By Carter B. Horsley This evening auction of Latin American Art at Sotheby's May 27, 2003 is highlighted by several delightful works by Fernando Botero (b. 1932), some very pleasant watercolors by Diego Rivera (1886-1957), a vigorous painting by Jose Clemente Orozco (1883-1949), a fine painting by Remedios Varo (1908-1963), a couple of major works by Claudio Bravo (b. 1936), a couple of good paintings by Matta (1911-2002), two nice paintings and a good "ancestor" sculpture by Rufino Tamayo (1899-1991), a good landscape by Armando Morales (b. 1927) and a stunning painting by Mario Carreno (1913-1999). Botero is the star of the auction and Lot 17, "Antes del Paseo," shown above, is the back-cover illustration of the auction's catalogue. An oil on canvas that measures 78 ¾ by 107 inches, the catalogue entry notes that this work is "the grandest of Botero's corrida cycle" that he began in 1984, adding that it "captures the moments before the triumphal entrance of the opening parade in to the bullring." It has an estimate of $600,000 to $800,000. It sold for $680,000 including the buyer's premium as do all the results mentioned in this article.
Although attendance at the sale was not gigantic, the sale was quite lively and 36 of the 50 offering lots in the evening auction sold for a total of $6,246,000, just shy of the pre-sale low estimate. Despite 28 percent of the lots not selling, many lots exceeded their high estimates.
Lot 28, "Femme a La Robe Verte," is another classic Botero of a standing woman in a green dress with a cigarette holder. An oil on canvas that measures 71 ¼ by 39 inches, it is dated 1992. It has an estimate of $275,000 to $325,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $260,000. A green snake slithers near the woman's feet in Lot 28 and Lot 14, shown above, is a marvelous bronze with gold patina sculpture of a snake by Botero. The 13-by-67-by-28 ½-inch sculpture was executed in 1977 and is number 4/6. It has an estimate of $50,000 to $60,000. It sold for $60,000. Another Botero sculpture, Lot 16, "Femme au Serpent," shows a reclining woman encircled by a large thin snake. The 14 ¼-by-44-by-25-inch bronze with brown patina was executed in 1982 and is number 2/6. It has an estimate of $175,000 to $225,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $150,000. Another fine sculpture, albeit "snakeless," is Lot 27, "Reclining Woman with Mirror," a 1987 bronze with green patina that measures 14 by 55 by 19 ¾ inches. Numbered 3/6, it has an estimate of $300,000 to $350,000 and the voluptuous woman holds a very small mirror. It failed to sell and was passed at $250,000. Botero is one of the few major artists known widely for both his sculptures and paintings. For a while, his sculptures seemed somewhat more popular in the market than his paintings, but Kirsten Hammer, one of the auction house's Latin American Art specialists, declined to speculate after the auction that the market was now definitely in a "painting" cycle as far as Botero is concerned despite the disappointments of some of the sculptures.
Botero was born in Medellin, Colombia and in 1952 moved to Bogota. In 1969 the Inflated Images show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York established him as one of the masters of the 20th Century, the catalogue noted.
Diego Rivera is represented in the auction with some very nice watercolors on rice paper, two from the estate of Hazel Gibbons Ross, Lots 6 and 7. The former is entitled "Dos Hombres" and measures 15 by 10 ¾ inches. The latter, shown above, is entitled "Dos Hombres con Mula" and measures 15 1/8 by 10 ¾ inches. Both were executed circa 1935 and have identical estimates of $30,000 to $40,000. Both lots sold for $51,000 each. Lots 39 and 40 are two more watercolors by Rivera, each dated 1944, each measuring 15 3/8 by 10 7/8 inches and each depicting stonemasons. Each has an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000 and each sold for $60,000. Lot 40, "El Picapedrero," is shown above, and measures 15 3/8 by 10 7/8 inches and is dated 1944.
