James Rosenquist Weekend Picks: Luis Gispert in Miami The Talamoni Collection Andy Goes to China Sotheby's Hits the Mark with Contemporary Art Sale Stavros Merjos Anonymous Lots of Records, Buy-Ins at Sotheby’s Russian Sales

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Acquavella Galleries hosted the event, and Rosenquist was on hand to accept accolades for his 1998 epic painting Celebrating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Eleanor Roosevelt. (Seen in full on the Art Basel Web site.)

Among the crowd were retired Museum of Modern Art curator Kynaston McShine, Guggenheim director Lisa Dennison, consultant Manual Gonzalez and a bevy of collectors and art traders including Jose and Mary Mugrabi and their sons Alberto and David Mugrabi.

Plenty of dealers paid their respects, topped by New York's Richard Feigen, who helped arrange the important French government mural commission for Rosenquist.

There was New York's Timothy Baum who said he had some 20 works on consignment at the fair and was keeping a scorecard on sales. Also in attendance were London dealers Ivor Braka and Gerrard Faggionato and New York dealer Charles Cowles.

The back-story on the work: The mural was executed for the grand ceiling of the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, but was never installed and the artist was never paid for the $8 million commission.

It is currently available through Acquavella for $9 million, a relatively moderate price per square inch, considering the behemoth composition on Belgian canvas covers 24 by 133 feet.

Rosenquist had never seen the complete painting on view until last night, since it was executed in eight separate panels and was simply too big for conventional spaces.