David Hockney and Martin Kippenberger paintings with asking prices of $1.8 million each sold in Switzerland as slump-conscious collectors took their time to choose bargains at the world’s largest fair of contemporary and modern art.

Art enthusiasts including Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and actor Brad Pitt weren’t rushing to spend on the second day of Art Basel yesterday.

“The volume of sales is half what it was in 2008,” said Per Skarstedt, a New York-based “secondary” market dealer who buys and sells works by contemporary artists. “Last year, 80 percent of the booth sold in the first 40 minutes. Now people are coming back three or four times.”

Skarstedt Gallery sold the 1995 Kippenberger female nude, “I Am Too Political,” to a European collector. The 7-foot-wide canvas, inspired by Lucian Freud’s similarly dated painting of the generously proportioned benefits officer Sue Tilley lying naked on a sofa, fetched $1.4 million. The asking price had been $1.8 million, said Skarstedt.

“Some dealers are asking old prices and saying, ‘Make me an offer.’ I’ve lowered my prices at least 30 percent and give a small discount,” he said.

The Kippenberger painting had been acquired a year and a half earlier from U.K.-based collector Charles Saatchi for $1.5 million, said Skarstedt, who said he would have priced the work at $2.5 million in 2008.

Making Money

“The new level has been reached,” said Skarstedt. “We won’t see prices rise for a while. There just aren’t the speculators around. People aren’t buying art to make money any more. They want to live with it.”

Art Basel exhibitors lowered expectations after Christie’s International and Sotheby’s respective $93.7 million and $47 million totals at the May contemporary-art auctions in New York were 72 percent and 87 percent down on last year.

The record $7.9 million achieved at Christie’s for Hockney’s “Beverly Hills Housewife,” the highest price of the subdued New York auction series, encouraged Art Basel exhibitors to show works by the British painter.

California-based dealer L.A. Louver sold Hockney’s 1977 painting, “Henry & Eugene,” for $1.8 million yesterday, gallery director Peter Goulds said in an interview.

The acrylic on canvas, featuring the artist’s long-time friend, curator Henry Geldzahler, had been consigned to the Venice-based gallery by its European owner. It was bought by a California-based collector who will eventually bequeath the painting to a museum, said Goulds.

Market Value

“Collectors are feeling much more comfortable with finding market value through negotiated sales,” Paul L. Gray, director of the Chicago- and New York-based Richard Gray Gallery, said in an interview. “We’re being offered works to sell because of the economic downturn.”

The gallery was showing on consignment another, larger Hockney double-portrait featuring Geldzahler, “The Conversation” (1980), priced at $2.6 million.

“The seller wants to keep his assets balanced,” Gray said. “They didn’t want to put it in an auction because of the risk. Their downside wouldn’t have been protected.”

At the time of writing, the Hockney wasn’t sold, though other unspecified works in the range of $5,000 to $5 million were, said Gray. The volume of sales was “considerably lower,” than last year, he said.

“The Russians aren’t here, the English aren’t here, the Asians aren’t here,” Thaddaeus Ropac, director of the Paris-and Salzburg-based gallery Ropac, said in an interview. “Yet business is surprisingly good. It’s the core European collectors who are buying. Volume is down, though,” he said.

Big Warhol

Abramovich was seen viewing, but so far not buying, Andy Warhol’s 30-foot-wide “Big Retrospective Painting” on the booth of Zurich-based Bruno Bischofberger AG, priced at 80 million Swiss francs ($74 million). The painting had not been reserved or sold, gallery director Tobias Mueller said in an interview.

Abramovich went shopping for furniture at the nearby Design Miami/Basel fair, paying 55,000 euros ($77,640) for two marble- topped coffee tables and 36,000 for a set of six leather and stainless steel chairs -- all by the 1950s Danish designer Poul Kjaerholm -- at the booth of Brussels-based Galerie Philippe Denys.

The Russian billionaire paid a further 9,500 euros for a set of 2009 wall lights by the Dutch designers Lonneke Gordijn & Ralph Nauta, titled “Fragile Future 3.3,” made out of bronze and dandelion seed heads offered by London-based Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

Pitt’s Capsule

Hollywood star Pitt is another collector of contemporary design, particularly the work of Dutch-based Atelier van Lieshout. Pitt paid 95,000 euros for the van Lieshout’s “Mini Capsule Hotel,” parked outside the fair in a display mounted by the Carpenters Workshop Gallery.

The unique 23-foot-wide reinforced fiber-glass two-storey “hotel,” dating from 2002, incorporates sleeping pods for six couples. “It’s for his house at Santa Barbara,” gallery director Loic Le Gaillard said in an interview.

Pitt paid a further 23,000 euros at the booth of Rotterdam- based dealers VIVID Gallery for van Lieshout’s unique 2009 orange-and-white, fur-effect “Fossil Chaise Longue,” gallery director Saskia Copper said in an interview.