ArtHitParade
ArtHitParade on Twitter
  • Home
    • Contact
  • Calendar
  • Top 10
    • Origin
    • From 600 BCE to CE
    • Years 1 to 1000
    • Years 1000 to 1300
    • 14th Century
    • 15th Century >
      • Years 1400-1429
      • Years 1430-1459
      • Years 1460-1479
      • Years 1480-1499
    • 16th Century >
      • Years 1500-1519
      • Decade 1520-1529
      • Decade 1530-1539
      • Years 1540-1569
      • Years 1570-1599
    • 17th Century >
      • Decade 1600-1609
      • Decade 1610-1619
      • Decade 1620-1629
      • Decade 1630-1639
      • Decade 1640-1649
      • Decade 1650-1659
      • Years 1660-1679
      • Years 1680-1699
    • 18th Century >
      • Decade 1700-1709
      • Decade 1710-1719
      • Decade 1720-1729
      • Decade 1730-1739
      • Decade 1740-1749
      • Decade 1750-1759
      • Decade 1760-1769
      • Decade 1770-1779 >
        • 1776
      • Decade 1780-1789
      • Decade 1790-1799 >
        • 1792
    • 19th Century >
      • Decade 1800-1809
      • Decade 1810-1819
      • Decade 1820-1829
      • Decade 1830-1839
      • Decade 1840-1849
      • Decade 1850-1859
      • Decade 1860-1869
      • Decade 1870-1879
      • Decade 1880-1889 >
        • 1887
        • 1888
        • 1889
      • Decade 1890-1899 >
        • 1890
        • 1892
        • 1895
        • 1896
    • 20th Century >
      • Decade 1900-1909 >
        • 1902
        • 1903
        • 1904
        • 1905
        • 1907
        • 1908
        • 1909
      • Decade 1910-1919 >
        • 1911
        • 1912
        • 1913
        • 1914
        • 1915
        • 1916
        • 1917
        • 1918
        • 1919
      • Decade 1920-1929 >
        • 1920
        • 1921
        • 1923
        • 1924
        • 1925
        • 1926
        • 1927
        • 1928
        • 1929
      • Decade 1930-1939 >
        • 1930
        • 1931
        • 1932
        • 1933
        • 1934
        • 1935
        • 1936
        • 1937
        • 1938
        • 1939
      • Decade 1940-1949 >
        • 1941
        • 1942
        • 1945
        • 1946
        • 1947
        • 1948
        • 1949
      • Decade 1950-1959 >
        • 1950
        • 1951
        • 1952
        • 1953
        • 1954
        • 1955
        • 1956
        • 1957
        • 1958
        • 1959
      • Decade 1960-1969 >
        • 1960
        • 1961
        • 1962
        • 1963
        • 1964
        • 1965
        • 1966
        • 1967
        • 1968
        • 1969
      • Decade 1970-1979 >
        • 1970
        • 1971
        • 1972
        • 1974
        • 1975
        • 1976
        • 1977
        • 1978
        • 1979
      • Decade 1980-1989 >
        • 1980
        • 1981
        • 1982
        • 1983
        • 1984
        • 1985
        • 1986
        • 1987
        • 1988
        • 1989
      • Decade 1990-1999 >
        • 1990
        • 1991
        • 1992
        • 1993
        • 1994
        • 1995
        • 1996
        • 1997
        • 1998
        • 1999
    • 21st Century >
      • Decade 2000-2009 >
        • 2000
        • 2001
        • 2002
        • 2003
        • 2004
        • 2006
        • 2007
        • 2008
      • Decade 2010-2019 >
        • 2017
      • 2020 to now >
        • 2021
  • Current Art
  • Renaissance
  • Painting
    • Ancient Painting >
      • Rembrandt
      • Oil on Copper
    • 18th Century Painting
  • Ancient Drawing
  • Art on Paper
  • Sculpture
    • Bust
    • Ancient Sculpture >
      • Roman Sculpture
    • Italian Sculpture
    • French Sculpture
    • Sculpture by Painters
  • Women Artists
    • Ancient Art by Women
    • Current Art by Women
    • O'Keeffe
    • Martin
    • Mitchell
