Central and South Americas
550-950 Maya Deity in Stucco
2011 SOLD 2.9 M€ including premium by Binoche et Giquello
1856 The Rudimentary Stamps of British Guiana
2014 SOLD 9.5 M$ including premium
The DuPont collection of early stamps from British Guiana is dispersed in two auctions : 131 lots by David Feldman in Geneva on June 27 and a single lot by Sotheby's in New York on June 17.
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. Their rough shape is square with or without cut corners.
These first stamps of 4, 8 and 12 cents are not rare because they have attracted the interest of collectors from the 1870s. They are identified by the nickname cottonreels. A cottonreel of 4 cents on a cover circulated in 1851 is estimated € 120K in the Feldman sale.
An additional cottonreel worth 2 cents was issued in 1851. This low value intended for taxing the mail inside Georgetown was very unpopular and this variety is extremely rare. A unit is estimated € 100K in the Feldman sale.
In 1852, the government takes control of operations. Stamps for British Guiana are now printed in a specialized factory 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 to be used for mail is printed on papers of three color variants, magenta, carmine and blue, the latter in two variants with single or double sided blue. A blue 4 cents on a cover circulated in 1856 is estimated € 150K in the Feldman sale.
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.
The 1 cent magenta British Guiana stamp is the only British variety that escapes the royal collection. It is estimated in excess of $ 10 million at Sotheby's. Sold for $ 935K including premium by Siegel on April 5, 1980, it was already at that time the most expensive stamp in the world.
POST SALE COMMENTS
1
The most expensive stamp in the world was sold for $ 7.9M before fees by Sotheby's.
2
Here are now the prices before fees of the three stamps discussed above from David Feldman's sale: € 160K the 4 cents from 1850-1851, € 190K the 2 cents from 1851 and € 240K the 4 cents from 1856.
I invite you to play a video shared in 2008 on YouTube that I retrieved through the facebook page of Feldman:
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. Their rough shape is square with or without cut corners.
These first stamps of 4, 8 and 12 cents are not rare because they have attracted the interest of collectors from the 1870s. They are identified by the nickname cottonreels. A cottonreel of 4 cents on a cover circulated in 1851 is estimated € 120K in the Feldman sale.
An additional cottonreel worth 2 cents was issued in 1851. This low value intended for taxing the mail inside Georgetown was very unpopular and this variety is extremely rare. A unit is estimated € 100K in the Feldman sale.
In 1852, the government takes control of operations. Stamps for British Guiana are now printed in a specialized factory 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 to be used for mail is printed on papers of three color variants, magenta, carmine and blue, the latter in two variants with single or double sided blue. A blue 4 cents on a cover circulated in 1856 is estimated € 150K in the Feldman sale.
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.
The 1 cent magenta British Guiana stamp is the only British variety that escapes the royal collection. It is estimated in excess of $ 10 million at Sotheby's. Sold for $ 935K including premium by Siegel on April 5, 1980, it was already at that time the most expensive stamp in the world.
POST SALE COMMENTS
1
The most expensive stamp in the world was sold for $ 7.9M before fees by Sotheby's.
2
Here are now the prices before fees of the three stamps discussed above from David Feldman's sale: € 160K the 4 cents from 1850-1851, € 190K the 2 cents from 1851 and € 240K the 4 cents from 1856.
I invite you to play a video shared in 2008 on YouTube that I retrieved through the facebook page of Feldman:
1931 Mexican Revolution in New York City
2018 SOLD for $ 9.8M including premium
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 in Oaxaca. The composition is animated at various distances by groups of characters in traditional clothing, with the shimmering exotic colors that pleased Abby.
The Rivals was given as a wedding present to David and Peggy Rockefeller in 1941. It is estimated $ 5M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 9, lot 424.
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 in Oaxaca. The composition is animated at various distances by groups of characters in traditional clothing, with the shimmering exotic colors that pleased Abby.
The Rivals was given as a wedding present to David and Peggy Rockefeller in 1941. It is estimated $ 5M for sale by Christie's in New York on May 9, lot 424.
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.
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.
