Tamayo, Botero and More Latin American Masters Coming in May

Rufino Tamayo, Perro aullando a la Luna (Dog Howling at the Moon), 1942. Estimate $5,000,000–7,000,000.

Perro aullando a la Luna is at once related to the pure animal despair of Guernica, to the hope of rebirth embodied in Colima funerary animals, and to the emotional power of abstract expressionism's rich colors and dynamic compositions. Tamayo depicts the powerful effects, both generative and destructive, of war on the Western psyche. Rich, vivid colors and the tense posture of the dog as it raises its head towards an eclipsing moon in a resounding howl transform the canvas into visual poetry. Perro aullando a la Luna is a testament to the unprecedented aesthetic Tamayo adopted that established him as a critical figure in the canon of 20th-century art.

Impressionist & Modern Art Evening
14 May | New York | Lot 25

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Matta, Morphologie (Paysage de fantaisie), 1939. Estimate $250,000–350,000.

In the present work, Morphologie (Paysage de fantaisie) from 1939, delicate jewel-like tones melt across the canvas creating the sense of a limitless space that goes beyond the canvas itself, obscuring a defined horizon line. Intensely engineered biomorphic forms that do not appear "clearly solid or liquid, geological or biological" float as they recess from foreground to background (Claude Cernuschi, "Mindscapes and Mind Games" in Matta: Making the Invisible Visible [exhibition catalogue], McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Boston, 2004, p. 60).

Impressionist & Modern Art Day
15 May | New York | Lot 192

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Fernando Botero, Dancers, 2012. Estimate $1,500,000–2,000,000.

Fernando Botero's monumental sculptures are recognized around the world as his most iconic works. Publicly exhibited across nearly every continent in many of the world's most prestigious and visited public spaces, his famously round figures are some of the most identifiable artworks of the 20th and 21st centuries. In Dancers, he reiterates the motif of the dancers reminiscent of such turn-of-the-century masterpieces as Matisse's The Dance and Renoir's Dance at Bougival. These works celebrate graceful, elongated figures as they participate in the universal dynamics of celebratory human engagement.

Contemporary Art Day
17 May | New York | Lot 446

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Joaquín Torres-García, Constructif "La Panne," 1932. Estimate $300,000–500,000.

Painted in 1932, Constructif "La Panne" belongs to a period of production for Joaquín Torres-García that is representative of his fully realized visual vocabulary of Universal Constructivism. Not only would this year mark the end of his residency in Paris, it was also a year when schematic icons and "concrete elements" fully materialized within Torres-García's paintings, establishing and cementing his niche both aesthetically and ideologically (Estrella de Diego, "Return to the Native Land: The Invention of an Origin" in Joaquín Torres-García: The Arcadian Modern, New York, 2016, p. 98).

Impressionist & Modern Art Day
15 May | New York | Lot 201

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Jesús Rafael Soto, Vibración blanca, 1959. Estimate $600,000–800,000.

Bursting with shimmering vibrancy, Jesús Rafael Soto's lyrical Vibración blanca from 1959 embodies the theoretical and physical foundations of his œuvre. An early masterwork executed in Paris during the artist’s "Baroque years" – an exhilarating but brief period extending from 1957 to 1962 – Vibración blanca radiates with Informalist textures and gestural abstraction.

Contemporary Art Evening
16 May | New York | Lot 48

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Rufino Tamayo, Dos figuras. Estimate $600,000–800,000.

An exceptional painting from Tamayo's late period, Dos figuras portrays the central tenets of the artist's œuvre through texture and color. In the center of the work, two silhouettes hold hands almost ceremoniously, recalling Fraternidad (Fraternity), the mural Tamayo painted for the United Nations in 1968. The work radiates joyously with deep shades of pink, purple and magenta, emanating its atmospheric quality field with textural patterns.

Contemporary Art Day
17 May | New York | Lot 208

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Fernando Botero, Girl, 1965. Estimate $200,000–300,000.

"There is an impassiveness in the faces I paint because I'm a great admirer of ancient Egyptian art and the work of Piero della Francesca. In his paintings a head is treated like any other object, and he never painted a smile or an expression of pain. Even in his battle scenes, the faces have an extraordinary impassiveness, a poetic and profound mystery. That's why I too try to paint impassive faces that resemble any other object."
—Fernando Botero

Contemporary Art Day
17 May | New York | Lot 168

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Carlos Cruz-Diez, Physichromie 111, 1964. Estimate $100,000–150,000.

The Physichromie is Cruz-Diez's challenge to traditional painting and concepts of color: unlike painting which captures a specific moment in time, these works are intended to express a reality of the present moment and our "in-real-time" encounter with the work. Executed in Paris in 1964, Physichromie 111 is one of the earliest examples of the advanced iterations from this pivotal, experimental period.

Contemporary Art Day
17 May | New York | Lot 140

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