    • Yayoi Kusama
  • Furniture
    • Chairs and Seats
    • Colonial Furniture
    • Ancient French Furniture
    • 18th Century Furniture
    • Modern Furniture >
      • Art Deco
    • Modern Tables
  • Prints
    • Ancient Prints
    • Modern Prints
  • Photo
    • Old Photos >
      • Travel Photos
      • Early French Photo
    • Photos 1900s 1910s
    • Photos 1920s 1930s
    • Photos 1970s 1980s
    • Sherman
    • Gursky
  • The Man
  • The Woman
  • Children
  • Man and Woman
  • Groups
  • Self Portrait
    • Self Portrait 2nd page
  • Nude
  • Abstract Art
    • Abstract Art - 2nd page
  • Landscape
    • Midi
    • Alps
    • Mountains in China
  • Cities
    • Venice
    • Paris
    • Los Angeles
  • Flowers
    • Bouquet
  • Animals
    • Bird
    • Cats
    • Horse
  • Dragon
  • Tabletop
  • Early Still Life
  • Music and Dance in Art
    • Music in Old Painting
  • Sport in Art
  • Orientalism
    • Orientalism 1830-1900
  • France
    • Louis XV and XVI
    • Revolution and Empire
    • Louis XVIII to 2nd Empire
    • Ancient French Painting
    • Degas
    • Cézanne
    • Monet >
      • Monet before 1878
      • From Vétheuil to Giverny
      • London and Venice
      • Bassin aux Nymphéas
    • Renoir
    • Gauguin
    • Seurat and Signac
    • Lautrec
    • Matisse
    • Klein
    • Lalanne
    • Post War French Art
  • Italy
    • Ancient Italy >
      • Italian Painting 1280-1700
    • Canaletto
    • Modigliani
    • Fontana
  • Swiss Painting before 1940
    • Hodler
  • Giacometti
    • Giacometti 1947-53
    • Femme Debout
  • Bacon
    • Bacon before 1963
    • Bacon 1963-70
    • Later Bacons
    • Head Triptych
  • UK - 2nd page
    • Ancient England
    • George I to III
    • George IV to Victoria
    • British Royals
    • Turner >
      • Watercolor by Turner
    • Freud
    • Hockney
    • Doig
    • Hirst
    • Banksy
  • Germany
    • Ancient Germany >
      • Cranach
    • Richter >
      • Richter before 1983
    • Germany - 2nd page
  • Van Gogh
  • Mondrian
  • De Kooning
  • Old Flanders and Belgium
    • Flemish Art >
      • Rubens
    • Magritte >
      • Early Magritte
    • Tintin
    • Belgium 2nd page
  • Picasso
    • Picasso before 1907
    • Picasso 1907-1931
    • 1932 Picasso
    • Picasso later 1930s
    • Picasso 1940-1960
    • Picasso in Mougins
    • Prints by Picasso
  • Miro
  • Spain 2nd page
    • Ancient Spain
    • Gris
  • Klimt
  • Schiele
  • USA
    • US Independence
    • Development of USA
    • US Civil War
    • Wild West
    • US Painting before 1940
    • Rockwell
    • Calder
    • Rothko >
      • Early Rothko
      • Rothko 1957-70
    • Still
    • Pollock
    • Lichtenstein >
      • Lichtenstein after 1965
    • Warhol >
      • USA by Warhol
      • Celebrities by Warhol
      • Later Warhols
      • Prints by Warhol
    • Twombly
    • Prince
    • Koons
    • Wool
    • Basquiat
    • USA 2nd page
  • Central and South Americas
  • China
    • Archaic China >
      • Ritual Bronzes
    • Northern Song
    • Southern Song and Yuan
    • Early Ming
    • Later Ming
    • Early Qing
    • Qianlong
    • Modern China >
      • Zhang Daqian
      • Sanyu
      • Zao Wou-Ki
    • New Chinese Painting
    • Chinese Porcelain >
      • Song to Yuan Porcelain
      • Ming Porcelain
      • Qing Porcelain
    • Chinese Art
    • Chinese Calligraphy
    • Chinese Furniture
    • Imperial Seal
    • Jadeite
  • India
    • Modern India >
      • Gaitonde
  • Persia
    • Safavid Carpets
  • Yoshitomo Nara
  • Russia
    • Russia 1700-1900
    • Kandinsky
  • Eastern Europe
    • Chagall
  • Northern Europe
    • Prints by Munch
  • Egypt
  • Tropical Africa
