unlike Botero himself, who set forth from Medellín to capture the world. Also on offer is Botero’s Mother Superior (est. $300/400,000). The sale includes a pair of delightful images of children by two of Mexico’s most important artists. Diego Rivera returned to Mexico in 1922 after his almost twenty-year sojourn in Europe, to become an integral part of what is sometimes called the Mexican Renaissance. Niña con Rebozo (est. $350/450,000, seen above) depicts Juanita Rosas, who appears in several works from this period. Rivera returned time and time again to painting images of children, as he felt that they expressed Mexico’s future. Rufino Tamayo, one of the most important artists of his generation,painted the imposing Girl with Yellow Flowers (est. $500/700,000, seen at right) in 1946, at the height of his powers. Sin Título by Venezualan master Armando Reverón, is a recently rediscovered work by this pioneer of early 20th century Latin American art, who was honored with a retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art in 2007. In this work (est. $150/200,000, seen at left), the artist places his models—an old man, a young woman and a young boy—in a scene he will repeat in other works with some variations. Some experts think that the figure of the old man in this composition could be an alter ego of Reverón, and the younger figure that of the artist as a young boy surrounded by the dolls he created to use as his sitters. The sale also includes Paisaje de Tanaguarena (est. $150/200,000) one of Reverón’s most abstract compositions, representing the luminous landscape of the beaches at Macuto, where he lived.
JoaquínTorres-García, was one of the pioneers of Latin American modernism. Construcción Portuaria (est. $450/650,000, seen at right) was executed in 1942 in Montevideo, shortly after his return from Paris, and illustrates his Universal Constructivist language with a monochrome palette. Following in the wake of Torres-García’s pioneering use of abstraction, a compelling selection of 50s and 60s Modernist Latin American Art will be featured in the sale, led by a dynamic work by Carlos Cruz-Diez, one of the leaders of the Kinetic Art movement, Physichromie N° 496 (est. $100/150,000). Other artists of his generation are also represented by works in the sale, including Modulation by Jesús Rafael Soto (est. $150/200,000, below) and two works by Gego (Gertrudis Goldschmidt): Doble Catedral, 1959 (est. $40/60,000), an extraordinary work in which Gego
utilized strips of metal that were transformed into curvilinear, ribbon-like forms, and the later Dibujo Sin enclosures that project volumes into space. Modernist works feature the Brazilian artist Mira Schendel, with Pair of Drawings (est. $12/18,000) and two works by Argentinian León Ferrari, Buscando (est. $25/35,000) and Untitled (est. $30/40,000). The works of these two artists are currently being featured in Tangled Alphabets, a show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, where they are described as “among the most significant artists working in Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century.” Their works, although produced
