Joaquín Torres-García (1874-1949)

Manolita Piña de Torres-García, Montevideo
Private Collection, New York
Galerie Denise René, New York
Royal S. Marks, New York
Sale: Sotheby's, New York, Nineteen Works by Joaquín Torres-García From the Estate of Royal S. Marks, November 23, 1992, lot 11, illustrated in color

Madrid, Museo Español de Arte Contemporáneo, April-May 1973; Barcelona, Museo de Arte Moderno, June 1973, Joaquín Torres-García, Exposición Antológica, no. 73, p. 6
New York, The Brooklyn Museum, 1977 (temporary loan)

Enric Jardí, Torres-García, Barcelona, 1973, no. 222, p. 167, illustrated in color; also illustrated in color on the cover
Eduardo Vernazza, "Los 99 años de Joaquín Torres-García. Exposición en el Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Madrid," El Día, July 29, 1973, illustrated
Adolfo M. Maslach, Joaquín Torres-García, sol y luna del arcano, Caracas, 1998, no. 175, p. 349, illustrated

This work has been restored. The canvas has a lining applied with wax. There does not seem to be any real reason for this heavy support, and one could certainly consider reversing this lining and leaving the canvas unlined. The painting is probably clean, but it has been very heavily varnished. The painting could be hung in its current state.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

In 1930, art discussions in Parisian intellectual circles centered around three radical and powerful ideas of modernity: surrealism, abstraction and constructivism. By exploiting free visual associations and unconscious automatism inspired by Freud’s revolutionary insights, surrealism enriched the world of images. The much less popular abstract aesthetic despised such exercise as a mere artifice distracting from a more essential line of thought: to free pure color and form. After all, art was not to be inspired by the natural world or the vagaries of the human mind. Although strongly connected with the world of images--which he insistently attempted to reduce to basic geometric and symbolic values--Torres-García also flirted, briefly and brilliantly, with pure abstraction between 1929 and 1930.

Puerto constructivo con cielo azul is an extraordinary example of this profoundly fertile transitional period. It was then when Torres-García conceived his edifice as a bi-dimensional puzzle made of blocks of primary colors, blacks and whites much in the way he conceived his famous wooden toys. This reductive proposal reads like a continuum of interlocking geometric figures emerging and disappearing into the grid. Many of the symbolic figures recur in Torres-García's production: a clock symbolizing time and impermanence, ships representing adventure and discovery, an anchor suggesting safety and truth, a single man at work representing all of humanity fully integrated and in harmony with its environment. 

But even Torres-García himself was not entirely convinced abstraction could lead to the new art he had conceptualized. In Puerto constructivo con cielo azul, he furtively re-inserted a few elements of reality into a mainly abstract construction. The result is a masterly executed painting where carefully calibrated elements are consciously suspended between the opposing worlds of reality and abstraction. The present painting, once in the prestigious collection of Royal Marks, sold in these rooms in a white glove sale in November 1992.