SOTHEBY’S SALE OF LATIN AMERICAN ART TO FEATURE WORKS BY ARTISTS FERNANDO BOTERO AND MATTA On the evening of November 20 and morning of November 21, 2007, Sotheby’s will offer an impressive selection of Latin American Art
Paisaje de Macuto belonged to American collector, Edward “Slim” Boylan, who purchased it in the early 1940’s directly from the artist. The painting was first exhibited in Reverón’s 1955 retrospective at the Museo de Bellas Artes in Caracas.
The post-war and contemporary art offerings in this sale include an important selection of works by Venezuela’s key geometric and kinetic artists. A great sculptural work, Escritura Fuerte Azul y Negra, from 1980 (lot 46, est. $150/200,000) by Jesús Rafael Soto, one of the most important members of the Kinetic movement, as well as another work by Soto, Total Tes Blancas (lot 52, est. $250/350,000, pictured below), 1978, composed of painted wood with metal wires, will be offered.
A rare and early work by Alejandro Otero, Ortogonal, oil on wood, circa 1951-52 (lot 44, est. $50/70,000), reveals the conceptual musings that would eventually lead to his well known series of Coloritmos. Examples of more recent art include Panera (Breadbox) from 2004 (lot 57, est. $35/45,000), a sculpture constructed of maple wood by Los Carpinteros: the Cuban collective which includes Dagoberto Ródriguez and Marcos Castillo, known for their hybrid drawings and objects that blur the boundaries between art and craft and furniture and architecture. Guillermo Kuitca’s Idea de una Pasión (lot 54, est. $150/200,000) from 1990 is another highlight from the contemporary offering in this sale of Latin American Art. Kuitca, an Argentine artist selected to represent his country’s national pavilion this past summer at the Venice Biennial, is known for his large-scale paintings typically based on maps, architectural plans and diagrams of institutional structures intended to assert a sense of place and location while eerily echoing notions of displacement and uprootedness.
