By Carter B. Horsley

This evening auction of Latin American Art at Christie's May 28, 2003 is highlighted by several very fine large works by Matta, two very good works by Diego Rivera, a self-portrait by Frida Kahlo, several nice paintings by Wilfredo Lam, a nice work by Leonora Carrington, a very beautiful early painting by Gunther Gerszo, a superb painting by Armando Morales, and two hilarious works by Nelson Leirner.

Lot 25 is a strong but small "Self-Portrait with Curly Hair" by Frida Kahlo (1910-1954). Executed in 1935, the 7 1/4-by-5 3/4-inch oil on tin has an estimate of $1,500,000 to $2,000,000. It sold for $1,351,500 including the buyer's premium as do all results mentioned in this article. The record of more than $5 million for a Kahlo self-portrait was set May 31, 2000 at Sotheby's. It was considerably larger than this one. (See The City Review article on that auction.)

The evening portion of this auction totalled $4,816,598 and 71 percent of the 56 offered lots were sold, about the same level as in the Spring of 2003, but still indicative of a selective and not terribly strong Latin American art market. The pre-sale low estimate for the evening sale was $6,471,000 and the high estimate was $8,373,000. Many of those attending the auction broke out with applause when the Kahlo was sold.

The auction set six records for individual contemporary artists.

The catalogue entry for the Kahlo notes that the work has some of the "simplicity and native charm of 19th Century Mexican folk portraits by artists such as José Maria Estrada and Hermenegildo Bustos - both of whom Frida Kahlo and her husband Diego Rivera greatly admired." "The self-portrait's strange intensity suggests another source as well: Frida's face has the imperturbable but searching look of Fayum portrait panels placed on the outside of Egyptian cloth-wrapped mummies in the 2nd Century A.D. Also like the Fayum portraits is the way Kahlo painted the white highlights in the eyes, the individual eyelashes, and the outline aound the check and jaw. In spite of its modest size, Kahlo's self portrait...packs a strong visual punch....The year she painted Self-Portrait with Curly Hair was one of the worst in Kahlo's life. The previous year was miserable too. In 1934 she produced no paintings at all, and the only other work from 1935 is the gruesome A Few Small Nips, a panel showing a woman stabbed to death by her boyfriend...What caused Kahlo's artistic paralysis in the period following her and Rivera's return to Mexico from the United States in December 1933 was marital anguish. Sick and depressed, Rivera was unable to work, and he blamed Frida for insisting that they leave New York. She was hospitalized at least three times in 1934, once for appendicitis, once for a therapeutic abortion and a third time for an operation on her right foot. It was probably in the summer of 1934 that Rivera began an affair with Kahlo's younger sister Cristina. The liaison lasted well into 1935. Usually Kahlo dismissed Rivera's philandering with a laugh and a shrug. As she once put it 'Being the wife of Diego is the most marvelous thing in the world. I let him play matrimony with other women. Diego is not anybody's husband and never will be, but he is a great comrade.' Early in 1935 Kahlo moved out of her and Rivera's home in the San Angel section of Mexico City and took a small apartment in the city's center. To spite her husband, she cut off the long hair that he adored and she stopped wearing the native costumes that he felt Mexican women should wear. this self-portrait gives us not just Frida at the heroic sufferer. The woman depicted here is also the feisty, flirtatious, fun-loving twenty-eight-year-old whose beauty and ribald speech charmed the sculptor Isamu Noguchi who became her love the year she painted this portrait. In July 1935 Frida flew to New York where she confided her troubles to Bertram D. Wolfe, Rivera's biographer and friend, and to his wife Ella" to whom she presented the self-portrait as a gift.

Rivera (1886-1957) is represented by a couple of important works, Lots 22 and 37, both of which are part of the National Heritage of Mexico and cannot be removed from Mexico and accordingly are reproduced in the auction catalogue but now shown at the exhibition. At recent Latin American Art auctions in New York, other works that have not been permitted to leave Mexico have not fared well at auction despite their high quality, a reflection perhaps that buyers like to see what they are getting.

