Art Basel Miami Beach 2026: getting through the preview rush

Art Basel Miami Beach opens in the first week of December, and for most advisors the real work starts a week or two earlier. Galleries send their booth previews in the run-up to the VIP days, and many of them arrive in the same 48 hours. By the time the doors open, the works your clients would want have often been offered to other buyers already.

What slows you down is the reading. Each preview is a PDF laid out differently, prices sit in captions, and comparing a painting in one file with a painting in another means opening both. This is how we suggest keeping up.

Before the previews arrive

Write each client's brief down now, while you have the time: budget range, artists and media they want or avoid, sizes that fit their walls, and whether the work needs to ship somewhere. A brief turns a long stack of previews into a short list of yes or no decisions.

Tell the galleries you work with what you are looking for this year. A gallery that knows your client wants a large work on paper under a certain price will send you the right file earlier.

When they land

1. Keep them in one place. Previews come by email, WhatsApp and viewing-room links. Save every one to the same folder, label or catalogue the day it arrives.
2. Read against the briefs. For each work, ask only: does it fit a client? If not, move on. Leave the deep reading for the shortlist.
3. Capture candidates in one format. Artist, title, year, medium, dimensions, price as printed, currency, gallery and booth. A single table across all galleries is what lets you compare.
4. Ask for holds early and log them. Note the date and how long the gallery will hold the work, because holds during a fair tend to be short.
5. Send shortlists before the VIP days. A few works per client, each with an image, the full caption, the price and the booth number.

Prices in Miami

Most galleries at Miami Beach price in US dollars, but European galleries sometimes send previews in euros or pounds. Keep the price exactly as written and record the currency. Convert only when you compare, and tell your client which rate you used. “Price on request” is common for the most sought-after works; note it as such rather than leaving the field empty, so you remember to ask.

After the fair

Keep the previews. Knowing which works sold, which went back to the gallery and what they were offered at helps the next time the same artist comes up, provided you can find them again, so file them somewhere you can search.

Doing it with Vitryne

Vitryne reads each preview PDF, or an Artlogic or Arternal link, and puts every work into one searchable catalogue with its image, caption, price and availability. You can filter all your Miami previews by artist, price or size at once, and send a client a clean PDF of your shortlist. Our guide to art fair previews covers the full workflow.