LATIN AMERICAN SALE AT CHRISTIE’S NEW YORK LATIN AMERICAN SALE AT CHRISTIE’S NEW YORK EXPECTED TO REALIZE IN EXCESS OF $20 MILLION First appearance at auction of Matta’s ‘Tige Verte’ ‘Recently rediscovered Alfredo Ramos Martinez painting.
News-Antique.com - Apr 25,2007 - Painting (right): Alfredo Ramos Martinez, Flowers of Mexico, ca 1938, Est. $600,000-800,000
Latin American Sale
May 31, 2007
New York – On May 31 and June 1, Christie’s New York will organize one of the most valuable
sales of Latin American art ever. With a pre-sale estimate of $19 to nearly $26 million, the sale
presents as its cover lot a superb Matta painting dated 1943, Tige Verte (estimate: $1.5 – 2 million).
The maestros of Latin American art such as Tamayo, Botero, Lam, Ramos Martinez, as well as
Kinetic and Op artists Jesus Rafael de Soto and contemporary artists including Federico Herrero will
be offered. The sale further presents a strong offering of colonial paintings, featuring a selection of
works from the Collection of Judith Small Nash, and 19th century exploration and travel paintings.
Matta’s superb Tige Verte (Les Possessions) (estimate: $1.5 -2
million) is the highlight of the sale and the cover of the
catalogue. The work possesses all the desirable qualities: it
has never been offered for public auction; it comes in
excellent condition and represents one of Matta’s most
sought-after periods of his oeuvre. Tige Verte belongs to a
group of works Matta painted roughly between 1942 and
1944. The artist was very close to Marcel Duchamp during
these years and it has been generally understood that the
title of the work contains some reference to Duchamp’s alter ego, Rrose Selavy. Moving away from
landscape, the works of the early forties evince a new concept of space whereby lines of flashing
color in the darkness suggest the movement of heavenly bodies or mental activities as they traverse
the nether world of our interior. Matta had always been an explorer of space – psychological,
cosmological and mythological and in his pictorial representations he drew inspiration from various
sources, including his writer friends Pablo Neruda and Federico Garcia Lorca. After a trip to
Mexico in 1941, his work changed dramatically and he started using flowing paint that was allowed
to drip across the canvas. This was a revolutionary technique and it influenced an entire generation
of Abstract Expressionists in America. The sale includes several more work by the artist, showing a
cross section of his oeuvre through different techniques, moods and styles.
A new world auction record for Alfredo Ramos Martinez at $1.8 million was set at Christie’s in
November last year and the upcoming sale offers two more works by the artist, one of which is very
comparable to the work sold in 2006 and is a recently rediscovered work by the artist. Flowers of
Mexico, circa 1938 (estimate: $600,000-800,000) is another of the large-scale easel paintings in which
the artist makes use of the woman and flower aspect as a nostalgic pastoral composition. Although
not a realist painter, Ramos Martinez observed nature and tried to render it as an epic version of
reality. With monumental women and fantastic flowers both in color as well as size, he evokes
above all a sense of boundless nature and