1942 A Mexican Howl
2018 SOLD for $ 5.9M including premium
Unlike Orozco, Rivera and Siqueiros, Tamayo does not want to illustrate the revolution. Relying on his Zapotec heritage, he seeks to express in his art the roots and peculiarities of the Mexican people. Like Lam in Cuba his origins are mixed. Like Lam he finds the solution in an adaptation of modern art to his own message.
The pictorial expression does not need a shimmering palette. Tamayo reduces his painting to a few pure, dark colors, in a unique balance that could have led him durably to abstraction.
Picasso's Guernica had been sheltered away from political censorship at the MoMA since 1939. Tamayo is in New York since 1937. The war in Europe cannot leave him indifferent. Guernica inspires his own cry of anguish, in his signature style of colors.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells Perro aullando a la Luna, oil on canvas 112 x 86 cm painted in 1942, lot 25 estimated $ 5M.
The dark red dog is sitting larger than life in the blue night. He screams like the horse in Guernica although no threat is apparent. The stretched throat reveals the veins swollen by the howl. The beautiful bones placed before him as offerings do not calm him.
However Tamayo's dog is not a Guernica dog. There were representations of screaming dogs in pre-Columbian America that Tamayo knew well : he had begun his career in Mexico City in 1921 in the ethnographic drawing department of the archeology museum.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
The pictorial expression does not need a shimmering palette. Tamayo reduces his painting to a few pure, dark colors, in a unique balance that could have led him durably to abstraction.
Picasso's Guernica had been sheltered away from political censorship at the MoMA since 1939. Tamayo is in New York since 1937. The war in Europe cannot leave him indifferent. Guernica inspires his own cry of anguish, in his signature style of colors.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells Perro aullando a la Luna, oil on canvas 112 x 86 cm painted in 1942, lot 25 estimated $ 5M.
The dark red dog is sitting larger than life in the blue night. He screams like the horse in Guernica although no threat is apparent. The stretched throat reveals the veins swollen by the howl. The beautiful bones placed before him as offerings do not calm him.
However Tamayo's dog is not a Guernica dog. There were representations of screaming dogs in pre-Columbian America that Tamayo knew well : he had begun his career in Mexico City in 1921 in the ethnographic drawing department of the archeology museum.
Please watch the video shared by Sotheby's.
1945 Trovador by Tamayo
2008 SOLD for $ 7.2M including premium by Christie's
1945 The Three Heads of St Anthony
2014 SOLD for $ 2.63M including premium
In 1945, life is resuming after the Second World War. Albert Lewin is preparing a movie based on Bel-Ami, Maupassant's novel. The temptations remind the legend of St. Anthony in the desert of Egypt, a good theme to appeal surrealist artists.
Lewin has the bold and clever idea to open a competition to ten artists on the theme of St. Anthony with the goal to use the winning artwork within the film. Duchamp is a member of the jury. Max Ernst wins with a Gothic work that well matches the popular imagination on diableries. Dali performs one of his most celebrated pictures, dated 1946.
Leonora Carrington is among the ten invited artists, probably due to her pre-war affair with Max Ernst. Aged 28, she is not yet known to the public. The theme excites her imagination exacerbated by wartime psychiatric difficulties.
The oil on canvas painted by Carrington, 122 x 91 cm, dated 1945, is estimated $ 1.8M, for sale on November 24 by Sotheby's in New York, lot 17.
Leonora enjoyed to include all the symbols of the legend along with introducing new elements. The three pale heads of the saint emerge gradually out of the too white cloak which looks like the shrouds of Blake's ghosts. A young woman is preparing delicious foods. A witch is playing the trumpet in the middle of a spider net shaped blanket held by the sins. The disproportion of the figures will remain a major feature in her personal vision of surrealism.
The artist used to reply complacently to the questions on the interpretation of her works. When asked why the holy man has three heads, she replied: why not?
Lewin has the bold and clever idea to open a competition to ten artists on the theme of St. Anthony with the goal to use the winning artwork within the film. Duchamp is a member of the jury. Max Ernst wins with a Gothic work that well matches the popular imagination on diableries. Dali performs one of his most celebrated pictures, dated 1946.