    • Congo
    • Gabon
    • Mask
  • Tribal Oceania
    • Easter Island
  • Australia
    • Colonial Australia
  • Islam
  • Buddhism
    • Early Buddhist Sculpture
    • Tibet and Nepal
  • Judaica
  • Christianity
    • Madonna and Child
  • Cars
    • Birth of Automobile
    • Cars of the 1910s
    • Cars of the 1920s
    • Cars of the 1930s >
      • Cars 1930-33
      • Cars 1934-35
      • Cars 1936-37
      • Cars 1938-39
    • Cars 1940-50
    • Cars of the 1950s >
      • Cars 1951-53
      • Cars 1954-55
      • Cars 1956-57
      • Cars 1958-59
    • Cars of the 1960s >
      • Cars 1960-61
      • Cars 1962-63
      • Cars 1964-65
      • Cars 1966-67
    • Cars 1970s 1980s
    • Supercars
    • Hypercars
    • Ferrari >
      • Early Ferrari
      • From LWB to GTO >
        • California Spider
      • Big Five
    • Alfa Romeo
    • Mercedes-Benz
    • Porsche
    • British Cars >
      • Aston Martin
      • Jaguar
      • McLaren
    • Bugatti
    • French Cars
    • Duesenberg
    • Ford and Shelby
    • Cars in Movies
    • Cars - 2nd page
  • Motorcycles
  • Jewels
    • White Diamond
    • Pink Diamond
    • Blue Diamond
    • African Diamonds
    • Jewels - 2nd page
    • Cartier
  • Silverware
    • Old Silverware
  • Coin
    • Antique Coins
    • Coins 1000-1775
    • Coins 1776-92
    • Coins 1793-99
    • Coins 1800-49
    • Coins 1850-69
    • Coins 1870-99
    • 20th century Coins
    • US Gold Coins
    • Dollars and Eagles >
      • Silver Dollar
    • British Coins
    • Japanese Coins
    • Chinese Coins
  • Paper Currency
  • Medal and Decoration
  • Time Pieces
    • Clocks >
      • Old Clocks
    • Mechanical Craft ca 1800 >
      • Jaquet-Droz and Followers
    • Modern Watches
    • New Watches >
      • OnlyWatch
    • Patek Philippe >
      • Patek Philippe before 1950
      • World Time
      • Perpetual Calendar
    • Rolex
    • Watches 2nd page
    • English Time Pieces
    • French Time Pieces
  • Glass and Crystal
    • Glass before 1900
    • Tiffany Studios
  • From Terracotta to Porcelain
    • Meissen
  • Textiles
  • Garment
  • Fashion
  • Books
    • Incunabula
    • 16th Century Books
    • 17th Century Books
    • Fine Books 1700-1850
  • Literature
    • Literature in English
    • Literature in French
  • Poems and Lyrics
  • Autograph
  • Manuscript
    • Illuminated Christian Manuscript
  • Religious Texts
  • Political Writing
  • Comic Books
  • Illustrators
  • Travel
  • Space
    • Apollo 11
  • Maps
    • Ancient Maps
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Musical Instrument
    • Violin >
      • Violin 2nd page
    • Guitar
    • Musical Instrument 2nd page
  • Pop Music
    • The Beatles
  • Poster
  • Sport
    • Sport Equipment
    • Sport Uniform
    • Sport Document
    • Sport Rewards and Medals
    • T206 Wagner
    • Sport Images before 1940
    • Sport Cards 1940-92
    • Topps Mantle
    • Modern Sport Cards
    • Baseball >
      • Baseball Bat
      • Babe Ruth
      • Lou Gehrig
    • Basketball >
      • Jordan
    • Ice Hockey
    • Sport 2nd page
    • Olympic Games
  • Origins of Sports
  • Historical Arms
    • Blade and Armour
    • Colt 1836-62
    • Later Colts
    • Winchester
    • Firearms - 2nd page
  • Toys
  • Doll
  • Games
  • Stamps
    • World Stamps
    • US Stamps
    • Inverted Jenny
  • Inventions
  • Optical Instrument
  • Sciences
    • Ancient Science
    • Sciences 1600-1800
    • Sciences from 1800
    • Astronomy
    • Physics
    • Medicine
  • Dinosaur
  • Computing
  • Nobel Medals
  • Whisky
    • Whisky 2nd page
  • Wine
  • Plus
    • Plus 17C
    • Plus 1880s
    • Plus 1962-64 Warhol
    • Plus Basquiat

