Miami art gallery owner Gary Nader went to an auction in London this summer with a budget in mind. He couldn’t keep it.

“I spent $2 million on those ceramics,” he said, gesturing to 11 pieces by Picasso. “I expected to pay $100,000.”

Nader, a longtime art dealer, hopes to bring that kind of bidding frenzy to Miami when he launches an auction house during Art Basel Miami Beach in December. After spending the last several months traveling around the world and soliciting art works, he has selected 112 lots valued at more than $40 million.

Nader will launch his auction house, Nader’s, with the Dec. 1 event. He expects to hold four to five sales per year featuring, of course, art, but also wine, antiques, watches and cars. Bidding will take place at Gary Nader Art Centre, 62 NE 27th Street in Miami’s Wynwood neighborhood, as well as online and by phone.

The December sale will focus on modern and contemporary art, only offering works from well-known artists, Nader said. Those include Fernando Botero, Damien Hirst, Roy Lichtenstein, Roberto Matta and Joaquin Torres Garcia.

Whether or not pieces find buyers, Nader said, the auction house has to pay for them — a condition that he said made the event more attractive for sellers. Often, auction houses take works on consignment and, if the art doesn’t fetch the acceptable minimum price, the pieces may be returned.Nader is funding the effort both from personal resources and investors.

While Nader’s auction house is new, South Florida is not a stranger to auctions. Charities are known for annual sell-offs, and Miami Beach-based Red Carpet Auction Events held art and memorabilia sales in August and September. Major auction houses have a presence here, too: Sotheby’s has a representative in Palm Beach, and Christie’s has an office in Miami.

Nader himself ran annual Latin American auctions from a Miami hotel between 1994 and 2003, but didn’t think the time was right to start an auction house until now.

“I needed to create exactly what I have created for this specific moment,” he said. “I needed to have the building ready, I needed to have more collectors from all over the world, I needed to have more experience. What I did 20 years ago was training for what I’m doing today.”

Longtime Miami art collector Dennis Scholl, vice president/arts for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, said Miami has evolved as well.

“I believe that the community’s appetite for the arts certainly is growing and in part the visual arts community has become a wonderful collector community,” he said. “This would be simply another opportunity for people to learn more about the visual arts in our community and to participate. I think there’s a real opportunity for it to work out.”

Scholl said the gallery-run auction would be new for Miami — and nearly everywhere else. The closest parallel: the purchase by Christie’s auction house of the London gallery Haunch of Venison a few years ago.