Leonora Carrington is among the ten invited artists, probably due to her pre-war affair with Max Ernst. Aged 28, she is not yet known to the public. The theme excites her imagination exacerbated by wartime psychiatric difficulties.
The oil on canvas painted by Carrington, 122 x 91 cm, dated 1945, is estimated $ 1.8M, for sale on November 24 by Sotheby's in New York, lot 17.
Leonora enjoyed to include all the symbols of the legend along with introducing new elements. The three pale heads of the saint emerge gradually out of the too white cloak which looks like the shrouds of Blake's ghosts. A young woman is preparing delicious foods. A witch is playing the trumpet in the middle of a spider net shaped blanket held by the sins. The disproportion of the figures will remain a major feature in her personal vision of surrealism.
The artist used to reply complacently to the questions on the interpretation of her works. When asked why the holy man has three heads, she replied: why not?
1947 The New Gods of Wifredo Lam
2015 SOLD for $ 2.63M including premium
The cosmopolitan culture of Wifredo Lam anticipates the contemporary globalization. He was born in Cuba, son of a Chinese and grandson of a Cuban mulatto with a Congolese slave. His godmother is a voodoo healer.
The sensitivity of Wifredo Lam is not mystical but social. Republican fighter, he met Picasso after Guernica. He will populate his paintings with fantastical characters in hybrid forms combining human, animal and plant without forgetting the aesthetic influence of African fetishes.
His surrealist compositions convey a political message in favor of the Third World, guided by titles that are often linked to the Yoruba mythology. The all-powerful figures announce a different world.
On May 26 in New York, Phillips sells an oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm painted in 1947, lot 25 estimated $ 2M.
Simply titled Présages, this artwork has the characteristics of a fantastic and multiple nativity. A cluster of four small spheres of which two are horned is coiled in one of the leafy arms of the creature who is necessarily the female. The being who flies over the scene like a pterodactyl is the father. A little further, a third character with the triangular head of an African mask attends the event.
Premonitions (Présages) of freedom actually appeared in 1947 with the end of the colonial period in India and Palestine, two years after the end of World War II.
The sensitivity of Wifredo Lam is not mystical but social. Republican fighter, he met Picasso after Guernica. He will populate his paintings with fantastical characters in hybrid forms combining human, animal and plant without forgetting the aesthetic influence of African fetishes.
His surrealist compositions convey a political message in favor of the Third World, guided by titles that are often linked to the Yoruba mythology. The all-powerful figures announce a different world.
On May 26 in New York, Phillips sells an oil on canvas 100 x 100 cm painted in 1947, lot 25 estimated $ 2M.
Simply titled Présages, this artwork has the characteristics of a fantastic and multiple nativity. A cluster of four small spheres of which two are horned is coiled in one of the leafy arms of the creature who is necessarily the female. The being who flies over the scene like a pterodactyl is the father. A little further, a third character with the triangular head of an African mask attends the event.
Premonitions (Présages) of freedom actually appeared in 1947 with the end of the colonial period in India and Palestine, two years after the end of World War II.
1949 El Comedor de Sandias by Tamayo
2008 SOLD for $ 3.6M including premium by Sotheby's
Link to Artvalue.
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?
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?
1960 Hacia la Torre by Remedios Varo
2014 SOLD for $ 4.3M including premium by Sotheby's
1962 Surrealist Convulsions
2017 SOLD for € 4.4M including premium
From his cosmopolitan origins Wifredo Lam has full legitimacy to be an activist of the Third World against the dominant culture of the white man, long before Basquiat.
His fantastic creatures are both humans and gods, even when they look like grasshoppers with impassive faces. Their attitudes of frenzied trances and dances belong to the Cuban voodoo imported from Africa. Lam is too lucid to believe such fables : his characters are symbols of the possibility of a counter-culture, artfully supported by the title of his works.
Gradually the artist shows lit foregrounds in front of a dark night. In 1961 Tropique du Capricorne, 146 x 218 cm, still admits some colors in its scene which gathers a male and a female at rest with a horse of Guernica.
On December 6 in Paris, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas of the same size painted in 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis, lot 11 estimated € 2,5M.