Central and South Americas

not including Fontana.
See also : Women artists  Self portrait  Self portrait II  Man and woman  Sport  Sport II  Sport uniform  Textiles  Garment  Stamps  World stamps
Chronology : 1850-1859  1923  1931  1933  1939  1940-1949  1945  1949  1991

1856 British Guiana One Cent Magenta Stamp
2014 SOLD for $ 9.5M by Sotheby's

The invention of the postage stamp in England in 1840 is a revolution in communications. Hitherto limited to shipment operations, the Post Office of British Guiana is one of the first in South America to use stamps and to develop a local delivery, through the diligence of Edward Dalton, a colonial postmaster unwilling to wait for official authorizations.

The first stamps issued by the British Guiana in 1850 are made in black ink by woodcut printing on papers of various colors depending on the face value. The work is done by the printer of the local newspaper. They are so rudimentary that each sold stamp is authenticated by the handwritten initials of the postmaster or of one of his clerks.

These first stamps of 4, 8 and 12 cents are not rare because they have attracted the interest of collectors from the 1870s. These circular or roughly octagonal stamps are nicknamed the cottonreels. An additional cottonreel of 2 cents was issued in 1851. This low value only applied for the local mail inside Georgetown and this variety is extremely rare.

In 1852 the government takes control of operations. Stamps for British Guiana are now lithographed in England. In September 1855, it is a disaster. British agents had misunderstood the order and printed a quantity of stamps ten times lower than needed. Faced with the shortage, Dalton released in 1856 a new series of locally printed British Guiana stamps, with the same rudimentary process as in 1850.

The 4 cents stamp of 1856 to be used for mail is printed on colored paper in four variants, magenta, carmine, blue and double sided blue.

The 1 cent for the postage of newspapers is a lower denomination that had no reason to be kept by users. Only one survived. In poor condition, almost indecipherable, it is magenta in the same shade as one of the 4 cent variants. Collected in 1873 by a schoolboy in the archives of his uncle, it was formally authenticated by an expert in 1891.

This 1 cent magenta 29 x 26 mm British Guiana stamp is the only British variety that escapes the royal collection.  Its reverse bears eight marks of prominent owners. Sold for $ 935K by Siegel in 1980, it was already at that time the most expensive stamp in the world. 

It was sold twice by Sotheby's : for $ 9.5M on June 17, 2014 and for $ 8.3M on June 8, 2021, lot 3. The image is shared by Wikimedia. Please watch a video shared in 2008 by psychediva.
​
In June 2014 the other lots from the DuPont collection of British Guiana stamps were sold by David Feldman. The top results before fees were € 160K for a 4 cents from 1850-1851 on a cover, € 190K for a 2 cents from 1851 and € 240K for a blue 4 cents on a cover from 1856.
British Guiana 1856 1c magenta stamp

✉️The British Guiana One-Cent Magenta is thought to be the sole survivor of its kind, created during a stamp shortage in the 1850s and now expected to fetch up to $15 million when it’s auctioned by @Sothebys pic.twitter.com/I57OQ34zkr

— Bloomberg Quicktake (@Quicktake) April 29, 2021
Stamps
World Stamps
Decade 1850-1859

1923 A Caipirinha by Tarsila
2020 SOLD for BRL 57.5M including premium (worth US$ 11.2M) by Bolsa de Arte
narrated post sale in 2020

Tarsila do Amaral was in Paris in 1923. She was enthusiastic about the cosmopolitan desires of the artistic avant-gardes. She is the Brazilian, and more precisely a caipirinha. The caipiras are those people from the tropical countryside who are the laughing stock of city dwellers by their naivety and their appalling accent.

She is influenced by André Lhote's cubism, where the slightly deformed figurative elements are distributed on the canvas without consideration of their respective distances, with a partitioned geometry and simple colors.

On December 17, 2020, Bolsa de Arte sold A Caipirinha, oil on canvas 60 x 81 cm painted by Tarsila in Paris in 1923, for BRL 57.5M including premium, worth US $ 11.2M. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.

The artist expresses the resolutely optimistic happiness of her childhood, when she was making her doll from the leaves collected in front of the farm. This allusion is not directly visible. The character is an adult and the doll is not there, but the symbolic leaf is in the foreground under the hand.

