettie Inniss with the Roberts Art Foundation ahead of her residency there, and two paintings by Anna Ruth with a West Asian foundation. Timothy Taylor placed new paintings by Sean Landers for $120,000–$180,000 with American and British collectors. Lehmann Maupin sold a new painting by McArthur Binion for $150,000. Kukje Gallery reported sales across generations of Korean artists, including Kyungah Ham’s embroideries and every photograph by Han Youngsoo on the stand. Johyun Gallery placed Lee Bae’s Issu du feu-au13 (2003) for $215,000, alongside works by four artists shown at Frieze London for the first time.
Among long-term UK exhibitors, Maureen Paley placed works by Wolfgang Tillmans, Merlin James, Mary Stephenson, Anne Hardy, Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Hannah Starkey, and The Approach sold works by every artist on its stand, including John Stezaker, Mike Silva, Magali Reus and Turner Prize nominee Kira Freije. Alison Jacques reported sales to both longstanding and new collectors, and Herald St placed new works by Naotaka Hiro, Francis Offman, Sang Woo Kim and Poppy Jones in significant collections. Pippy Houldsworth Gallery sold two paintings by Shaqúelle Whyte for £50,000 each and Sofía Bassi’s La paz será de todos (1969) for $85,000. Carl Freedman Gallery, reporting one of its strongest fairs to date, placed more than 20 works by Studio Lenca, including one to a major US institution, alongside works by recent Margate School graduates IyunOla Sanyaolu and Olivia Guillot. Richard Saltoun Gallery placed multiple works by Helen Chadwick between £10,000 and £100,000.
Once largely reserved for established galleries, Frieze London’s entrance stands now offer a wider range of galleries the chance to present solo shows to collectors arriving at the fair. This year, Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel sold out their booth of Márcia Falcão’s paintings on the opening day. In contrast, Berthold Pott sold three sculptures by Agata Ingarden to a private museum in Southeast Asia.
Returning after a two-year absence, Pilar Corrias sold out its presentation of Rachel Rose, Sholto Blissett and Georg Wilson by the close of the first day. Meanwhile, Casa Triângulo, also returning after a few years, reported a sold-out presentation by Fernanda Galvão. First-time exhibitor Carvalho also placed Rachel Mica Weiss’s full series of fibre works with UK and European collectors within the opening hours.
Former Focus participants returning as regular exhibitors also reported strong results. Union Pacific, a Focus exhibitor until 2022, sold out its presentation of Niklas Asker, Apollinaria Broche, Sebastián Espejo, Aya Higuchi, Nour Jaouda and Oliver Osborne. The Sunday Painter sold two large paintings by Emily Kraus for £45,000 each, alongside works by Harminder Judge (up to £26,000), Patrick H Jones, Tomas Harker and Thiang Uk. Placements extended to public collections: Osborne’s The Things Around You (2026) entered the Arts Council Collection, as did work by Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings from Arcadia Missa, another Focus alumnus. Edel Assanti, which first presented Marcin Dudek in Focus in 2022, returned with a reconstruction of the artist’s childhood bedroom in Kraków and placed works including paintings by Thornton Dial, with prices ranging from $160,000–$230,000.
In Focus, Gianni Manhattan, a. SQUIRE and Harlesden High Street reported sold-out booths on opening day. Bukia Vakhania also sold out its presentation of paintings by Tamo Jugeli, with each work selling for $40,000. In contrast, Xxijra Hii sold out and secured new commissions by Yuli Serfaty to be realised after the fair. Diez sold a work by Jessica Wilson to Centraal Museum, Utrecht, the artist’s first acquisition by a museum, and Niru Ratnam placed four works by Laila Majid, two with an international institutional collection and two with a major corporate collection in the UK. First-time exhibitor Chemould CoLab placed three large textile works by Jayeeta Chatterjee, priced from $13,000 to $26,000, the largest going to an Indian institution. Ehrlich Steinberg sold its presentation of Ella Fleck to an important European family collection for £14,000 (£12,000 for the floor sculpture and £2,000 for the three-monitor, custom-programmed piece). Eli Kerr sold almost all of its presentation by Simon S. Belleau at prices ranging from £4,000 to £12,000. Focus is advised by Cédric Fauq, Joumana Asseily and Freddie Powell and supported by Stone Island, which provides a bursary for every participating gallery.
In the Artist-to-Artist section, Alice Amati and Goodman Gallery reported sold-out booths with their presentations of Paul Robas and Unathi Mkonto, respectively. Bolanle Contemporary sold all of its paintings and drawings by Eilen Itzel do Espírito Santo, with prices reaching £30,000, including two significant institutional acquisitions: one by an American institution and another by a British institution.
The Code Universe, curated by Carol Yinghua Lu, saw Valentine win the Frieze London Galleries Stand Prize for its presentation of work by the late Balinese artist Oototol. acb Gallery presented the work of Selma Selman to an international audience, and Nonfrasa placed six works by Nyoman Darmawan with collectors in the UK and Indonesia.
