Sell Art in Paris, France

Paris has been the surprise winner of the post-Brexit reshuffle. Art Basel took over the city's flagship contemporary fair in 2022 (now Art Basel Paris, held at the Grand Palais each October), and the major French and international galleries have been expanding aggressively: Hauser & Wirth opened on Rue François 1er in 2023, David Zwirner expanded its Rue Vieille du Temple space, Mennour added a fifth Paris space, and Mariane Ibrahim, originally from Chicago, opened a Paris flagship in the Marais. The market that had been nicknamed "the cemetery of contemporary art" through the 2000s is now arguably the second city in Europe behind London, on a faster trajectory.

FIAC, the historical anchor, was replaced by Art Basel Paris, but Paris+ Photo (November), Drawing Now Art Fair (March), and Asia Now (October) still draw collectors. The auction calendar is anchored by Christie's, Sotheby's, and Artcurial — the leading French house, which dominates the mid-market.

Key galleries

• Galerie Perrotin — Rue de Turenne, Marais. Murakami, JR, Daniel Arsham.
• Almine Rech — Rue de Turenne. James Turrell, Kenny Scharf, John McCracken estate.
• Mennour — five Paris spaces (Saint-Germain and Marais). Anish Kapoor, Lee Ufan, Camille Henrot.
• Thaddaeus Ropac Pantin — the converted boiler-room outpost in the eastern suburbs. Anselm Kiefer, Georg Baselitz.
• Galerie Lelong & Co. — Rue de Téhéran. Andy Goldsworthy, Etel Adnan estate.
• Marian Goodman — Rue du Temple.
• Hauser & Wirth, David Zwirner, Gagosian, White Cube, Mariane Ibrahim, Templon, Galerie Gagosian Le Bourget — international flagships that have all opened or expanded since 2021.
• Galerie 1900-2000, Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Galerie Loevenbruck, Galerie Chantal Crousel, Air de Paris — the strong French mid-tier.

Neighborhoods

• Marais (3rd / 4th arrondissements) — the contemporary heart. Rue de Turenne, Rue Vieille du Temple, Rue de la Perle.
• Saint-Germain-des-Prés (6th) — the historical gallery quarter. Mennour anchors it; many of the modern and Old Masters dealers remain.
• Avenue Matignon / Rue de Miromesnil (8th) — auction houses and high-end dealers.
• Pantin (NE suburb) — warehouse-scale spaces (Ropac, Lelong's outpost).

Institutional anchors

• Centre Pompidou (closed for renovation through 2030 — programming has dispersed across Paris and to Pompidou Metz).
• Bourse de Commerce — Pinault Collection, opened 2021. The Tadao Ando–designed home of François Pinault's collection.
• Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne — the LVMH/Bernard Arnault private museum.
• Palais de Tokyo, Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris, Lafayette Anticipations, Fondation Cartier — the rest of the institutional ladder.

The full pyramid is now back in Paris. Art Basel Paris regularly clears seven and eight-figure works in the opening hours; the mid-tier fairs and gallery shows transact in the €15k–€150k range; emerging primary work moves at €3,000–€15,000 across the Marais. Modern (Picasso, Léger, Sonia and Robert Delaunay) and post-war French (Soulages, Hartung, Mathieu, Calder's Paris years) remain Paris specialties at auction.

French gallery culture rewards introductions. Cold outreach can work, but a referral — from another artist, an institution, a critic — multiplies the chance of a reply. The dealers are well-read and expect that you are too: language about the work matters.

• French is preferred but not required for first contact. A bilingual email (French summary first, English detail second) reads as respectful.
• Address galleries by their full name, with the honorific (Madame / Monsieur) on a first email.
• Prices in EUR. France's droit de suite (artist resale right, applies to works over €750 by living artists or estates within 70 years of death) is part of standard French sales math — mention you understand it.
• Lead with the work's place in your practice, not market history.