The iconography is bold, with some repetitions with no link in the meaning. The hand with five parallel fingers and the palisade with six boards are similar. The barn door on the right is copied to the left, where it loses its meaning by a position in front of the tree.

In the same period, Tarsila also shakes up the morphologies, without however joining the surrealists. Allusions to rural Brazil dot all her work, through ethnological details, tropical light, farm life. This resolutely regionalist art anticipates the school of Mexico.

1923

​1931 The Rivals by Rivera
​2022 SOLD for $ 14M by Christie's

The Mexican muralism was born in 1921 from an observation by Vasconcelos : the people are mostly illiterate but the public image can be as suitable as a writing for propagating the fervor of the Revolution. Orozco, Rivera, Siqueiros and Tamayo create a new art adapted to the socialist ideas.

Out of standards in every meaning of that wording, Diego Riverais uncompromising. His artistic message is communist and anticlerical and he will not change it even under the pressure generated by his provocations.

In New York City, Abby Rockefeller begins in 1925 a collection of modern European art which is not so much supported by her husband but she moves forward. The creation of the Museum of Modern Art in 1929 comes mainly from her personal initiative. She multiplies the actions, including a first solo exhibition which is dedicated to Matisse.

Mexican art shows mostly the people, even if they are confronted with the abuses from the bourgeoisie. Abby, who was also collecting folk art, devotes the second solo exhibition of the MoMA to Rivera in 1931. The thunderous artist had been accused of anti-Soviet activities while working in Moscow and the Mexican Communist Party had fired him. Some recent activities in California showed his interest to the United States.

John D. Rockefeller Jr, Abby's husband, does not see the political trap. In 1933 he commissions some murals for the Rockefeller Center to Rivera. Without warning, Rivera introduces into the picture a portrait of Lenin and categorically refuses to withdraw it despite an attempted negotiation by the young Nelson Rockefeller. The fresco is scrapped but Rivera has achieved his goal of ridiculing the capitalists.

With the invitation of 1931 Abby Rockefeller had commissioned an artwork to Rivera. He completed it during the boat journey to New York. The Rivals, oil on canvas 152 x 127 cm, is about a celebration of patron saints in Oaxaca. The composition is animated at various distances by groups of characters in local clothing, with the shimmering exotic colors that pleased Abby. This picture is in the recent decorative style of Matisse.

The Rivals was given as a wedding present to David and Peggy Rockefeller in 1941. Coming from their deceased estate, it was sold for $ 9.8M by Christie's on May 9, 2018, lot 424. Coming afterward from the Paul G. Allen collection, it was sold for $ 14M by Christie's on November 9, 2022, lot 37.
1931

1933 Ugly Self Portrait by Kahlo
2022 SOLD for $ 8.6M by Christie's

In 1933 Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo stay in New York from March to end of year. While Diego works for the project of a mural for the Rockefeller center, Frida goes crazy with the dime stores of cheap costume jewelry. Lucienne Bloch is her shopping companion.

She soon gets bored of New York which she nicknames 'Gringolandia'. Her health is poor and she does not set to paint.

A self portrait on Celotex insulation board 27 x 22 cm is an exception, using colors that she was grinding for Diego's plastered fresco panels.

​In her usual practice she endeavors to express her mood. She displays herself as very ugly, in her own words. It was in summer while she already was in homesickness for Mexico and while Diego had an affair with Louise Nevelson.

The low cost necklace is a sign of her disenchantment from New York. The background is tagged as Basquiat will do in the same city half a century later. Tags are read 'SIRV, OH! BOY, VERY U and FRIEDA (sic)'  plus a sad bird and a big apple. The overall contour of the image is irregularly curved.

This emotional painting was gifted by Frida to Lucienne who kept it for half a century. It was sold for $ 8.6M from a lower estimate of $ 7M by Christie's on November 17, 2022, lot 31.
1933

1939 The Doubling of Frida Kahlo
​2016 SOLD for $ 8M including premium

The life of Frida Kahlo was always difficult but 1939 was particularly painful and distressing both physically and psychologically. She is 32 years old. Nothing goes right with her husband and idol Diego Rivera who had been accepting her homosexual desires but is jealous of her men.

Frida needs some comforting and eventually considers that she can only find it within herself in a pathetic doubling of her personality. Las Dos Fridas is a double self portrait by the artist commented by herself as a symbol of her loneliness, broken by the fact that the two women are holding their hands.