José Clemente Orozco was one of the famous Mexican muralists and in the early 1940s he completed murals about the Mexican revolution for the Gabino Ortiz Public Library in Jiquilpan. Lot 9 is a 24-by-29 ¼-inch oil on masonite, entitled "Acordadas y Zapatistas" in which Orozco depicts the rural guards in the employ of hacienda owners on horseback leading the Zapatistas, or farmers who would follow peasant leader Emiliano Zapata, from their lands. The painting had an estimate of $150,000 to $200,000. It sold for $366,400. Orozco was an active participant in the Mexican revolution aligned with the supporters of Carranza. From 1927 to 1934, he worked in the United States and did murals for the New School for Social Research, Pomona College and Dartmouth College. He returned to Mexico in 1934.
Remedios Varo is one of the great Latin American surrealists and Lot 10, "Vampiro," is a particularly striking work. An oil on masonite that measures 18 1/8 by 10 5/8 inches, it was painted in 1961 and has a modest estimate of $125,000 to $175,000. It sold for $164,800. Born in Gerona, Spain and traveled to Mexico in 1940.
Claudio Bravo is the greatest Latin American realist. Lot 11, "Mystic Package," is an impressive chalk, conte crayon and ink on paper that measures 29 ½ by 43 ¼ inches. Executed in 1967, it has an estimate of $325,000 to $375,000. It sold for $489,600 soaring above the artist's former auction record for a work on paper of $96,000. The catalogue provides the following quotation from Bravo: "I suppose that the idea for these pictures came partly from looking at Mark Rothko's paintings of large fields of color and partly through certain works that Antoni Tapies had done using string across a surface. The initial stimulus, however, was a very simple mundane one. Three of my sisters came to stay with me from Chile. One day one of them came home with a number of packages and placed them on a table. I was fascinated with their forms and I painted them. I went on painting wrapped packages in many different ways, investigating the abstract possibilities of the forms while still creating recognizable forms." The catalogue maintains that "Bravo is arguably the most important pastelist of his time," adding that his serene package paintings "are strongly influenced by the Spanish baroque master, Francisco de Zurbaran."
Bravo's sense for the tactile is even more evident in Lot 29, "Visus Tactus," a sumptuous, 78 ½-by-58 ¾-inch oil on canvas. Executed in 2000, it has an estimate of $300,000 to $400,000 and a detail of which is the catalogue's frontispiece. It failed to sell and was passed at $240,000.
Matta is arguably the greatest Latin American artist because he was a very influential Surrealist whose works preshadow Abstract Expressionism. Lot 12, "Psychological Morphology," is a small but very fine example of Matta's extraordinary compositions. The 12-by-16-inch oil on canvas was executed in 1939 and has a modest estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. It sold for $299,200.
Another Matta is Lot 26, an untitled oil on canvas that measures 44 ½ by 56 ½ inches. Executed circa 1955, it is has an unusually limited palette for Matta and is much more mechanistic and less fluid than Lot 12. It has an estimate of $90,000 to $120,000. It failed to sell and was passed for $75,000.
Rufino Tamayo is one of the greatest Latin American artists. Lot 13, "Sandias," is one of his studies of watermelons. An oil on canvas that measures 39 ¼ by 32 inches, it was executed in 1953 and has an ambitious estimate of $800,000 to $1,200,000. It sold for $988,000, the highest price of the auction. The catalogue provides the following commentary on this work: "In Sandias of 1953, a product of Tamayo's classic mature period, the still life rises, opening like a flower, on the slim base of the pedestal table. It is almost an abstraction in its simplicity, the dense compendium of reds, oranges and pinks encompassing all the shades of the fruit and then echoing and expanding them to fill the background. In Sandias, Tamayo succeeds in harnessing sublime color to the compositional rigor so prevalent in his early paintings. The artist energizes the elegant composition by offering multiple perspectives on the deceptively simple still life. This understated evocation of Cubism creates a remarkably complex and sophisticated composition that lives in a room of its own."
Tamayo is capable of considerably more interesting subjects than watermelons, of course. Lot 20, "Cry in the Night," for example, is a very painterly and quite strong oil and sand on masonite. Executed in 1953, it measures 19 ¾ by 15 ¾ inches and has a modest estimate of $125,000 to $175,000. It sold for $164,800. Lot 25 is one of Tamayo's wonderful "ancestor" steel sculptures with unique patinas. The 85-inch-high figure was executed in 1990 and is number 3/3. It has an estimate of $150,000 to $200,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $130,000.
