An international crowd has descended upon Paris for FIAC, the annual event featuring first rate offerings of cutting-edge contemporary art and 20th-century masters.

Billionaire buyers such as Christie's owner Francois Pinault and LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault were among the collectors browsing the 165 gallery booths and snapping up works by the likes of Damien Hirst whose sold sculpture of 100 fish had an asking price of $2.8 million.

Also appealing to the Oct. 19 opening night buyers was a 9-foot Takashi Murakami painting of a Chinese lion dog and two works by Louise Bourgeois in the $2 million range.

A 1974 Ed Ruscha word painting, “We Didn’t Care and Neither Did She," walked out for around $1.2 million. And two works by late Polish artist Alina Szapocznikow, who is due to be the subject of an upcoming exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, sold in the mid-six-figures.