This artwork helps to understand Dos desnudos en el bosque, oil on metal 25 x 30 cm painted in the same year, estimated $ 8M byChristie's in New York on May 12, lot 21C.

A woman with dark skin is lovingly caressing a lying white woman. They are nude in a calm attitude but in the surrounding of a torrid vegetation loaded with sexual symbols. The sniper monkey plays the role of the male who will not be rejected by this Sapphic couple.

The seated woman has one leg that hangs into a seismic ravine. She fertilizes the soil through her long scarf and an almost imperceptible bleeding. Rooting is a recurring theme of the artist in her search for the mystery of human life and her need for a shelter against all the threats of the world.

The faces are not identifiable and Dos desnudos can be a double self portrait. If this is not the case, one of the women is the first owner of this painting, the Mexican film star Dolores del Río who was probably one of the targets of Frida's bisexuality.

I invite you to watch the video shared by Christie's.
1939

1943 The Freed Jungle of Wifredo Lam
2020 SOLD for $ 9.6M including premium

Wifredo Lam lived in Spain from 1923 to 1938. He felt close to Goya's social revolt and participated in the Spanish War. Between the defeat of the Republicans and the defeat of France in June 1940, he was in Paris where he appropriated the intense desire for freedom and poetry of the artistic avant-gardes. Picasso, who indeed did not like having rivals, openly approved the young artist.

Lam then decides to return to his native island, Cuba. He makes a stopover in Fort-de-France where his meeting with Aimé Césaire reinforces his rejection of colonialism and slavery.

The atheist Cuban with Chinese, Congolese and Spanish ancestry will now paint the freedom of the Third World. He stages his personal surrealist world in a dense jungle which he populates with gods of weird morphology. La Jungla, 240 x 230 cm gouache made in 1943, hides four dehumanized beings in a dense pattern of sugar canes.

On June 29 in New York, Sotheby's sells Omi Obini, oil on canvas 183 x 125 cm also painted in 1943, lot 1008 estimated $ 8M. The title designates the Yoruba goddess of water entrusted for fertilizing the earth. Readability is not immediate, marking the influence of analytical cubism or futurism.

In the colored jungle, some paler areas appear, constituting an ethereal humanoid form. The head is a crescent moon and it will not be known whether the figure in the foreground is a pet or a chair. Two of the berries have each a pair of eyes that are threats or reflections.

1945 Trovador by Tamayo
2008 SOLD for $ 7.2M including premium by Christie's

Link to catalogue.
1945

1949 Diego y yo by Kahlo
2021 SOLD for $ 35M by Sotheby's

Frida Kahlo suffered a lifelong intense pain in her back after an accident. She courageously faced her condition by her art and by her quest for a passion out of the ordinary, including political commitment and bisexuality. She found her partner, unfaithful husband and accomplice in the Communist artist Diego Rivera, 20 years older than her.

Kahlo's art is made of metaphors and symbols with a high poetry. A friend of the Surrealists, she nevertheless insisted to state that she was not representing her dreams but her reality. 55 of her ca 143 paintings are self portraits.

Eager to exchange an empathy, she often made and inscribed self portraits for friends : Trotsky, her doctors. On November 16, 2021, Sotheby's sold such a self portrait for $ 35M, lot 12. This oil on masonite 30 x 22 cm painted in 1949 is dedicated to Florence and Sam, a couple of friends who were instrumental in promoting her art. Please watch the video shared by the auction house.

The piece was titled Diego y yo by the artist. It displays the portrait in bust of Diego Rivera on the forehead, fully centered between eyebrows and hair. This figure has at the same place the third eye of wisdom. The intimate theme of this self portrait is indeed her obsession for Diego. Three tears flow on her cheeks.

A self portrait executed in 1954, the year of her untimely death, is in the same inspiration, with the image of Diego on the breast and of her rival Maria between the eyebrows.
Women Artists
Self Portrait
Self Portrait 2nd page
Man and Woman
Decade 1940-1949
1949

1950 Portrait of Columba by Rivera
2021 SOLD for $ 7.4M by Sotheby's

Link to catalogue.

1955 Tamayo painted the Wall of the Americas
2008 SOLD 6.8 M$ including premium

The art sales of this fall in New York are not finished. On November 18, Sotheby's manages a sale of Latin American art, whose undisputed star is a mural of Rufino Tamayo, lot 12.