Armando Morales paints with a somber but rich palette and with a marvelous and very painterly sense of texture. Lot 43, "Trapiche (Moulin a Sucre)," is a very fine example of his work. An oil on canvas, it measures 51 ¼ by 63 ¾ inches. Executed in 1991, it has an estimate of $200,000 to $300,000. It failed to sell and was passed at $150,000. The catalogue provides the following commentary on this work: "In Trapiche (Moulin a Sucre) Armando Morales seems to break with his own tradition of presenting the jungle as timeless and dislocated. In fact the painting belongs to a series executed between 1991-92 based on sketches of buildings on the border between the natural and civilized worlds. As in other paintings in the series, Morales forces the viewer to cross these boundary lines through a series of intersecting axes: the unexpected break in the forest wall that permits a view through to the open sea and distant horizon; the plume that rises from the sugar mill's chimney to join the clouds that form a second skyline; and of course, the elongated tree trunks that terminated in a billowing foliated canopy." Morales was born in Granada, Nicaragua and held his first individual show at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Lima, Peru in 1959. He moved to the United States in 1969.
The cover illustration of the auction's catalogue is a large detail from Lot 5, "The Guitar Player," a pyroxylin on panel by Mario Carreno. Painted in 1944, the beautiful work measures 30 by 24 7/8 inches and has a modest estimate of $175,000 to $250,000. It sold for $456,000, breaking the former auction record for the artist of $442,500. Carreno moved from Spain at the outbreak of the civil war there to Mexico where he became friendly with many of the leading artists including David Alfaro Siqueiros who experimented with Duco, a pryoxylin-based lacquer. Carreno returned to Cuba in 1941 and invited Siqueiros to paint a mural in his home. "If Siqueiros' work in Duco realized the medium's power and muscle," the catalogue entry observed, "Carreno was the first to understand its potential for coloristic lyricism, as achieved so beautifully in Man with Guitar. Duco dries quickly, preserving the ebb and flow of swirling colors before they run together and lose their brilliance. Its drips and whorls give the paint surface that dynamism that would so fascinate the school of New York a few years later."
One of the auction's most striking works is Lot 49, "Grutas de Cacahuamilpa," by Baron Jean Baptiste Gros (1793-1870). An oil on canvas, it measures 39 3/4 by 51 1/2 inches and was executed in 1835. It has an estimate of $80,000 to $100,000. It sold for $93,000. The evening auction has 50 lots and the day session May 28, has 91 lots including an excellent painting by Bravo, two good sculptures by Agustin Cardenas (1927-2001), a good painting by Leonora Carrington (b. 1917), and a good painting by Francisco Toledo (b. 1940). Lot 71, "Green," is a beautiful pastel study by Claudio Bravo of green drapery. The 43-by-29 ½-inch work on paper has an estimate of $70,000 to $90,000.
Lot 80, "Pig-rush (Nacimento de Cerdos)," by Leonora Carrington, oil on canvas, 31 ¾ by 35 ½ inches, 1960 Leonora Carrington is one of the world's great surrealist painters. Lot 80, "Pig-rush (Nacimiento de Cerdos)," is an intriguing oil on canvas that measures 31 ¾ by 35 ½ inches. Executed in 1960, it has an estimate of $60,000 to $80,000. Born in England, she moved to Mexico in 1941. Lot 97 is a fine watercolor on rice paper by Diego Rivera of a woman carrying her child on her back. The 15-by-10 ¾-inch work is dated 1944 and has an estimate of $40,000 to $60,000.
Lot 124, "Hombres Dentro de una Vaca," is a dark but quite beautiful oil on jute by Francisco Toledo (b. 1940) that measures 23 5/8 by 28 ¾ inches. Painted circa 1963, it has an estimate of $25,000 to $30,000. Born in Juchitan, Mexico, Toldeo studied with Stanley William Hayter in Paris in 1960 and now lives in Oaxaca.