Lot 22, "Naturaleza muerta con limones," is a gorgeous Cubist still life, shown at the top of this article, that Rivera painted in 1916. An oil on canvas, it measures 24 by 29 inches and is the back-cover illustration of the catalogue. It has an estimate of $400,000 to $600,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $380,000.

Lot 37, the other Rivera work shown only in the catalogue, is entitled "Niña Con Muñeca." An oil on canvas, it measures 30 3/8 by 24 inches and was painted in 1954. It has an estimate of $400,000 to $500,000. It sold for $455,500. The catalogue notes that "Within the tradition of social realism, Diego Rivera's portraiture of children excels as Mexico's most dignified expression of an indigenous art." This is a very stylized picture and the child almost looks like a doll. It is a handsome work, although not as exciting as the beautiful still life.

More poignant and dramatic is Lot 34, "Campesino (Figura)," a painting of a youth by David Alfaro Siqueiros (1896-1974). Another work that is part of the National Heritage of Mexico and according shown only in the catalogue, it is a pyroxiline on masonite that measures 33 1/8 by 27 3/8 inches. It has a modest estimate of $80,000 to $120,000. It sold for $95,600.

It was painted in 1960, the year in which the regime of President Adolfo Lopez Mateos apprehended Siqueiros for participating in Communist demonstrations. He was detained in the Preventive Jail at Lecumbreri, where he remained until 1964. According to the catalogue, "Siqueiros wasted neither energy nor time during these four years in prison. While organizing his own legal defense and an international campaign demanding his freedom by bombarding the press with pamphlets and manifests, he also developed cultural activities for the other inmates. Most significantly, however, was his prolific production of smaller canvases given the constraints of his cell - that gained in vigor and gestural freedom. According to an art critic of the time, Siqueiros painted between three to four canvases a week, which would then sell in the American market for $2,000."

José Clemente Orozco (1883-1949), Rivera and Siqueiros were the triumvirate of the famous Mexican Muralist artists. Lot 52, "Guerreros, Españoles e Indios," is a small but powerful gouache on paper. Executed about 1945, it measures 13 3/4 by 20 1/2 inches and has a modest estimate of $70,000 to $90,000. It sold for $71,700.

Matta (1911-2002) is one of the great Surrealists and is represented in this auction by three very strong works, Lots 46, 56 and 163.

Lot 46, "Que se Despierte El Leñador," is a stunning large oil that Matta painted in 1951. An oil on canvas, it measures 56 7/8 by 78 1/8 inches and the catalogue notes that the title "pays tribute to Pablo Neruda's poem of the same name in chapter 9 of Canto General (1947). This very dynamic and dramatic work has a very modest estimate of $140,000 to $180,000. It sold for $153,100.

Lot 56, "Je t'ange," is an even larger Matta that abounds with energy. An oil on canvas, it measures 128 ¼ by 102 inches and was painted in 1987. It has an estimate of $150,000 to $200,000. It sold for $181,100.

Lot 163, "L'assasin Philantrope," is not as sombre as Lots 46 and 46 and is also, by Matta's standards, simpler. A charcoal and pastel on paper laid down on canvas, it was drawn in 1951 and measures 59 ½ by 39 ½ inches. It has a conservative estimate of $40,000 to $50,000. It sold for $41,825.

Wilfredo Lam (1902-1982) was a Cuban-born artist merged the simplicity of Matisse with the Cubism of Picasso to forge his own quite recognizable style that is fiercely elegant and mythic. Lot 30, "Sans Titre (La pareja)," is the cover illustration of the catalogue. An oil on canvas that measures 41 ½ by 33 inches and was painted circa 1942. It has an estimate of $280,000 to $320,000. It sold for $399,500, and the price was applauded by many of those in attendance. "Lam," the catalogue observed, "discovered that the modernist endeavor was not simply a matter of cross-fertilization between two worlds, nor the creation of syncretic and hybrid figures and thus he took upon the role of breaking the differences that existed between the formal and the vernacular. Untitled (La pareja) thus discreetly reveals relationships of power, gender and sexuality that were so much part of the Afro-Cuban culture he was trying to exalt."

