The Latin American sales

The Latin American sales brought excellent results and high totals'$20,515,000 for Christie's and $17,000,000 for Sotheby's -and a new world record for Wifredo Lam at $1,427,000. The results were certainly a lot better than expected, but actually follow the general market trend of the spring auctions that have brought excellent results. They confirmed once more, beyond the shadow of a doubt, the status of art as a solid capital investment, even in the midst of a sliding stock market and a quickly devaluing euro. Christie's evening sale had one of the stars of the season, Survivor by Frida Kahlo, a great painting regardless of its small format which is truly postcard size at 6 5/8 x 4 ¾ in.. It came in its original handcrafted Oaxacan tin frame and portrays a Pre-Columbian figure of a warrior, very similar to one in Diego Rivera's collection. The figure stands alone in a deserted landscape, and at the horizon line we see the portal of an ancient edifice. It is a wonderfully surreal landscape that Breton would have marveled at. The painting had an impeccable provenance, having been exhibited and sold by the Julien Levy gallery in New York to Walter Pach, a well known art critic of the time who was a promoter of Latin American art. The picture remained in his family after his death in 1958 and had been absent from every exhibition on the artist, thus causing a lot of excitement when it appeared at Christie's sale. Needless to say, the price realized far exceeded the expected $100,000/150,000 when it went to the winning bid at $1,179,000. The other great excitement at the Christie's sale was the collection of Mexican paintings from the Lynch family. The Tamayos were particularly great examples of his work in the `60s; the first one, Danzantes from 1963, attracted spirited bidding and sold at $746,500; the second Tamayo offered from the collection, Figura de Pie, was slightly earlier, from 1959 and it sold well past the estimated $450,000/650,000 for a grand $818,500. Only on the third Tamayo, Hombre al sol, did the bidding somewhat abate when it sold close to the low estimate at $302,500. The selection of works by Orozco in the collection did even better. The first one was a very strong subject, The hanged man, yet it quickly managed to more than double the estimated $25,000/35,000 selling at $65,000. The second work, a masterpiece depicting the plight of the underprivileged in a modern metropolis carried an estimate of $200,000/300,000 which was stubbornly but surely pushed to a resounding $1,143,000 price by a pair of determined collectors. Continued appreciation for the abstract in Latin American art was demonstrated by the sale of two excellent pieces by Camargo at Christie's. The first, Relief No. 188 had been estimated at $500,000/700,000 and realized a great price at $626,500; the second, Untitled (No.227) was estimated at $150,000/200,000 and also achieved a very good result at $230,500. At Sotheby's, Carlos Cruz-Diez' Physichromie No 236 had an estimate of $150,000/250,000 and sold for a very good price at $170,500. Later in the sale his Psysichromie No. 321-A, which carried an estimate of $200,000/250,000, realized $326,500 and at Christie's his Introduction Chromatique No. 85 had an estimate of $70,000/90,000 and sold for $158,500. Mathias Goeritz' Mensaje Dorado was offered at Christie's with an estimate of $80,000/120,000 and realized $86,500, while at Sotheby's his very large Mensaje far surpassed the estimated $150,000/250,000 and sold for $386,500. Soto also scored a great series of successful sales. His Escritura Lilia was estimated at $175,000/225,000 at Sotheby's but spirited bidders brought the price up to $254,500. Another winner of the sale was his Escritura Negra a la Izquierda which had been estimated at $200,000/300,000, but was sold for much more at $422,500, while at Christie's, Soto's Trois carres sur la diagonale had been estimated at $70,000/90,000 and went much further due to a lot of inte...