Across the fair, Vadehra Art Gallery sold out, with paintings by Atul Dodiya, Biraaj Dodiya, Sudhir Patwardhan and Zaam Arif going to collectors in Los Angeles, Copenhagen and London, and Cob sold out its stand twice. Athr sold Ahmed Mater’s Gun Gas (2026) for around £40,000, and Fort Gansevoort placed Myrlande Constant’s Lasirène Diamant (2025) with a European institution for around $175,000. Southern Guild sold eight works by six artists on the opening day, including Zanele Muholi’s Zwelibanzi for $120,000. Cecilia Brunson Projects placed works by Dignora Pastorello with institutions across the Americas and Singapore, and sold a work by Silät with Claudia Alarcón for $60,000. Galerie Nordenhake placed Iñaki Bonillas with a private museum in Miami. Sullivan+Strumpf sold five paintings by Yvette Coppersmith, priced between £5,000–£10,000, and placed several paintings by Kaye Brown, priced between £4,000–£9,000. The gallery also sold eight photographs by Atong Atem, whose work also entered a UK public collection for the first time through the new Women’s Art Collection (WAC) and Female Artists of the Mougins Museum (FAMM) fund.
Sales at Frieze Masters
Major sales at Frieze Masters included Jan Brueghel the Elder’s oil on oak panel Still Life of Flowers in a Stoneware Vase (c. 1607–08), sold by Hauser & Wirth on the first day of the fair in the region of £5 million, and Jean Dubuffet’s Le malentendu 23 décembre 1976 at Waddington Custot, sold for £950,000 alongside two works by Eduardo Chillida for £280,000 and £140,000. Hauser & Wirth also placed Francis Picabia’s Transparence, visage de femme for a high six-figure price. In Queering Modernism: Visual Languages of the 20th Century, developed by Anke Kempkes, David Zwirner and Victoria Miro sold four significant paintings by Alice Neel for $1.6–$1.8 million each, including one to a major museum. Carlton Rochell Asian Art sold a 2nd-century Kushan sandstone Avalokiteshvara from Mathura for over $1 million and a 15th-century Tibetan Arya Manjushri for close to $1 million, reporting the emergence of serious private collectors from India. Piano Nobile placed a major Henry Moore in the region of £1 million, a Barbara Hepworth painting at around £250,000, and a Vanessa Bell portrait at around £150,000. Vito Schnabel Gallery sold George Condo’s Call Me Now (1988) for $925,000, an early Ai Weiwei (Untitled, 1983–85) for €450,000 and Ron Gorchov’s Tarzan (1978) for $400,000.Osborne Samuel placed more than 10 works, each for six figures, with collectors in the UK, Hong Kong, Dubai and Zurich.
Specialist dealers reported purchases spanning antiquities, Old Masters, Asian art, textiles and modern art. In antiquities, Tomasso sold an ancient Roman mosaic top incorporating flooring from Hadrian’s Villa for around £200,000, and a Roman imperial porphyry charger for around £125,000, and Rupert Wace placed an Egyptian figure of Ptah for a six-figure sum. Charles Ede sold an Egyptian sarcophagus cover from the late Dynastic to early Ptolemaic Periods. Among Old Master sales, Kunstkammer Georg Laue sold a mother-of-pearl still life by Dirck van Rijswijck to a London collector for a six-figure sum, and Colnaghi placed Giovanni Battista Tiepolo’s Caricature of a Man in Profile.
In 20th-century art, Colnaghi also placed Leonor Fini’s sketches for mask designs, relating to the elaborate costumes she created for Parisian balls and soirées, and her Self-portrait with cats, which brings together two recurring subjects in her work. Marc Selwyn Fine Art placed eight pieces from their solo Lee Bontecou presentation, Daniel Katz Gallery sold David Bomberg’s 1947 painting of St Ives to a significant international collector, and Schoelkopf Gallery sold an important Alfred Maurer still life for $140,000–$200,000. Bastian sold Max Pechstein’s Stillleben mit Pfeife for around €700,000 and Renoir’s Femme assise dans un paysage for around €500,000 to European and American collectors. Jahn und Jahn placed a 1960s Dan Flavin for around €350,000.
Returning to the fair, Miles McEnery Gallery sold out its presentation of Wolf Kahn. Berry Campbell sold works by Mary Abbott and Edith Schloss from its presentation of the Women of the 8th Street Club. Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert placed early-1990s sculptures by Rachel Whiteread at up to £60,000. Patrick Bourne & Co. placed works, including Euan Uglow’s Head of Christine, with museum and private collections internationally. First-time exhibitor Andrew Edlin Gallery sold a seminal early-1990s Beverly Buchanan shack to a museum board president, and the work will enter the museum’s collection.
Textile sales included Gallery Moshe Tabibnia selling a 17th-century Kirman carpet and Jacqueline Simcox placing a set of four ivory silk satin panels for over £100,000 within the first two hours of preview day. Shibunkaku also sold a Japanese ink folding screen.
In Spotlight, curated by Devika Singh and Sofia Gotti, Tafeta sold 12 sculptures, including a significant acquisition by a US institution, and Each Modern placed seven vintage photographs by Lang JingShan. First-time exhibitors Alisan Fine Arts and Akar Prakar both reported sales: Alisan Fine Arts placed two works by Fong Chung-Ray with new private collectors each at £45,000, and Akar Prakar confirmed three works.
In Queering Modernism, Ab-Anbar sold works by Bahman Mohassess to a London-based foundation and a photography museum with branches in Europe and Asia; the sales included a painting for approximately $170,000, as well as 10 assemblages priced between $15,000 and $40,000. Agnews placed a portrait by Lotte Laserstein with an American private collection and a painting by Henry Scott Tuke. In Reflections, curated by Abby Bangser, and drawing on Casa Luis Barragán and The Cosmic House, Masa Galería sold Ana Pellicer’s bust from Gates of Hell and Erskine, Hall & Coe sold a major Ken Price in the first hour of the fair, as well as works by Gwyn Hanssen Piggot and Gordon Baldwin for £35,000–£40,000 and £8,500 respectively.