By Carter B. Horsley
The cover illustration of the catalogue for this auction is a wonderfully sumptuous abstraction of watermelons by Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991), who is widely regarded as the greatest Latin American modern painter.
Tamayo’s palette is always rich and deep and during his career he experimented, as did Matta (b. 1991), with many different themes and compositions, but almost all have a great and subtle sense of earthliness, heat and energy.
This painting, Lot 38, shown at the top of this article, explodes with the bright redness of the inside of watermelons, ignores their black pits, and uses the white rinds as the image's major design elements. The curved, white rinds, however, are not symmetrically placed and often are submerged in the overall, juicy redness.
This is one of Tamayo’s most abstract works and could well be compared with the pulsating colors of a Mark Rothko that envelop the viewer with a swimming universe of floating, saturated color "fields."
The 51 ¼-by-76 ¾-inch oil on canvas was executed in 1958 and has an estimate of $900,000 to $1,200,000. It sold for $1,215,750 including the buyer's premium as do all results in this article. The world auction record for the artist is $2,367,500 set at Sotheby's in May, 1997.
Another "hot" Tamayo work is Lot 46, "Desnudo en Rojo," a 76 3/8-by-51 3/8-inch oil and canvas that was executed in 1977. The painting has a limited palette of pinks and reds and grays and blacks and shows a man with an obelisk-like object floating in front of him. It has an estimate of $350,000 to $450,000. It sold for $390,750.
Another Tamayo is a fine totemic statue of steel with a unique patina, entitled "Ancestor," that is 85 inches tall and has a surface that is marvelous evocative of dry earth. The work, Lot 41, was executed in 1990 and is one of an edition of three. It has an estimate of $200,000 to $250,000. It was passed at $130,000.
If Tamayo’s consistent mature style is quintessential Latin in temperament, Matta’s is quite the opposite, a dynamic infusion of surrealistic and futuristic experimentation that is astounding in its inventiveness of forms and intense and often garish colors.
Lot 17, for example, is an extremely bright Matta painting that has a yellow background with a landscape drawn almost with elevation lines and a variety of highlights of objects that are reminiscent of those of Yves Tanguy. This untitled "landscape" is an 18-by-22 ½-inch graphite and watercolor on paper was executed in 1938 and has an estimate of $250,000 to $300,000. It sold for $258,750.
Lot 43, "Composition with Parrots," by Angel Zárraga (1886-1946) was the evening's most sumptuous painting. The 36 1/4-by-28 5/8-inch oil on canvas was executed in 1916 and has an estimate of $250,000 to $350,000. It sold for $445,750.
The catalogue provides the following commentary by Professoir Paulette Patout on this lot:
"Working under the influence of Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, Angel Zàrraga constructed a fractured space combined with a remarkably controlled and polished superimposition of planes in Composition with Parrots, true to the precepts of Synthetic Cubism. Zárraga's use of color and his varied use of Pointillism in this work has much in common with that of another Mexican painter workingin Paris at the same time, Diego Rivera...although Zárraga's work is distinctive in its lyricism."
Lot 28, "Naturaleza Muerta," by Diego Rivera (1886-1957), is a ravishing and excellent Cubist still life oil on canvas, 11 1/8 by 15 1/8 inches. Executed in 1916, it has an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000. It sold for $412,750.
Lot 19, "Retrato de José Guadalupe Castro Sosa," by Diego Rivera, oil on canvas, 39 3/8 by23 5/8 inches, was executed in 1936.
The catalogue provides the following commentary on the work by Professor Luis-Martin Lozano:
"Firmly believing that they were the hope of...Mexico's future, as the beneficiaries of social changes promised by the Revolution of 1910, Diego Rivera often chose children as the subjects of his portraits. Rivera had a strong commitment to accurately depict Mexico's cultural reality. In Retratro de José Guadalupe Castro Sosa, the painter conferred a sense of dignity on indigenous people and the working classes, though this sensitive representation of children....The Retrato de José Guadalupe Castro Sosa, painted in 1936, when the child was two and a half years of age, is a masterwork witihin Rivera's oeuvre of portraits of children. The small child projects a searching look toward the viewer. His sparkling dark brown eyes express a combination of gentleness, hope and melancholy. Rivera presents the child as taciturn and vulnerable, with one hand seeking support from the wall behind him."
The lot has an estimate of $500,000 to $700,000. It sold for $555,750.
Lot 20, another child portrait by Rivera with the same estimate, however, failed to sell, passing at $470,000.
A very fine sculpture by Fernando Botero (b. 1932), "Reclining Nude," a 68-inch-long bronze, Lot 10, was executed in 1987 and has an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000. It sold for $346,750.
Lot 51, "La Annunciation," by Armando Morales, is a very good oil on paper laid down on canvas, 25 5/8 by 38 1/8 inches, 1998. It has an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000. It sold for $69,750.
One of the auction's most spectacular works is Lot 63, "For The Record: The Eleventh Commandment," by Arnaldo Roche-Rabell, an oil on canvas, 96 inches square, that was executed in 1990 and has an estimate of $30,000 to $40,000. It sold for $26,050.
Lot 33, "Litany of the Philosophers," by Leonora Carrington (b. 1917), is a 27 5/8-by-39 3/8-inch oil on canvas that was executed in 1959. It has an estimate of $225,000 to $275,000. It sold $225,750.
A large panoramic painting of the city of Sao Paulo in Brazil by Arnaud Julien Palliere (1783-1862) sold for $830,750, which brought forth a round of applause from the auction room and set a new world auction record for the artist. Three other auction records for artists were set.
The evening part of the sale realized $7,708,375 with 72.06 percent of the 68 offered lots selling.