Now on View at Sotheby’s New York: Latin American Art Highlights from the November Auctions of IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART Led by the Finest Landscape by Rufino Tamayo Ever to Appear at Auction PAISAJE DEL PARICUTÍN (VOLCÁN EN ERUPCIÓN) (LANDSCAPE OF EL PARICUTÍN) Estimate $1.3/1.8 Million
Auctions 12-15 November 2018 in New York

NEW YORK, 9 November 2018 – On the heels of our strong results in May 2018 for works by Latin American artists, Sotheby’s is pleased to share highlights of our November offerings of Latin  American Art, which will be presented across our marquee fall auctions of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art from 12-15 November in New York. A superlative group of Modern masterworks by Mexican artists are on offer this season, led by paintings from Rufino Tamayo, Diego Rivera, David Alfaro Siqueiros and José Clemente Orozco, along with outstanding works by Fernando Botero and kinetic artists Jesús Rafael Soto and Carlos Cruz-Diez.

Over 100 works on offer in the respective sales are now on public view in Sotheby’s York Avenue galleries through 15 November, as part of our exhibitions of Impressionist & Modern and Contemporary Art.

WATCH: MEXICANIDAD AND THE RADICAL TRANSFORMATION OF MEXICAN MODERN ART

IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART EVENING SALE
Auction 12 November

Sotheby’s major offerings of Modern Latin American art are led by the finest landscape by Rufino Tamayo ever to appear at auction. Paisaje del Paricutín (Volcán en Erupción) (Landscape of el Paricutín) was painted in 1947, following a startling volcanic eruption in Michoacán, Mexico four years earlier that captured the attention and imagination of artists, scientists and intellectuals worldwide (estimate $1.3/1.8 million). The recollections of onlookers who witnessed the explosion influenced Tamayo’s vision of the natural event: mountains of ash accumulate around brilliant bursts of orange and red flames, while the sky clouds with smoke above. The artist’s depiction of the natural phenomenon also relates to a series of works that Tamayo produced during the war years, in which he began to integrate allusions to the cosmos and the atomic age.

An intimate portrait of a child, one of the artist’s most recurrent themes throughout his oeuvre, El sueño (La niña dormida) was painted at the height of Diego Rivera’s international fame in 1936, and poignantly expresses his enduring commitment to nationalist themes (estimate $800,000/1.2 million). Much like the Impressionists Auguste Renoir and Mary Cassatt, who depicted children with similar frequency and admiration, Rivera employs here an equal reverence of dignity, sweetness and tenderness while also showcasing a striking, chromatically rich tonality: the napping young girl, gently reposed with her arms gingerly cradling her head, is outfitted in a luminous pink dress, billowing with layers of fine cotton, which references the traditional Tehuana dress (often worn by his wife, Frida Kahlo)—the elaborately embroidered garment worn by the indigenous women of Tehuantepec. Similar examples of portraits of children by Rivera can be found in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Another masterpiece of Mexican Modernism is David Alfaro Siqueiros’ El Pedregal from 1954, which will make its auction debut in the November Evening Sale (estimate $250/350,000). Having resided in the same family collection since it was acquired in 1957, the present work stands an exemplary embodiment of the artist’s experimental and advanced technical application of Pyroxylin – also known as Ducco, a commercial automotive paint – which would come to influence the drip technique employed by Jackson Pollock, who was a member of Siqueiros’ New York City Experimental Workshop.

It is unprecedented for a work of this technical caliber, scale and year of execution by the artist to become available on the international auction market. A testament to its exceptional quality, the work was included in the 1959 exhibition The U.S. Collects Pan American Art, organized by the Art Institute of Chicago and curated by Joseph Randall Shapiro. The show was the first exhibition in Chicago to focus on works by Latin American artists, drawn primarily from private collections in the United States.

LATIN MASTERS
DIEGO RIVERA, RUFINO TAMAYO AND JOSÉ CLEMENTE OROZCO NOW ON VIEW

IMPRESSIONIST & MODERN ART DAY SALE
Auction 13 November

One of the most significant works from this period by the artist ever to appear to auction, José Clemente Orozco’s La Conquista from circa 1942 reworks the image of the Spanish conquistador, Hernán Cortés, with an intense focus on the violence and devastation of the Spanish conquest of 1519-1525, specifically the brutal subjugation of indigenous populations and the annihilation of the indigenous world (estimate $600/800,000). The dramatic scene is heightened by expressive, jagged brushstrokes, contrasting color palette and sharp diagonals throughout the composition. From 1940-1945, Orozco turned increasingly to easel painting, revisiting themes and iconographic elements from prior mural cycles, including those at Pomona College (1930) and Dartmouth University (1932-34), with the present work being among only 2 canvases depicting Cortés ever to appear at auction.