In this composition in the style of a monochrome collage on a black background, four dehumanized creatures are altogether levitating and convulsive. They are threatened by a Damocles' sword while a lost arrow goes outward.
The surrealist title, A trois centimètres de la Terre, is a political message understandable by the Voodoo initiates. It evokes the oppression of the Oshoumaré spirit to whom a despotic Yoruba god had forbidden to put his feet again on the ground.
His fantastic creatures are both humans and gods, even when they look like grasshoppers with impassive faces. Their attitudes of frenzied trances and dances belong to the Cuban voodoo imported from Africa. Lam is too lucid to believe such fables : his characters are symbols of the possibility of a counter-culture, artfully supported by the title of his works.
Gradually the artist shows lit foregrounds in front of a dark night. In 1961 Tropique du Capricorne, 146 x 218 cm, still admits some colors in its scene which gathers a male and a female at rest with a horse of Guernica.
On December 6 in Paris, Sotheby's sells an oil on canvas of the same size painted in 1962, the year of the Cuban missile crisis, lot 11 estimated € 2,5M.
In this composition in the style of a monochrome collage on a black background, four dehumanized creatures are altogether levitating and convulsive. They are threatened by a Damocles' sword while a lost arrow goes outward.
The surrealist title, A trois centimètres de la Terre, is a political message understandable by the Voodoo initiates. It evokes the oppression of the Oshoumaré spirit to whom a despotic Yoruba god had forbidden to put his feet again on the ground.
1962 Fairy Drinkers in Mexico City
2015 SOLD for $ 3.3M including premium
Remedios Varo, born in Spain, early joined surrealism and was at one time the wife of the poet Benjamin Péret. Pushed away from Europe by the war, she moved to Mexico City. Her paintings depict fantastic creatures in a medieval atmosphere with a sense of humor which is one of the most subtle in art history but not often easy to fully decode.
Her consecration at the top of the art market is very recent. On 24 November 2014, Sotheby's sold Hacia la torre for $ 4.3 million including premium over a lower estimate of $ 2.5M. This oil on masonite 123 x 100 cm painted in 1960 shows a gang of nuns on fragile tricycles outgoing from a castle behind a peasant and an austere abbess.
Remedios Varo liked to show young women with a stereotyped face that is a self-portrait recognizable through her short chin. The catalog was telling that one of these women had escaped, symbolizing freedom. I did not understand that comment and I did not discuss the artwork in this chronicle to prevent against any misinterpretation.
On May 27 in New York, Christie's sells Vampiros vegetarianos, oil on canvas 86 x 60 cm painted in 1962, lot 22 estimated $ 1.5M.
Three Vampyrs recognizable by their bat wings are perched on high stools around a guéridon. With long straws, they drink directly in beautiful fruit reminiscent of the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. Two pet roosters with bodies and legs of dogs add another fairy element to the scene.
The Vampiros Mexicanos are cocktails based on tequila and sangrita, this latter word being a diminutive for 'blood' designating some juice of red fruit. This drink was appreciated in the Mexican surrealist group!
Her consecration at the top of the art market is very recent. On 24 November 2014, Sotheby's sold Hacia la torre for $ 4.3 million including premium over a lower estimate of $ 2.5M. This oil on masonite 123 x 100 cm painted in 1960 shows a gang of nuns on fragile tricycles outgoing from a castle behind a peasant and an austere abbess.
Remedios Varo liked to show young women with a stereotyped face that is a self-portrait recognizable through her short chin. The catalog was telling that one of these women had escaped, symbolizing freedom. I did not understand that comment and I did not discuss the artwork in this chronicle to prevent against any misinterpretation.
On May 27 in New York, Christie's sells Vampiros vegetarianos, oil on canvas 86 x 60 cm painted in 1962, lot 22 estimated $ 1.5M.
Three Vampyrs recognizable by their bat wings are perched on high stools around a guéridon. With long straws, they drink directly in beautiful fruit reminiscent of the Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch. Two pet roosters with bodies and legs of dogs add another fairy element to the scene.
The Vampiros Mexicanos are cocktails based on tequila and sangrita, this latter word being a diminutive for 'blood' designating some juice of red fruit. This drink was appreciated in the Mexican surrealist group!
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.
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.
