Central and South Americas
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:
1929 Portrait of a Lady in White by Frida Kahlo
2019 SOLD for $ 5.8M including premium by Christie's
Link to catalogue.
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.
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.
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
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?
1956 Armonia by Remedios Varo
2020 SOLD for $ 6.2M including premium by Sotheby's
narrated post sale in 2020
The art of Remedios Varo is surreal, with a subtle neo-medieval atmosphere. She incorporates contradictions and aberrations into finely drawn figures, bringing occultism and alchemy amid an apparent realism. Many of her paintings are self-portraits, in which she is recognizable by a too short chin.
On June 30, 2020, Sotheby's sold at lot 1004 for $ 6.2M including premium from a lower estimate of $ 2M an oil on masonite 75 x 93 cm painted in 1956, titled Armonia (Autorretrato sugerente).
The artist's studio takes the form of a Romanesque chapel. The woman is sitting on a stool in front of a table. Without paying attention, she threads small objects onto a musical stave that has taken the function of a pattern of ropes, in front of a wall figure that appears like a life-size monochrome self-portrait.
The workshop layout is symmetrical, with another monochrome figure and another stave on the right side of the room. In this place, the stave is perpendicular to the wall figure, whose hand shoots out of the frame to catch a threaded object.
Now that the attention is drawn to these artefacts, we find that they are everywhere, indefinable and transparent, sometimes vegetated : they are disgorging from hatches in the floor and overflowing from drawers, chests and even the bidet. A grimoire which is perhaps an antiphonary is opened in front of the clef. This woman who seemed modern is a witch, claimed in the subtitle as a self-portrait. In the door, a bird in flight escapes this surreal madness.
On June 30, 2020, Sotheby's sold at lot 1004 for $ 6.2M including premium from a lower estimate of $ 2M an oil on masonite 75 x 93 cm painted in 1956, titled Armonia (Autorretrato sugerente).
The artist's studio takes the form of a Romanesque chapel. The woman is sitting on a stool in front of a table. Without paying attention, she threads small objects onto a musical stave that has taken the function of a pattern of ropes, in front of a wall figure that appears like a life-size monochrome self-portrait.
The workshop layout is symmetrical, with another monochrome figure and another stave on the right side of the room. In this place, the stave is perpendicular to the wall figure, whose hand shoots out of the frame to catch a threaded object.
Now that the attention is drawn to these artefacts, we find that they are everywhere, indefinable and transparent, sometimes vegetated : they are disgorging from hatches in the floor and overflowing from drawers, chests and even the bidet. A grimoire which is perhaps an antiphonary is opened in front of the clef. This woman who seemed modern is a witch, claimed in the subtitle as a self-portrait. In the door, a bird in flight escapes this surreal madness.
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.
1980 Euphoria with Watermelons
2019 SOLD for $ 4.9M including premium
Rufino Tamayo prefers formal research in opposition to the narrative pictures of his Mexican contemporaries. He puts into practice an original theory that variations around a single color are more expressive than a wide range of colors.
The slice of watermelon is throughout his long career the favorite theme of his still lifes. Its flesh varying from pink to red is lined with the white arc of the peel. As an uncut fruit or as a food, watermelon never appeals him.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells Sandias, oil and marble dust on canvas 124 x 181 cm painted in 1980, lot 45estimated $ 4M.
Sandias had been made by Tamayo for his personal use : it remained hanging in his dining room until 1989. Painted when he had just turned 80, it appears somehow like an artistic testament.
Eight slices of watermelons are unequally arranged on an abstract surface with rich colors ranging from mauve to purple plus several shades of pinks. Their flat support is perhaps the top of a cup or a stand, in a swinging perspective that evokes Cézanne through Matisse.
A painting 140 x 175 cm titled Ofrenda de frutas executed in 1987 in the same technique undoubtedly provides the key to the euphoric effect of slices of watermelon on Tamayo. A jolly character carries an assortment of exotic fruits within a white cloth. The folds of the cloth take the form of a watermelon slice or of the hilarious smile of a clown. It was sold for $ 4.2M including premium by Sotheby's on November 25, 2014.
The slice of watermelon is throughout his long career the favorite theme of his still lifes. Its flesh varying from pink to red is lined with the white arc of the peel. As an uncut fruit or as a food, watermelon never appeals him.
On May 14 in New York, Sotheby's sells Sandias, oil and marble dust on canvas 124 x 181 cm painted in 1980, lot 45estimated $ 4M.
Sandias had been made by Tamayo for his personal use : it remained hanging in his dining room until 1989. Painted when he had just turned 80, it appears somehow like an artistic testament.
Eight slices of watermelons are unequally arranged on an abstract surface with rich colors ranging from mauve to purple plus several shades of pinks. Their flat support is perhaps the top of a cup or a stand, in a swinging perspective that evokes Cézanne through Matisse.
A painting 140 x 175 cm titled Ofrenda de frutas executed in 1987 in the same technique undoubtedly provides the key to the euphoric effect of slices of watermelon on Tamayo. A jolly character carries an assortment of exotic fruits within a white cloth. The folds of the cloth take the form of a watermelon slice or of the hilarious smile of a clown. It was sold for $ 4.2M including premium by Sotheby's on November 25, 2014.
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.