Entitled America, this vinylite on canvas of 4 x 14 meters is a monument in every sense. It was made in 1955 on order from a bank of Houston. Tamayo did only five murals for the United States, and it is the only one still in private hands. He spent five months to achieve it, alone, working everyday. It is amusing to note that he had to seek a workshop in Mexico City, because his own was too small.

The result is an explosion of color that photographic reproductions return certainly wrongly. The subject is a tangle of many symbols of American continents.

The press release, no doubt influenced by the very long format, compares America to Picasso's Guernica. On one side black and war, on the other color and abundance, but the symbolic and allegorical profusion is the same.

This one of a kind work is estimated $ 7 million. On May 28 at Christie's, an oil on canvas 153 x 127 cm showing a street singer (Trovador) tripled its estimate at $ 7.2 million including expenses.

POST SALE COMMENT

It was not won in advance, and it was a success. $ 6.8 million charge included.

It is interesting to note that despite its size America was paid less than the Trovador, a much more intimate work.

Buyers would have a heart?

​1986 Diego Maradona Shirt
2022 SOLD for £ 7.1M by Sotheby's

​On June 22, 1986, a quarterfinal of the FIFA World Cup was played in Mexico City between Argentina and England. The Argentinians led by their 25 year old captain Diego Maradona minded it like a revenge after the 1982 Falklands War.

Maradona scored within four minutes at the beginning of the second half two goals that were to become legendary for opposite reasons.

He opened the score with a goal helped by his hand. At that time when no video support was available for the referees, the point was declared as valid in an atmosphere of triumph supported by Maradona's spectacular celebration. Fully aware of his mischief, Maradona commented in the post game press conference that he made the goal “un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios".

The decisive goal of the match  was scored by Maradona four minutes after the Hand of God. This one is a great demonstration of Maradona's superior dribbling skills as he had been able to pass four defenders in a run of half the length of the pitch. It will referred in 2002 as The Goal of the Century and described as the greatest individual goal of all time. The image of Diego celebrating that feat is shared by Wikimedia.

A later English goal put the final score to 2-1.

Steve Hodge had been involved as an English defender in both Maradona's winning actions. He managed to swap his shirt for Maradona's in the changing room. 
Please watch the interview shared by Goal of Steve Hodge as 'the Man with Maradona's shirt of God'.

Maradona's shirt of the Hand of God and the Goal of the Century was loaned from 2002 by Hodge to the National Football Museum in Manchester. It was then consigned by him to Sotheby's who commissioned conclusively to Resolution Photomatching the photo-matching with the quarterfinal. It was sold for £ 7.1M from a lower estimate of £ 4M on May 4, 2022, lot 1.
Sport
Sport 2nd page
Sport Uniform
Textiles
Garment

1991 The Endless Art of Gonzalez-Torres
​2015 SOLD for $ 7.7M including premium

The contemporary art gradually leaves the references to painting, sculpture and object. The installations invite the viewer for participation and modification. The Cuban born artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres offers a synthesis between minimalism and accumulation, after Donald Judd and Carl Andre, before Ai Weiwei.

Homosexual activist, Gonzalez-Torres conceives his work as a sharing. Going up to a logical consequence of his approach, he states that a certificate of authenticity must be re-issued every time the work changes ownership. He provides the starting point of the element to accumulate, which the user may decrease or increase. The curator of the exhibition is invited to change at will the overall shape, after the anti-art sculptures by Lygia Clark.

In 1991, Gonzalez-Torres's creativity is exacerbated by the final AIDS of his partner which arouses in him some humanist thoughts. The artist will die of the same disease five years later.

An example is the stack of identical prints 72 x 109 cm that can be copied at will and to which the artist suggests an ideal height of 8 inches. This work was sold for $ 1.65M including premium by Sotheby's on May 10, 2011.

The accumulation of candies individually wrapped in their cellophane paper is the ultimate refinement of the art of Gonzalez-Torres and his most demanded theme on the art market. The removal of an element brings to the maker of the action the noise of the unwrapping and the sweet taste of the candy.

A work in light blue paper executed in 1992 with an ideal weight of 90 kg was sold for $ 4.6 million including premium by Phillips de Pury on 8 November 2010. Another variant carried out in 1991 in green paper with an ideal weight of 50 pounds is estimated $ 5M for sale by Christie's in New York on November 10, lot 43B.
1991
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.