Two smaller Lams, Lots 115 and 122, are simpler than Lot 30 but no less powerful. Lot 115, an untitled oil and watercolor on paper laid down on canvas, was painted in 1969. It measures 20 3/8 by 27 ¾ inches and has a conservative estimate of $18,000 to $22,000. It seems to depict a bird-like creature in flight. It failed to sell.

Lot 122 has the same estimate but seems to depict a tall dog. Entitled "Animal," it is color chalk on paper that measures 23 1/8 by 29 inches and was drawn in 1957. It failed to sell.

Lot 55, "Dos mujeres desvistiéndose," by Armando Morales, is an oil and beeswax on canvas that measures 51 1/8 by 42 7/8 inches. Painted i 1996, it has an estimate of $120,000 to $160,000. It sold for $119,500. It is a classic and superb Morales, whose warm, subtle blue-green palette adds a degree of mystery to his Michelangeloesque figures. Morales is consistently interesting and this is a fine and very painterly work.

Probably the most beautiful painting in the auction is Lot 24, "Figura," by Gunther Gerszo. An oil on masonite, it measures 17 3/4 by 14 inches and was executed in 1957. An early work by Gerszo, it has a much broader and warmer palette than his later abstractions. It has a modest estimate of $40,000 to $60,000. It sold for $45,410.

Francisco Toledo (b. 1940) is one of the most talented contemporary Latin American artists whose works display a rich imagination, a fluid painterliness and a lush palette. Lot 51, "Juárez buscando la piedra que guie Xhaaya," is an unusual and interesting work by Toledo. A watercolor and collage on fossil, it measures 9 1/4 by 5 1/8 inches. Executed in 1985, it has an estimate of $30,000 to $35,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $28,000.

Lot 7 is am amusing, satirical and attractive collage that uses American flag stickers on a printed map of the world. It is entitled "Map from the series: Right You Are If You Think You Are," and it was executed in 2003 by Nelson Leirner (b. 1932). It measures 32 1/4 by 48 1/2 inches and has an estimate of $10,000 to $15,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $7,500.

Even more amusing is Lot 8, another 2003 work by Nelson Leirner. It consists of 8 Sotheby's catalogue covers with added sculptural elements, each enclosed in plexiglass boxes. It has a modest estimate of $18,000 to $22,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $11,000.

Leonora Carrington (b. 1917) is a wonderful Surrealist and Lot 100 is a charming small work that she executed in 1960. Entitled "Figure in Water," the oil on board measures 10 1/8 by 7 3/8 inches. It has a very conservative estimate of $12,000 to $16,000. It sold for $33,460.

Lot 6, "Mundo Civilizado," was sold for $74,090, almost three times the previous world auction record for Beatriz Milhazes (b. 1960).

Lot 10, "La isla de mis sueños I and II (diptych)," sold for $20,315, breaking the previous world auction record of $15,216 for Kcho (b. 1970).

Lot 13, "Sin titulo (diptych)," sold for $45,410, breaking the previous world auction record of $31,625 for Sergio Hernandez (b. 1957).

Lot 16, "Arte fisica: cordoes/30 km de linha estendidos," sold for $47,800, breaking the previous world auction record of $27,600 for Cildo Meireless (b. 1948).

Lot 18, "Bicho," sold for $65,725, breaking the previous world auction record for Lygia Clark (1920-1988) of $59,750.

Lot 60, "Femmes Papillons," sold for $125,000, breaking the previous world auction record of $107,000 for Pedro Coronel (1923-1985).